Let’s suppose you were on a trip and you did what many of us do–you got a skein of souvenir yarn from a LYS along the way. At the time you bought it, this dramatic colorway seemed like the perfect way to remember your trip. However, a couple months went by, and when you took it out of your stash, you decided it wasn’t a colorway you really wanted to wear. It was too dramatic, too bright, too…something. So what now?

Well, I have a suggestion for a skein like that. If you combine the skein you don’t love with either brushed mohair or Suri Lace Cloud, you can create something totally new. This week I thought I would show you what I mean. I went stash digging myself and found a skein of a colorway I had made years ago called Durin’s Bane. I actually like the colorway, but it is indeed very dramatic with red and purple and black, so I thought this would be a good colorway to use for the experiment.

In case you’re wondering, Durin’s Bane was another name for the evil balrog in The Lord of the Rings that Gandalf fought in the mines of Moria. Tolkien describes it as being all fire and darkness. Enough LOTR nerdiness! Here’s Durin’s Bane:

I decided to try using a number of different Suri Lace Cloud colorways to hold double with Durin’s Bane to see which one would look best. Here’s the sample I knit:

From left to right, we have Durin’s Bane alone, Durin’s Bane with Little Black Dress, with Cream, with Lilac, and finally with Chocolate.

Here are the closeups:

I personally like it with Cream and with Lilac the best, but I didn’t really care for the effect of Little Black Dress or Chocolate. How about you?

As you can see, the Suri Lace Cloud shows up more than the Sock Perfection, which is important to know whenever you are putting them together whether for a reason like this or any other reason. That is why I often suggest using a semi-solid “base” yarn and a variegated Suri or mohair.

You’ll want to keep color theory in mind too. If you just want to lighten up the colorway without changing it, white or light gray would do it. If you want to darken a color that’s too light or bright, you can use dark gray or black or use a similar color but in a darker shade. If you want to make the colors warmer, you might go with a light or dark brown. If you want to calm down a colorway that’s too bright, you could take its main color and choose a darker version. Say you bought a skein with neon green and decided it was a little too much. You could choose a deep forest green to both soften and darken the neon green.

Have you ever done something like this? I’d love to see (and share) how it turned out.

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Fresh from the Dye Pots

This week I have dyed up small quantities of a lot of different colorways. If you click on the photo, it will take you to that colorway on my website. Here’s what I’ve got for you:

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I’m also working on all of the Beautiful Universe preorders. I’ve dyed about half of them so far and should have the rest dyed up early next week. I’m going to take a short pause for Easter.

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May Club Colorway

For May we are moving north to France and forward in time to the early 1500s.

This tapestry is known by two names–My Only Desire and The Lady and the Unicorn. It is one of six panels woven in Flanders from designs in Paris, and it was rediscovered in the 1800s and now resides in the Musée de Cluny in Paris. Art historians differ as to the meaning of the different images. Here is some information from the museum itself. Aren’t the colors luscious? I’m looking forward to working this out.

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On a Personal Note

We’re going to have a houseful for Easter, which makes me so glad. I hope you too have a very happy Easter! See you next week!