Dyers delight

The dye pot never ceases to amaze me.

This shows one dye lot - the same dye put onto a merino blend yarn (seen around the edge of the pot) and an alpaca yarn (see in the centre of the pot). 

The yarns take up the dye in a completely different way, giving entirely different-looking results, both beautiful.

I love dyeing yarns!

May's Emerald

Apparently emerald is the birthstone for May, and the green-themed treasuries have been popping up all over.

I've been included in a few lovelies - check them out!

Colour naming

When listing new items on Etsy it's often difficult to think of different names for colours that buyers may search for. 

A comprehensive list of colour names would be very useful - and here it is on Wikipedia.

The colour names are alphabetically listed with samples and their values in the first section, then in the second section they are grouped by colour - very handy!

Dyeing to show you...!

Team Theme Project Sneak Peak

CraftBritannia Team Theme

It's been a quiet week on the blog front, but there has been frantic crochet activity here at Chez Skeins!

I decided on my project for the CraftBritannia Team Theme. The deadline is 1st April and the theme is Spring.

I wanted some spring flower type colours so I've chosen to use a ball of Tofutsies yarn that I had in my stash. 

I've only knitted this up into socks before (and very lovely they are) and I'm really pleased with how the colours are emerging as this crochet project progresses.

There will be a sneak peak but I'm not giving too much else away yet..

Colour!

After I've spent quite some time gathering together an entire collection of all the colourways of the cotton yarn I use, the penny has finally dropped. I love colour. Duh!

Not just colour but graduated, tonal colours and shades together. It's always colour that attracts me to an item, more so than form or function.

It started young - I remember reading through a 1970's craft book and the thing that stuck in my mind to this day is the image of bargello embroidery. It was the shapes but more so the graduations of colour that I loved - and still love to this day.

Hence the latest obsession with colour graduations in my crochet.

Here's a recent project, which has just been sent off to the Med as a birthday gift. Hot and spicy coasters!

Sneak peek..

..at what I'm currently playing with - colours!

Treasuries

I've been lucky enough to be featured in several treasuries recently. Here are a couple of current ones:

Green With Envy - gorgeous shades of crocheted items!

Earth and Water - turquoise and brown - what a great colour combination!

I love turquoise!

We're waiting for some bits and pieces to arive to start crafting with the gorgeous bright felts and buttons. In the meantime, I've been crocheting with some vibrant turquoise blue cotton.

I've made some short summer fingerless gloves in a clean and crisp design. These can be dressed up with beads, buttons and bows - or worn plain and simple. They're available in my Etsy shop now!

A pair of black ones will be flying off the hook next - and I'm hoping to put the pattern up for sale too.

It must be Spring!

The postie brought a lovely package today from Titchables - amazingly fast as I only bought these yesterday!

I would recommend you take a look at the listings in Titchables shop - there are some lovely supplies and cute badges, all at very reasonable prices.

I indulged in some impulse buying and gave in to these gorgeous bright felt squares and buttons. 

They are inspiring me to do some litte fun projects with my daughters for spring - hairband decorations, badges, charms, and such.

I can't wait to show these to my girls when they get back from school - I know they'll be as excited by those colours as I am!