Sunday, February 07, 2010

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The good is these gorgeous batts that I carded on Mim's supercard when I visited her yesterday. The lavendar is Merino that I oven dyed. The multicolor is a blend of Ashland Bay samples from a spinning workshop I attended, blended with some mohair locks that I already had.
The bad is that I'm not going to have enough of the blended samples to make socks after all. This finished bobbin is two ounces and the samples I blended yesterday are two ounces, but I'm pretty sure it's just not enough. I've decided this yarn is what I will use to learn toe-up socks - finally!
The ugly is this batt that I blended from the red and orange type samples. Again, I added mohair locks to extend the yardage. It's disturbing - hurts my eyes. I've decided to go ahead and spin it as is and the overdye it with something dark, maybe even black. When I run out of the blue blend on the socks, I can make the tops from this, since it will be the same grist and no one sees sock tops under pants anyway.
That kind of color goes much better on cats. I realized after I had torn my studio apart and reconfigured it that I hadn't left any place for Charlie to sleep in the sun. I rigged this up with the leftover cube panels. It's leaning against the shelf on the left, but Charlie only weights 8 pounds so it's secure enough for him.



And speaking of color, I got this in the mail from Benita. She and her husband are graphic artists but have also produced some T-shirt designs. Recently she had a T-shirt give-away, but I told her I'd rather have the transfer to put on a shirt that I know fits me. So she sent me one! You can't read it, but it says, "We who are to dye salute you." I laugh every time I look at it.
And speaking of color, I did a double take after my shower yesterday at the two shirts I recently ordered from Lands End. It occurred to me that surely they wouldn't use two different pinks, just for reasons of economics. However, the shirt on the floor appears to be a lighter pink that the shirt I'm about to wear.

Even side by side, the left shirt looks lighter. It is amazing what the juxta-
position of color does for value.

10 comments:

Benita said...

That is one of the reasons I love color theory and playing with color - the two pinks are the same but have totally different looks when paired with white and black. Cool!

It's too bad you don't have enough of that purple to make your socks - it's a very lovely color.

I'm glad you like the graphic design! Have fun wearing it!

Jodi said...

Those purple and lavender batts look beautiful! Can't wait to see what you spin up.

Aw, Charlie's so cute all curled up in his bed.

vlb5757 said...

I like the batts you have. If you don't like the colors you can always send them here;)

Kim said...

It is funny how different a color can look once it is spun up into yarn... but if you still don't like it, you can split it between me and vlb5757! The purple is gorgeous tho, no doubt, and let me know how the toe up goes, I haven't done that yet. Looks like you are busy destashing... I need to do that too, I need to do alot of things! Tata!

Kathy said...

I am so glad Charlie has his spot back. Priorities, Sharon...priorities. heeheehee
You never know what will happen when you spin up the batt with the colors you don't like. It's always amazing to me when I think I don't like something, but then I might see something different as I work with it. Then again...it may just really be a "dog".

Jody said...

Lovely blends with the mohair:)

Robin said...

The batts look lovely! Catching up on your posts --- you've been super busy!

Laura said...

That's weird - "normally" the black would make the fuschia "pop" and the white would not. I think it's because of the width of the stripes - there's more of it next to the small white strips so they don't make as much of an impact. Since the black stripes are the same, they're more balanced and the effect is lessened.

beadlizard said...

Charlie is such a charmer. Wish we still had cats (and a hound), but DD is allergic.

I really like the twist angle and consistent grist of your handspun. Good work!

Life Looms Large said...

Glad to see that it's not only a newbie dyer like me that loves that Tshirt design!!

Looks like you'll be spinning up some beautiful yarn!! I think I have trouble getting enough yarn when I buy it....I never thought about that problem with spinning!

Thanks so much for your take on llamas. The farmer didn't mention the llama sounding an alarm (which is kind of what I thought they'd do). I think coyotes around here are kept busy by tons of smaller prey, plus deer. They don't need to take on a llama I hope!

Sue