Testing Dyes, New Designs

I test-dyed the colors I want to use for the sweater, using the color-breaking as a source of my two colors. But my black yarn didn't come out black enough. I may know why, but I was feeling a bit disappointed, and stopped working on it. I have some ideas on how to make the black work. I also overdyed the  black dip-dye shibori- style. I love the way the skein looked, but I thought I'd blown it, because I didn't think there was much variation, and it seemed very dark. But today I have been knitting up a hooded infinity cowl (yeah, I'm hooked on them now), and I the colors look very tweedy. Also, since I won't have enough of the shibori-dyed skein, I'm striping it with the icy blue, and it looks amazing. It's a single row each of garter stitch, and so the colors are blending in a really beautiful way. When I run out of either, I will stripe it with the not-black I produced.

Dip-Dyed Broken Black

Blue from Broken Black,
Black,
Shibori-Dyed Broken Black

Hooded Cowl using all three yarns

I have some thoughts on how to make the black work, and will try again, with smaller bits of yarn. Today, in fact, is the big yarn day, when I dye up the sweater-quantity. I'm slightly intimidated. This weekend, I also offered my sister a shawl, so I've been texting her questions like "what colors?" and "symmetrical or asymmetrical?" I pored over my shawl designs and other ideas, and sketched out something last night, and also designed the yarn for it. She wants blue-greens, with some saturation, and either asymmetrical or symmetrical. I think I'm going for a dropped-stitch piece that's asymmetrical -- something I can turn into a pattern.

I'm not finished test-dyeing it yet, so I'll show the stages tomorrow. as well as the mini-prototype.