Saturday, August 14, 2010

Knocked My Socks Off! :)

I just received my copy of April Deconick's book describing her methods.
The Wool Palette
click above :)

Pretty sure I'd never have been tempted to try the graduated strip process on my own. It is a bit time consuming, but very doable. I've been very delighted, and gotten good feedback from other hookers on the colors that I've created. She shares her technique for dyeing yardage using the formula as well.

Even though I've begun my adventure into palette dyeing, I didn't really understand how simple it was to have an organized (by April) method for creating not just the 12 shades of the color wheel in 8 value swatches which would be 96 individual colors.  But by following her method for extended colors and combinations from the color wheel there are 976 possibilities. This was the part that knocked my socks off! Not that doing this would be extremely difficult. For years I wanted to dye wool, and whined online while doing just a little experimenting with koolaid dyeing. My whining was just that the whole possibility of poisoning my family by improper handling was a big STOP sign. After meeting April, seeing her beautiful wools, and even "consulting her" on how to avoid having our granddaughter be harmed, it was not only doable, but compelling!

April has a link to her book on her blog, Red Jack Rugs, but I so strongly recommend you get this book I'm putting a link in this post to make it easy for you to do so. Haven't asked April's permission, getting nothing in commission, just want you to have a chance to transform your hooking. I've had fun experimenting with my own dye formulas. I've only gotten one color I didn't want, at the time, and yet used already in my Waterlilies Rug, recently shown. LOL because these wools work together, even the  shades of that Unwanted color worked, and in fact added(in my opinion) some spark to the finished rug.

There is a place in the back of the book for putting samples, plenty of room to write down the formulas you use, and some lovely pictures of rugs I've watched April working on over the past year. She is a phenomenal artist, and I believe this book will become a new have to have for rughookers who dye their own wool.

2 comments:

primitivebettys said...

You know I don't dye much wool... but it sounds like this is a truly exceptional book. I may have to keep it in mind.

Smiles,

Betty

Cotton Eyed Jo said...

Imagine having as much of a particular shade of any color you love, that you could overdye textures or white, off white, camel... I'm hooked and it is not only easy to do but fun. :)