Wooly yellow

Yesterday was a wool day. I had been waiting for some sunshine so I could dry the yarn outside - so much easier that way.

I have a lot of natural yarn that I found at a thrift shop and I wanted to make a cardigan for myself. That takes a lot of yarn.

Natural is not a very interesting color and I knew it would need to be dyed. I spent yesterday morning skeining the yarn. Thank goodness for my niddy noddy. Then, while it soaked, I tried to decide on a color that was more interesting. I've actually been trying to decide on this for days without much success. I picked up each dye color and put it down again. I was so tired of the blues, greens, and even the reds and purples. Orange was a non-starter even for me.

What was left but yellow? This really is my favorite color but I'm a bit wary of a whole sweater of yellow. As you can see, though, I did do it. I threw in a touch of blue to take some of the glare out but it's still pretty bright. There are a lot of shadings, too, as it's hard to get the color evenly distributed. Now I'm just waiting for it to dry.

Tiny mat

Remember the hooked rug kit that I found? Here it is all worked up and finished - it's about 5 x 6 inches. I'm using it as a coaster on the table beside my hooking frame.

I've made some changes to it from the original design. When I started hooking, the yarn that came with the kit was meant to be used as the green in the bottom part - leaves, I guess. But, I disliked hooking with the yarn; it was too thin and slippery. So, I got out some other greens but couldn't see what I wanted: I was looking for a bright yellow-green. I had a Kool-aid dyed piece that was pretty bright but too green. Time for the dye-pot.

I took a piece of plain yellow and put it in hot water with a lot of salt and the darker green piece. As the fabrics simmer, over about a half-hour, the dye will leach out of the fabric and should make a mottled combination of the two colors. This it did but the mottling is pretty subtle. A big gulp of vinegar to set the color and I was happy.

I like how the yellow has seeped into the green as well as the green going to the yellow. The two fabrics are now totally different from their parents. The photo doesn't give the true finished colors but the close-up of the little mat is pretty accurate. The original dark green is still darker than the yellow fabric became.

Then I used the yarn to bind the edges. I quite like this little piece. It's supposed to be tall flowers like lupines or foxgloves that grow wild in grassy spaces. I can see that but it looks as though the field was being looked at through a rainy-day window.