These are plastic flowers from IKEA but they look great on camera. Especially when you use a Mark IV. *sob sob* It was with a heavy heart that I returned the camera earlier this week. The next photographer in the queue would surely fall in love with it like I did.

Okay, okay, enough about the bloody Mark IV! Moving on…

I found my dyeing mojo! The heat of Dubai summer was too much to bear I think so she’s been traipsing through places with better climes. But she’s back and I will make the most of it.

I bought The Indie Dyer’s Superwash Manifesto recently and watched it at least 3 times now. It’s so much fun watching Jenna and Cheryl play with colour! I have always soaked every single skein prior to dyeing so imagine my surprise when they dyed the skein of 100% superwash merino DRY! Clearly my dyeing education has been lacking. Here is the first skein I dyed using this method, combined with some serious handpainting.

I used four different dye solutions here: a deep purple, a rust orange, a teal green which actually looked more green than teal and a warm cobalt blue. All mixed in a more diluted consistency. I love how the colours look against each other. This is probably my very first true handpainted skein. I didn’t have a pattern, I just swished the colours around, hoping I didn’t get muddy colours anywhere and ended up with this.

Oh and say hi to Prince Hamlet aka David Tennant aka Doctor Who v.10. I bought the Hamlet DVD recently and will be watching it this weekend.

There were two other superwash skeins which received the above dye solutions, but in different ways. These two colourways are up in the shop, if you would like to have a closer look.

This skein here received the 4 dyes in several sections. It looked quite weird as it dried but once re-skeined the colours blended well. I’m quite pleased with this result. I’m calling this colourway Wannabe Peacock – it has the blues and greens of a peacock’s plume but with streaks of rebel colours.

This other skein is called Peacock in Drag. It had the same 4 colours but painted on one section each, so there are 4 long strips of one colour, which when re-skeined gave this gorgeous colour combination. I hope this knits up well. Cannot guarantee that socks won’t pool, but with the right gauge I hope the colours either stripe or spiral upwards.

I do love this method of dyeing and will have to think of other colour combinations I can use. I am a blue/green person so those will always be in my hand dyed yarn in some shape or form. I’m starting to think about autumn now…more earthy tones, rich and saturated oranges and browns and yellows.

One colour combination I have been contemplating looks like this: the koi fish in our aquarium in the office. I know that Tina Newton from Blue Moon Fiber Arts already has a colourway named Koi Koi, but hers is more muted than what I have in mind. i can sit and watch the fish swim around all day.