Saturday, January 27, 2018

Colorway Chronicles: Finch

Whilst "grellow" is all the rage, it is a real challenge for me. I've tried to get this out of my dye pots on several occasions with mixed results.

My first attempt at a grellow, which is grey and yellow smooshed together into a color name all its own, came out a decidedly ill green. Why? Well, the answer is simple really. Grey isn't grey.

Many dyes are composites - colors made up of other colors. Blacks are famous for this and if you look closely you can rather easily tell if you are looking at a red-black or a blue-black. Manufacturers do offer "true black" and most recently "true silver" but they aren't always easy to find or get. My particular silver/grey dye is a blue-grey. And, if I'm not careful in how I apply it to the yarn in conjunction with yellow, it mixes and I get a green. A sickly, unattractive green. A color so bad, I turned away from reattempting this for over a year.

More recent attempts didn't give me the blend I was looking for. I didn't want to have to leave white between the grey and yellow. I wanted them to wash into each other without turning green. I used a variety of methods and did a significant amount of over dyeing in navy.

But now, there is Finch. I finally found the right process and tones to get a grellow I was comfortable with that didn't have any of that ghastly green undertone.

If you work at anything long enough, you'll have success.

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