I was recently in the studio in Rockland working on my piece, 'Prey,' and realized I was out of the light blue sparkle wool I intended to intersperse all through the sky. So, at the next opportunity, I got the dye pots out and proceeded to try to match it, because it was a color I knew I had no written recipe for. Either I or my assistant, Heather, had dyed it long before and I found no reference for it in our shared recipe notebook.
I wrote all about the process of color matching an "unknown" recipe in my latest Substack post HERE but suffice it to say, it's always both fun and slightly intimidating to try for a perfect match. What I came away with was something very close and as I incorporated it into the sky this week, any difference is not very noticeable.
Here are some pictures of the process.
Heather and I have a dye notebook that I often check to see if there's anything close to the desired dye.
I decide which dyes are most likely to result in what I'm looking for, taking into account what base wool I want to use.
The result this time was pretty close!
The sky colors for 'Prey.'
How it's going.
If you are anywhere near Maine and would like a beginner dye class for you and a few friends, get in touch at northatlanticfiberarts@gmail.com. Or, if you would like a Zoom workshop on beginner dyeing, let me know. My beginner class currently covers wool fabric pot dyeing, microwave dyeing, casserole dyeing, overdyeing, and also a little tutorial on dyeing wool yarn. Thanks for reading!