Trusting your instincts

Do you ever go against your own intuition and do things by the book or because someone told you so with their own inner conviction – and failed? Yes, I fail when I go my own way too, but my biggest “DUH – idiot” moments are always when I did not listen to my inner voice. Maybe I was even confounded by my own logic, pushing the touchy-feely stuff aside in favour of “science”. I’m a messy methodologist, laid back nitpick kinda person. Don’t tell me what that means, I don’t wanna know.

I really wish I’d learn not to. Ok, I do learn something from some of those mistakes too, but feeling stupid always annoys me. 😉

So when Ashford sells their rainbow colour kit as scarlet (fire engine red), blue and yellow, I thought there was probably some hidden chemical secret that would make this work, although I KNOW that magenta is really the purest primary colour for blending. (in the case of Ashford dyes, this is called hot pink)

And still I didn’t understand why all my purples ended up looking like maroon…. Until of course it dawned on me while ruining a batch of fiber with the intended colourway name of “dark rose”. Add too much water to your dye pot (the dyes are water too, duh), mix your clean purple and magentas with scarlet and you get, yes, maroonish purple, solid all over the length of the grey Gotland top instead of the variegated pinks and sooty reds I was aiming for.

Because scarlet has YELLOW in it. Purple has BLUE in it. Add the MAGENTA and all = MUD.

Another interesting thing that seems to happen a lot is, that the yellow seems to be in excess if you make a really saturated dye bath. Not just a weaker version of the original colour, it’s more yellow. In the case of my rose colours, lollipop orangy like this merino that I plopped into the exhaust. But lucky in this case, or my Gotland would have been even more maroon than it is…

 

I did eventually try out some other pink purple shades on the rest of the merino, turned out better than I hoped (as in what the hey, it’s ruined anyway) but DARK rose it’s not. And I’d run out of dark fibers, so, well, maybe some other time. So many colours, so many combos, not enough hours, not enough fiber!

Actually, I thought they go quite well together. But nah…

… I guess I can’t justify that drumcarder yet to mix up a bunch of not so perfect colours. Would be as good an excuse as any to get one, right? Can’t be my last mistake ever?

So guys, gals – don’t add black or marine to your scarlet unless you want maroon, ok? I guess it’s too much to ask for dye manufacturers to add the CMYK values to each of their shades.

And please share your duh moments, don’t leave me feeling stupid all by myself here.

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Opsummering: Jeg har været lidt godtroende og regnet med at når Ashfords grundfarvekit består af postkasserød, blå og gul, så havde de nok en smart kemisk finte, selvom jeg godt ved at primærfarven til at blande rene nuancer er magenta. Så det tog et par forsøg før jeg fattede hvorfor mine lilla nuancer blev mudrede eller brunlige, alle andre farver jeg lavede blev super! Men det er jo naturligvis fordi der er gul i postkasserød + magenta. Tilføjer man så sort eller blå har man alle farver på en gang = brun.

Når man så oven i købet kommer for meget vand i sin gryde, så man istedet for blandede farver på ulden får det hele til at løbe sammen, ja, så står man pludselig med 130 g brunlilla i stedet for fine mørke rosenblade. Efterfølgende brugte jeg overskudsfarven på noget hvid merino (den mørke var grå gotlænder), men det var jo ikke pastelfarver jeg var ude efter.

Nå, men nu ved jeg, at jeg skal bruge hot pink som grund-rød, så skal jeg bare have bestilt mere af den. Og så skal man nok stole lidt mere på sin mavefornemmelse!
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