Temperature Blanket, Swatching

 Of course I decided to go with a rainbow.  But not really.  A trip around the color wheel gets me six colors while a rainbow is seven.  

If you ever had an art class in elementary school you are familiar with the color wheel. Three primary colors in various combinations make up all the colors.  For most of us that is Red, Yellow, and Blue.  In print it is Magenta, Yellow and Cyan.  I laid out my dye swatches into reds, blues, and yellows to make my choices.

All the swatches. Yes, there are a lot of reds.  Reds are tough, in my opinion, because "true" red is so subjective. 

Dharma Chinese Red,  Dharma Indigo ( the color, not the plant based dye) and Dharma Brilliant Yellow. To my eye, these are the classic red, blue, and yellow.

Dharma Deep Magenta,  Jaquard Turquoise, and Dharma Brilliant yellow. The turquoise reads Cyan to me.

I tossed Jaquard Fire Red into the mix and set up my grid.  Setting up a grid helped meant I didn't have to label all the way along, and using a standard ratio of dye stock to one gram of yarn meant I didn't have to keep detailed notes on how much dye I used.  When I swatch dyes I always use 1ml of a 1% stock solution.  Thank you again Rebecca from Chemknits, the grid system and standardized stock solution I learned from you.

My final swatch grid.  Labeled now, because all these lovely swatches will eventually be tossed into a plastic bag for future reference.  There were some surprises.  The Dharma Indigo and Dharma Brilliant Yellow gave me a green that put me in mind of pine trees. Both the Jaquard Turquoise and the Dharma Deep Magenta maintained their brightness, especially together. 

I decided my primary colors would be the Dharma Indigo, the Dharma Brilliant Yellow,  and the Dharma Chinese Red.  The choice between the Chinese Red and the Jaquard Fire Red was the most difficult, I found them both appealing alone as well as the secondary colors they made. What helped make the final choice was the nearly empty 1/2 ounce jar of Jaquard versus the nearly full 2 ounce jar of Dharma.  That was also part of the decision making between my two yellows.

So there you go! I have my colors.  Next step: Dyeing the full skeins.

Thanks for reading, Blessed Be Y'all.