The Swatchie Family

Meet Mr. Swatchie. Mr. Swatchie spent yesterday in my pocket. Mr. Swatchie very patiently sat through eight hours of class, and made a good impression on the ladies at the knitting circle. He is very well-mannered, and made an excellent companion on my long day away from home.

Mr. Swatchie was in the Navy, and considers himself the head of the Swatchie family. "I am more mature than the others," he says, "because I was in the Navy. Because of my time in the Navy, I often feel very blue. Kermit the Frog says it's not easy being green, but I think he should be thankful. It's much harder being Navy."

Here is the entire Swatchie family. From left to right: Jet (Black), Kelly (Green), Sky (Blue), Pumpkin, Burgundy, Bright (Yellow), Navy, Russet, Emerald and Chestnut.

The Swatchie family would like to show you this choreographed interpretive dance they have been working on:

Oooh. Ahhh. Very nice! The Swatchie family is very talented.

Pumpkin fancies himself an artist (pronounced ar-TEEST) and tries to work with oil paints when I am not looking.

I would prefer it if Pumpkin would find a hobby that wasn't so potentially messy. But I am glad that none of the Swatchies have taken up an interest in fire dancing (yet).

Goodbye from me and The Swatchie family. Have a lovely weekend!

Color Swatches

On Monday, I received a colorful package in the mail... literally, full of COLOR! Seven pots of dye, to be exact. I spent the rest of the week dyeing and knitting these basic color swatches.

Each swatch represents one of the dye colors in my inventory. They will give me an idea of my color palette, a representation of the colors I have to work with when matching colors together and combining dyes to make new colors.

Using tiny sample-sized skeins, I dyed one skein in a high-concentrate dye solution, resulting in a rich pure color. Another skein was dyed in a low-concentrate dye solution, resulting in a lighter color and heathered effect where the dye didn't reach every wool fiber. I repeated this process for every color in my dye box. Then I made a series of mitered squares, one for each color, using the darker yarn for the first half and the lighter yarn for the second half.

I loved the process, start to finish - dyeing the yarn, knitting the mitered squares, playing with the color swatches and rearranging them into photographic compilations - all incredibly fun!

Isn't this Moroccan plate lovely? (Thanks, Dick!)

Inspiring Books

Something Beautiful

Yarn Jam, Summer 2007