Light Backgrounds- How to make them sing

Where I started hooking light background were the bomb , most every one used them most all the time. As an avowed daughter of darkness I wasn't too interested in them but did notice they did not often "match " the motifs in the rug. Dyed with various tan, brown, gray type colours they seldom had the reactive, supportive influence on the leading ladies we might desire.

I've had very good success dyeing light backgrounds with vivacity the following ways:

Making a very light spot dye of the colours contained in the motifs.
You might first examine if the colour should swing to the warm or cool. For instance, if my rug is composed of blue and purple pansies I might chose to use a hint of warm purple, the warm green, caramel and gold you find in the pansy center to create my spot to alleviate all the cool flowers and to further intensify the coolness by laying them on the warm background.
The pastel value spot is a great way to enhance what you already see in the rug and it's quick and easy.

Another way I like to go is to dye up pastels of 9 or so of my dyes from different sections of the colour wheel, making them all the same level of value and intensity.
I use these all together by ripping all the pastel pieces in half , cutting these up, throwing them in a bag and hooking them as they come out on half the rug. When it's done cut up the other half of the pastels and carry on completeing my rug. This is terrific ! You can throw a tied off hank of yarn into each dye bath if you want yarn to match the edge too.


Make sure you light background is not something that takes all the "joy" out of your main picture.
This would include any areas of light colour in a rug, white house, clouds,snow, you get the drift ! ( that was punny )
Happy and expansive hooking.
BTW
If you have any questions at all I'd love to answer them, just send them into the blog....

Great Backgrounds

There comes a time in every hooker's life where we want more stimulation from our backgrounds.
I'm of the school that more is better.
Especially in backgrounds.

If you can have minor variance in colour from a source of leftover stuff or from one off the bolt colour of wool wouldn't that be great ?

There are two ways to go about this for dark and medium backgrounds.

Method One

Grab a bunch of various coloured wool from around the whole colour wheel.
Over dye them in a big pot with lots of various colours close to where you are aiming for ..... for blue try adding 3 blues, turquoise, violet, blue greens and a wild card like red violet.... you get the picture. I use dry dye added into the pot at different points. NO STIRRING at first. Add acid about 15 minutes into the process. Wait 5 minutes and stir, leave until water clears.

The footstool background pictured is hooked with one of these giant stew pots ! Michele Micarelli showed me this trick.

Method Two

Divide your yd goods into 1/4 or 1/2 yd pieces if it is a big rug.
Decide what influence you want to employ, a cool collection of wool, warm or a combination of both.
If I had eggplant wool I wanted to enrich to be cooler, I would add a cool colour, blue, green , purple to each 1/4 to 1/2 yd. piece.

If I was warming up eggplant I would over dye each piece with one warm colour, orange, yellow, red, brown, red violet.

I usually take the combo route so will seek to do some colours from each side of the colour wheel.
ie: blue for one 1/4, brown for another, violet for the next, orange for one and red for another and so on.
Each dye subtly influences the original colour and used together it's glorious.



Once these are cut up and used randomly they create a glowing effect much better than an a flat or mottled piece of one coloured wool.

I tell you about making terrific , easy and individual light backgrounds soon.