Cherry Blossoms
It was such a treat to dye a colourway for Knitting the National Parks with Indie Untangled. Lisa is very kind and easy to work with. And it was a creative’s dream to be able to choose from so many beautiful photos of national parks throughout this country. A stunning photo of cherry blossoms along the National Mall caught my eye immediately both for its beauty and for the challenges it presented. How would I make a mostly white photo into a compelling colourway? Could I make it subtle enough? Would it resonate with people who have seen cherry blossoms in person or even live in the DC area?
My first attempt, here on merino worsted, was a simple colour pour using pink and yellow then speckling. It did not capture the subtlety of the mostly white blooms and the yellow was too prominent. But the pink tone and the speckling were keepers.
The second attempt, pictured here also on merino worsted, is described below. This dye method fit my goals better but the base was still too yellow.
I needed to colour correct these natural cream bases, merino and wool/cotton, to white before using the new dye method. The first photo below shows how much colour naturally washes out of wool/cotton just with soap and warm water. Some of this might be spinning oil but this is by far the “dirtiest” base I wash and the only one with cotton so I suspect that yellow is mostly tannins, pectins, and wax. While washing helps to lighten it, the cream colour remains. Using drops of cyan, black, and magenta, I turned that cream to white, a perfect blank slate to add hints of cherry blossom colour. The second photo shows an undyed skein over some yarn being whitened. All of the merino bases and wool/cotton needed this colour correction. The lace and BFL/silk did not.
To avoid being heavy handed with the pink, I wound the skeins and glazed them in a dilute dye solution. This creates a watercolour or airbrushed effect and lots of nuance in the depths of shade. Once cooled a little, they were unwound and rewound to expose more white areas and dyed a second time. Once the dye was taken up, they were spread, three at a time, into a catering pan for speckling.
BFL/silk
Speckling was also a light touch with two colourways, one a black/yellow combination to represent the anthers of the male flowers, the other a deeper pink to represent the unopened blooms. It all looks so much darker in the wet skeins! Getting the right pink for the mini skeins in the sock set was a matter of trial and error. I went through several skeins before landing on what I think is just the right concentration of pink.
Happy with the basic dye method, I expanded it to other bases and fiber.
I so enjoyed this challenge and I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about the process.
