Spinneret

Almost Wilder

The whole point in moving up to this small art community in the Hudson Valley was to make the transition in to the illustration world a little firmer (What, and give up show business?).
It’s a small town, folks are friendly. Evidenced this morning on my walk to the train station, passing by the Sunshine Paint Store. Jeff, who works there, came out of the door with a customer, sample boards in hand, just in time to stop me in my tracks;
“What do you think, think this’ll match this other one?”
“From that to this?”
“Yep”
“Is it still wet?” tapping it with my finger to test it.
“Now, you’re on your way to work, don’t go getting paint all over yourself.”
“Eh, it’s only paint, I probably have some leftover from yesterday. Yeah, that looks like it should dry all right. To really make it match though you should dry brush it to bring out the grain.”
“Yeah, yeah yeah, now you’re causing trouble.”
Hysterical. Color consultations on the move. Downhill to the train.

Koigu Coverup Discovered

Packing up the studio this finally came to light. I had promised this picture before so living in cardboard for the time being has at least served this purpose. Behold, the previously documented Koigu afghan in it’s just cast off state as a gay pride cover up.

The friend modeling it is all of 5’1”. Unblocked it does not drape over her front to back, toes to heels, just toes to nape of her neck in back. But that is certainly enough. 27 skeins of koigu, some dyed “in the style of” to fill in the colorway gaps, 2,000 hours of fan and feather. The full work up on this is available here.

9 - 5 On The Metameric Shift

Metamer [met-uh-mer]

“ A color that appears to the eye to be identical to another color but which in fact has a different spectral composition.”  Thank you dictionary.com

“Metamerism is a psychophysical phenomenon commonly defined as the situation when two samples match in color under one condition, but fail to match under another condition.  The underlying basis of metamerism is that visual color matches are possible between two samples even though the spectral reflectance factors of the two samples are different. Thus many color matches are conditional. Conversely, if two samples have identical spectral reflectance factors (yeah, buddy.  whatever. ed.)  they unconditionally match when viewed under the same conditions.

Does your brain hurt yet?  This is usually when we takes a lunch break - "What do you mean it doesn't MATCH?".

Observer metamerism occurs because of differences in color vision between observers. Often these differences have a biological source so that, for example, the ratio of long-wavelength-sensitive cones to medium-wavelength-sensitive cones may differ from one person to the next. Thus, two spectrally dissimilar surfaces may match for one observer when viewed under a certain light source but then fail to match when viewed by a second observer under the same light source”. Thank  you wikipedia.com.  Hey, it looked green to me. Maybe it's your eyes.

The dreaded metameric shift under different lighting conditions.  Same targhee sample skein on a 50% grey background photographed with different white balances;

White Balance preset using the yarn as “white”

Fine setting

Fluorescent setting

Cloudy setting

And that is why, in 23 years I have run in to two (2, count ‘em) designers with whom I have shared the same sense of color perception.  It is one heck of a ride to gleefully wing up to a designer with a sample swatch and say “Here, this is the color you want, right?” to then have them look at you as though your head self-clashes when that in fact is exactly what is happening - in their eyes.  Like playing with the white balance on your digital camera.  Except it’s coming straight down your optical nerve to your brain and is the only version of “correct’ you get to work with.  Unless you add rose colored glasses and oh, la, it's the 70's all over again.

There are also the initial descriptions to get around “Oh, I want something in a sort of pastel tangerine with a toasted almond over wash.”  Of course you do.  Here’s the Pantone® book, you pick 3 chips and I’ll do my damnedest to hit one of ‘em.

Truly my favorites are the presentation of a garment “This is really old and we need to add a  size (or 3) to it, so can you make this yardage match it … exactly?   Um, and we can’t wash it.  Ever.  The designer likes the aged effect.”  This is the stuff that makes my day.  I get an enormous kick out of recreating 80 year old patina on silk gazar.  Well, it matches in the shop.  Make nice with the lighting director and Bob's your uncle.

All of this being a great reason to buy (or dye) enough of the same dye lot of anything.  If that’s the sort of thing you want.

There are the tricks played upon you by your own rods and cones.  Bright sun light can reduce your sensitivity to color, one eye at a time (check each eye for color perception after waking up from a nap on the beach).

There is also retinal burn out.  Staring at a colored pattern then staring at a blank white space should show you a chromatic opposite of the original pattern.

Also contrast or context affect color perception.  Here;

same color  (#c7d167, check it out on your own monitor) in the middle of each square, flavored by it’s surroundings (you can also play the retina burn out game with this sample).

Maybe I’ve been lucky to run in to the 2 people who see color they way I do.  There are reptiles who see in infrared with which they sense heat, a fourth dimension of vision.  Imagine the trouble they have getting their shoes to match their party dresses.

“Thus many color matches are conditional.”   I shall embroider this on sets of tea towels, each letter a different color.  Because … dyeing is a science.

So Many Discoveries

    Saturday Skies will be posted again when they have learned how to behave.  The horizon being tone on tone with the stone and concrete of the city will no longer be tolerated.  Now return to your international dateline and don't make me cross.
     It was however a 2 coven weekend (It is October after all) and la, how the fiber flew.
    The Cascade socks have been test-driven and washed.

They may, in the fullness of time, want to be washed inside out as there seems to be slightly more fuzzing than with the Trekking.  With the shaped arch and a twisted rib stitch these may even be able to keep bunions at bay.  A little Froehlich had to be dug up to finish the last toe.  That’s the difference you get making the sock 2 stitches bigger around in the foot to breast the demi-pointe flared wannabe bunions.
    Columbus Day - Not so much.  Christopho and his buddy Verrazano could have just moved along (Nothing to see here.  Nope.  Keep it movin’ buddy)  and kept their biological warfare to themselves.  Come on up to the Casino some time.
    Today is the traditional Day the Plants Come In.  For some reason this causes a lot of comment from the feline contingent.  There will be dark of night stalking and hunting until the spiders and snails are lead back outside from their hiding spots.  Plantland Security.
    And the Plant Sitter was at it again while I was in Oklahoma. 
    Cochleanthes discolor,

which smells to me of cedar. 
And Encyclia cochleata,

the cockleshell orchid. 
    There is also an Epidendrum capricornu in spike and when that opens up I’ll make sure to include a peek at that.  It will match some fuschia merino in an upcoming project.
    There was fresh color at work this weekend.  And a special mystery guest. 

Kimmet Croft worsted weight.  Hook, line and sinker - this stuff is yummy.  But not mine.  Not yet.  Not this skein. 
    The two coven weekend.  My spinning and knitting horizons where broadened this weekend.  Can’t wait to get up to Rhinebeck and see ya’ll again.  There was merino/silk on my aromatic cedar spindle  from Cascabelle.

A goodly amount of that and chocolate chip cookies where consumed.  At the Sunday group (yes, I was whipped when I got home, but I had YARN) the folding Lendrum, fresh bread and an empty bobbin where lying in wait for the “French Blue” merino/silk in my bag.

Carb loading increases spinning stamina.  Everybody says so.  Originally some Lilac and Fuschia merino where to be blended with the blue, but the sample was only O.K.

So they’ll be spun separately and become a 3 ply.

That’s where this stuff is headed.
    And another thing,  (wow, what was in those chocolate chips?),  never having made an honest effort to work a toe-up sock this one is underway in that fab stuff from Buckwheat Bridge. 

Years and years ago inspirational friend Richard double-knit socks before my eyes and I never quite got over it.  Most likely that’s where the next pair will begin, but for this pair I’m testing the waters with a double-knit cast on.  Less fidgety than a Turkish cast-on for me. Just to be contrary this is also an experiment in reverse engineering a shaped arch.  To date; Frogs 1, Knitter 0.  And the Frogs are up.   Trying to hold off and get the Bamboo worked up, tick tick tick, if you know what I mean.  It only goes quickly if you actually have it in your hands from time to time.  Not just riding around in the bag keeping the roving (and the socks) company.   

Blue Bamboo

A dank gray day.

Bamboo. Natural fiber. Should dye about like rayon viscose. Eh, Not really. And perhaps this is the lesson the folks at Plymouth Yarn have already learned and why the Royal Bamboo does not come in a lovely ice blue.

Fine. There was some Procion MX in the basement. And if that didn't work there was some Procion H. And if that didn't work I’d have to get professional with it.

Now you know why the tub is blue, in lieu of the sky.

A little monkeying around was all it needed and the mottling should be enough to not create a screeching visual halt of flat solid color at the top of all of that orange. This being the collar and sleeve trim for the Bamboo Cardigan.

Dyeing. Colors. Been reading around this week and the same situation came up for two different folks Chicknits 8/23 and Twosheep 8/22; Yellows uptake faster than reds. Use this information to your advantage, as they have. Autumn is coming.

But it’s got me thinking, so it’s time to do some more research. "Research" or "Textile analysis" being euphemisms for ditching the original swatch sample some place where no one will find it and starting over when the situation calls for it ( "Smell? What smell? Something burning? Oh, oh that smell. Why, Yes, we are conductingTextile Analysis burn tests to determine fiber content before we fire up the vats. No extra charge. It's all part of the service.). But I currently don’t have a big job requiring that I DO SOMETHING NOW - EVEN IF ITS WRONG on a daily basis. There's your learning curve, Maydean. And it's a curve ball. Like what to do with a washer full of poly?(NO, it couldn't be)/nasty something from the 70’s that has just turned vibrant Easter Egg Lavender and it really truly only wants to be just a tinsy bit off white. Hah! That was the day. Oh, how we danced! Because … dyeing is a science.

Fresh Color on deck at work today;

Seemed to match the weather.

This weeks plying;

The 50/50 yak/targhee that I was combing on Monday.

I had spun the first skein on a Lendrum over at “A”’s apt. By the time I started the second skein I couldn’t remember S or Z. Got it exactly wrong. Then decided to do half of the skeins S and half Z and ply them to get - something that cracks me up. It’s crimpy, like a sheep. Probably knit into something looser than my usual bullet proof gauge so the yarn has room to wiggle a bit. Because it wants to. I was trying to find a name for this type of plying and took my question to Karen Who Knows. Pondering the subject sagely, she cocked her head to one side and after a few seconds thought pronounced “Novelty Yarn”. Thank you Karen. Very profound. Big Whoop.

Fred

This is Fred.

My Great Grand father. I never knew Fred except through his rose bushes, carnations and a huge assed fuschia shrub by the front door (They lived in the S.F. Bay Area) the buds of which begged to be popped. damn kids.

Fred was gone long before I ever hit the scene.

It wasn’t until I had a job back on the West Coast and my mom came down to visit that I learned what it was Fred left me (My sister got the ears).

And it wasn’t his biscuit recipe. Not one of us got the biscuit recipe.

(dang, I’ve heard they were awesome).

Meeting up in my hotel lobby for an after work cocktail there were hugs and whatnot (I don’t get out West very often - this was a short term gig) my mom took to holding my hand. Then she looked at it.

Now, I’d been at work all day. Painting, dyeing, dragging, pouring solvents on things, rasping, sanding, torching. My hands are usually pretty trashed. Yes, I wear gloves. But washing in between colors, or lunch, or whatever seriously strips them out.

Mom looked at my hands “Oh. This reminds me of when your Grandpa used to get home from work and I would run to see which colors he’d been mixing that day”. “Colors?” “Yes. Your Grandpa was a pigment mixer for the California Ink & Dye Company in Berkeley”. So it’s genetic damage is what I figure. I had no idea. A prestidigitation of fate I tell ya.

Red Rover

Red spinning. Egyptian Book of the Red. Red roving. Red thread. Red Rain. Get some more Red Bull, Mazie, there’s a whole pound of the stuff!

Red thread.

Have finished reading A Perfect Red and was thinking it was almost a good idea to head Up There to the Dante Room to look for my box of natural dyes and find the cochineal bugs when I remembered the Ruby River targhee just in from Sweet Grass Wool in Montana. What a relief. In a manner of speaking. Er. I guess I’ll cable ply it. A pound of 2 ply lace weight would make a pretty damn big … ack … perish the thought … whatever you were thinking. Bad thinking. Commmie Pinko Cold War thinking. DK weight re-education camp for you. Note to self - borrow Karen’s Yarn Balance that uses a paperclip as an axis and ply like a mad dog.

These reds just about have a flavor for me. Though nothing like that orange bamboo. Which persists as a cardigan in open dialogue.

Potential Fall Out

Have been having a week of it in my glamorous midtown bomb shelter

(would I lie to you?) studio. I love how the arrows have worn away so you never really know where you are, or where you should be going. Very profound.

Isn’t that inspiring? Note the slope of the ceiling, that’s not bad photography. Really, I appreciate how fortunate I am to have this space (Some day I'll give a tour of studio spaces I have had. Maybe for Halloween), and try to remain mindful that it is shared space where other people work too, some with bassoons. Fortunately not all of us at the same time.

As you may have noticed there is an ongoing aesthetic wrestling match with variegations here. Even called in the big guns - my friend (blogless) Karen. I name her boldly and out loud because she is a textile oracle. Ladies & Gentlemen, Step Right Up. I ask you - How does she do it? She’s a genius. When you have a question she’ll not only have already pondered it but will presciently, nay - eerily, have the solutions she came up with ready to hand and will ask more questions to get you going on your own brain path to come up with different solutions. How great is it to have a second set of eyes and a second brain to work with? She also has a great design sense and problem solving capacity - a great one for the “what if you…?” and also the "Come'eer, hand me a paper clip. I have an idea". Knitting like a bat out of hell (…now that I think about it), she’s the only person I know who can get a commissioned project off of the island of Manhattan when it’s in complete lock-down, and on time. But that’s a story for discreet delving, another time. She’ll also swatch for me. And she loves rolling skeins in to balls.

Karen's worked up this sample from the first mbatch (best 3 out of 5 - no needles barred). But it begins to pool. damn.

You’ve all seen the wishful sky blues I worked up last Saturday when it was green and grey outside here. feh, what weather.

This colorway is going on at my desk at home , which begins to approach the blended effect I'm after. Sort of.

There are two more colorways waiting in the wings,.

And the Bamboo which still has my mouth watering and continues on as a cardigan for the moment. Karen is advising on that “what if there’s not enough” question.

Clearly more work remains to be done. Independent studies and peer reviews will be presented and debated. What is the half life of "pooling"? Will that bamboo be cuter as a boat neck? What is she doing with that paper clip?

Blue Saturday

Yipes, I invited Cassie to come over and see what will have to pass for a Saturday sky on a day like today and I am shkirt-ting it pretty damn close.

Today was a dye run at what it is about variegated yarns that don't do it for me when they're knit up (6 minutes to 12:00, type damn you), in Sky blues in honor of Saturday. I've narrowed it down, I think it's the value contrasts. Even on the garter face where they blend a bit more it ISN"T GOOD ENOUGH.

Too harsh. More blending. I'm looking for something with some subtlety. More than a gradient, less than the dogs dinnner.

12:00, damn.

Geography

It all began very innocently. A lovely afghan for my mom in the pattern my grandmother had used for the afghans she'd made for my dad, sister and myself (mine is in 3 shades of lime green - jealous?). A few years ago I'd used the feather/fan pattern to run one up for my brother(reds). Now it was mom's turn. Her birthday was coming up, did I have any other bright ideas? nope. damn.

Mom's a painter, mom does landscapes, mom used to take me field sketching when I was a tot. When asked her favorite color she replies "Oh, I like 'em all". I thought I'd just run up a rainbow to settle her hash.

Koigu has all those nice colorways. Hmm, an afghan on 3's. Ah, what the heck, ya only have one mom and she's a lot of fun.

Well, Koigu has MOST of the colors in the rainbow - or MLYS carries most of their colors + white. Dyeing stuff pays my bills. Looks like I could emulate Maie Landra's approach and fill in the missing hues. And so it began.

It …got …a… little …out… of… hand.

Knit a little, dye a little, knit some more. Keep going, onward - ever onward … water … gasp … choke … scrape … drag … 2,000 knitting hours later what you're looking at is 27 skeins of the stuff (wonderful stuff, I love working with this yarn. The feel of it running through my fingers, the finished fabric, the washability of it - it isn't marketed here in the states as washable wool but I'll tell you a little secret … throw that stuff in the dryer baby, no points off). I filled in slightly less than half of the colors. It's ombréd with alternating rows to move the color changes along.

That puppy is huge. It's 8 (eight) feet long, it's a good 5 feet wide. It is built for napping, bring a friend. Afghan? Hell, it's the entire country. It's a g.d. topographical map, with rivers.

Friend "G" suggests it would make a nice Gay Pride burka.

It was a little tough to give it away … the siren song of all of those colors … perdition