colour sessions

I have been dyeing during all of last week, but today will be the last day for a while; hard to believe, but I am running out of stuff to dye! I picked another lot of alder buckthorn berries and had even darker colours than last time - silk in the middle, viscose on the right - and wool on the left. even though the blues are accurate - the "green" is not! it really is a green tone, not this yucky muck colour! (I put some samples of the first blues into the window to test the lightfastness - after a week in pretty bright daylight no visible change...)

same for this pic: I picked fresh fuchsia flowers (the red-purple ones that grow wild everywhere in the west), because I read that you can achieve purples and reds... this is my umptiest trial, I had everything from beige to biting yellow on wool - and as you can see, I had another very light yellow - though in reality the tone is far more golden yellow than beige. the silk however did turn pinkish - neither purple nor red, but not yellow either:))

this is the result of my dye sessions of the last few weeks. I assembled everything on the patio table, waited until the sun wasn't quite as high in the sky anymore - and still the colours look totally different in real life:(( I dyed loads of green tones, which hardly show up. pretty much all the colours look different in reality, far more autumnal, not as bright as in the photo! I tried changing all kinds of settings, but if the reds are ok, the greens are not etc... weird, but at least I have enough choice to keep me busy with the wheel and the knitting needles for some time:))

the plan is to blend some of the fine lace yarns for a shawl in autumn colours, yellow, green and reds. I am already spinning some of the blue tones into a lace yarn, though I am not sure whether to ply with a blue silk or with another blue-green woollen yarn. the two petrol blue skeins of tussah silk on the upper right side are going to be knitted into a lace scarf and I think I am going to spin a yarn with "glacier" colours from some of the lighter coloured viscose and silk, maybe together with a small amount of angelina and some white, either silk or wool (silk might be more fitting for a "cold, sparkly, icy" yarn?)

off to work a bit more on my miniature, while dinner is in the oven.....