Woolgathering Challenge

This is a single value multi-coloured circle.

Here is the info people got yesterday:

Our Strips WandaWorks WG 2010

There is no doubt we have them, the question is what can we do with them?

My friend Marilyn Bottjer has so many she has hooked over 8 good sized rugs out of them to date,though she swears to me they are mating and raising young in her closet.

You can over dye them. You can use them for a hit and miss rug. You can replicate anything you want using them! FLOWERS BIRDS PEOPLE SCENES CREWEL ORIENTALS...

ANYTHING YOU SEE!!!

You have to learn to handle them... to sort them.

You can sort them according to colour families.... that can be useful for using up the odd strip here and there. If you want to really go for the gusto while using up your strips you might want to consider sorting them according to value.

Every colour has a value... values just don’t happen in swatches. The value of a colour is part of what makes it what it is, it is a graduated scale running from white to black.

Here is an easy way to sort the values of strips.

Take a handful of strips and place them before you, give them a close look. Can you see any darker ones? Pull them out and make a new pile. Are the lighter ones shining out at you? Make a new pile of those. The medium ones will be left.

It is possible to subdivide each value group, light, medium and dark,into a further two or three piles using this same theory of pulling out the lights and darks. For more excitement and accuracy in your work you might want to do this when you are working with more strips.

You might encounter a problem with brights,where should they go? They are darker than you think.... lay them on one of the piles to see if they disappear or get stronger, you want them to fit in or kinda disappear.

Think of sorting your laundry. Have your loads all the “same”, darks with darks, mediums with mediums and lights with lights.

You will see you probably have many colours together in your piles.

The most magical thing about hooking these colours together as though they were one is the splendid iridescence you can get, really it is the only way to get this effect, you cannot get a true “oil slick“ event in your work by dyeing wool that is iridescent.

The other amazing thing is the speed at which you can use up all manner of business. It won’t take long to whittle away your piles of strips when you can hook anything with them.

Sorting them will also help you dye them. Say you have three piles of various colours and you need them all to be dark blue. Make your formula, throw in the lightest ones first, wait a few minutes, then add the medium, and a few minutes later add the dark, they will end up all being close to each other’s value.

Here are two patterns, play with value, here today or by the next gathering, you can do your own pattern too, just remember you want a contrast of value! Lights separated by either darks or mediums or vice versa! Have fun! Wanda