Daughter Of Darkness Stirs The Majic

I love dark rich colours.

I'm a card carrying member of the Daughters Of Darkness.

Right now I'm hooking on my online class project along with my students.

The Painterly Poppies on The Welcome Mat.

The deep reds and greens make me very happy.

I love working along with my students this way, the pattern is part of the class fee and everyone is doing their own thing with it, flipping, resizing and bringing their own beauty to it with their own wool or personal variations on formulas I give them to create something wonderfully individual. 

I'm present with them as they hook and can take step by step photos as I paint and adjust my colours.  This class feels fresh and lively.

We are approaching the last lesson on possible backgrounds though these classes stay online and you can join in any time and I pop in to help you along as you wish. 

Because red is a naturally dark valued colour and the stems are long and run through the background we will have some careful plotting to do.

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On the topic of dyeing very dark colours which we could all use in our stashes...

There are a couple of things to know about dyeing really dark colours. You need extra time, lots more dye, more patience, more citric acid and for some colours placing a lid on the pot is a good idea so the steam can add to the overall heating. Sometimes I leave wool overnight in the pan after shutting off the heat and cover it up with a lid. 

On another note I most often dye dark colours over already dyed wool. This time I used natural wool because we can all find it easily. It does take quite a bit of dye to do these but the colours are so terrific.

I have a few Majic Carpet Formulas to share today 

Dyed over 1/2 yd. of natural wool

These photos have been lightened 20% to show colour

The first two use a spot dye method

 It takes 1 hr 30 mins.. @ 350 ˚ F to process these.

Gather up wool in peaks and valleys, add 1/8th tsp. citric acid to each dye solution, pour in stripes or spots in a checkerboard pattern. Don’t mess around too much with the wool after you pour the dye on so you can get the stars in the dark sky effect.

GALAXY

1/2 tsp. Blue Violet

1/2 tsp. Turquoise

1/2 tsp. Bottle Green

1/2 tsp. Brilliant Green

1/2 tsp. Red Violet

1/2 tsp. Black

SOLAR FLARES

1/2 tsp. Orange

1/2 tsp. Red

1/2 tsp. Red Violet

1/2 tsp. Yellow

1 tsp. Moss Green

1 tsp. Black

You won't be sorry you dyed these dark darlings.... get some Majic into your life today!