Tarting up the Brown Stack

Today I began dyeing in earnest for the first time in months. I'm taking it slow though. Don't want to be on my feet too much and ruin my progress. So in between dye baths if they were dark and I had a few minutes I finished Steig Larrson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and started Genesis by Karin Slaughter. I just remembered when I was dyeing I was listening to the Audio book The Help by Kathryn Sockett ! Oh Boy !

The first thing I do when dyeing to top up my stock is examine the remains of the given colour left on the shelf. A shocking trend emerges.

See if you can note what that might be in this brown stack.

A blanc mange blandness.

Examining my scanty piles of wool I realize I have one ultra light, tons of dull, cool mediums and no darks to speak of.

That minute or two of classifying what is missing really gives direction to my dyeing.

I usually go downstairs and make sort of a master list of what I need on all the shelves but due to my needing to slow it down I brought the pile to me. This allowed me to see quickly, was I already doing something I've done ?

Dyeing create the happy but boring returning to what you like best scenario resulting in a pretty predictible pile of wool due to following my heart.

When I looked at the poor pile of browns it really helped me to get some much needed variety in temperature, value and saturation. This makes it easier for me to use and a useful variety for customers.

Here is the amended pile with the old pile blended in. So much richer.

Hints for dyeing browns:

Use good proper brown dye to begin with

Varying them by adding black, red, violet, orange or blue or green to the brown dye.

Try dyeing browns over violet or blue or orange or pink or green wool.

Have fun while you dye, remember you can change anything for the better if you add enough dye. As one recent dyer said after coming to be mentored... I came 2000 miles to learn I was either using too much dye ( to create real lights ) or not enough. LOL That about says it all !