the blues

It’s pretty apparent that I have a very narrow palette of colours that I knit with if I’m making a garment for myself.  I find myself drawn to the same colours of rich reds, dark greens, browns, as well as black and grey.  On the odd occasion that I try to break out, and do something crazy like wear a top of a different colour, I end up feeling all wrong and out of place, and just not me.

Having such specific colour preferences means that shopping is somewhat simplified, as I can simply block out whole sections of shop displays.  Of course, it also means that I keep buying different versions of essentially the same things, and my yarn purchases are no different (I’ll have to show you my sock yarn collection some time!).

My yarn dyeing adventures have tended to follow a similar well-worn path.  I essentially started out dyeing yarn a year ago with the goal of never again having to hunt for that ‘perfect red’.  I now have more than enough lovely reds to keep me happy for a long time, but I’m also conscious that there’s a whole world of colour out there that I’ve been neglecting.

Feeling the need for some definite inspiration, I issued a request to two of my knitting friends: to challenge me to dye up colours of their choice.  It was a choose-your-own gift scenario.  Interestingly, they both chose shades of blue, a colour that I tend to avoid more than most.

Here’s what I came up with:

A skein of merino/silk laceweight.  Supposedly duck egg in colour, but it soaked up more blue than I anticipated.  I think it’s lovely all the same.

And a skein of merino/nylon sock yarn, in a rich teal.  Very saturated and deep, with just the slightest hint of variation in colour; just what I was aiming for.

Considering I’m not a fan of blues at all, I’m really quite in love with these yarns together: