Nicole Frost

Posted on: Dyeing techniques Marshmallow DKOctober 17, 2022

Pumpkin Spice and Everything Nice Gradient Featuring Knomad Marshmallow

Creating a Fall toned gradient based off a reference image to suit your unique color vision

Featuring:

Marshmallow DK (superwash merino).

Our goal:

How to individually deconstruct an image, pull out what we like about it, and pick the techniques and colors we think best represent the spirit of the season and photo reference.

Stressed for time and wanna get an abstract for your 5 minute work break?

Abstract:

Pick the dye colors you think closely match the reference image that you like to work with. Pick 5 of your favorite Knomad yarns and deconstruct the image into its component parts. Take your top 5 favorite pieces of the image and design a colorway and dye application style that suits each one. Remember, we’re not just trying to make the skein look like the image, but we want it to still have that flavor when it knits up (or crochets, weaves etc). Here’s how I deconstructed this:

For those with time to read up on all the finer details, let’s dive in!

You will need:

• Gloves.
• Respirator.
• A way to heat set your yarn (steamer, proofer, oven, induction plate).
• Acid Reactive Dye (colors used here are pro-chem washfast acid & Jacquard, recipe below).

Skein 1:

Cantaloupe at .5% semi solid tonal with Golden Yellow Speckles

Directions:

Fill dye tray with 2 inches of water,teaspoon of citric acid and .5 gram of cantaloupe, lay the skein in, soaking 75% of the skein as a semi solid shade. Make sure to leave some white space across the top to speckle in the Golden Yellow

Dyers Note:

I made sure to incorporate a semi solid tonal background and a coordinating speckle over the top so that all skeins could work together in one larger project. If I did some speckle, some solid shade and some semi solid, they might look more like the reference image but they wouldn’t play nicely together in a finished piece.

Skein 2:

Golden Yellow at 1.5% with Spiced Pumpkin Speckles

Directions:

Fill Dye Tray with 2” of water and teaspoon of citric acid and 1.5 grams Golden Yellow, lay the skein in, soaking 75% of the skein as a semi solid shade. Make sure to leave some white space across the top to speckle in the Spiced Pumpkin. Spray with citric acid water to fix the speckles in space.

Skein 3:

Periwinkle at .25% with Rose Pink speckles

Directions:

Fill dye tray with 2” of water, and .25 of a gram of periwinkle and teaspoon of citric acid, lay the skein in, soaking 75% of the skein as a semi solid shade. Make sure to leave some white space across the top to speckle in the Rose Pink

Dyers Note:

in the reference image, there’s a kind of sad, muted orangey brown patch on the pumpkin. I elected not to represent that in this skein, because blue/purples do not do well being speckled orange, you get weird browns a lot of times and I thought a nice rosey pink would reflect the undertones and give a subtle variation better than orange. It’s more important that all the colors play nicely together than exact replication.

Skein 4:

White speckled with Avocado and Spruce

Directions:

Fill the dye tray with 1” of water and one teaspoon citric acid, speckle with Avocado, and Spruce

Skein 5:

Lemon Drop at 1% with Avocado and Spiced Pumpkin Speckles

Directions:

Fill the dye tray with 2” of water, one gram of Lemon Drop and one teaspoon citric acid, speckle with Spiced Pumpkin and Avocado

Heat set for 30 minutes, cool to room temperature, rinse and spin out excess water before hanging in the sun to dry