I finished weaving the sea-turtle scarf yesterday evening, and ran a few tests in the dyepots this morning. Here are the results:
Clockwise from top left, they are:
- (top left) Dyed in a very weak turquoise immersion dye bath, then scrunched up and overdyed with a slightly stronger solution of turquoise to produce a mottled pattern
- (right) undyed – straight off the loom
- (bottom middle) dyed in a very weak turquoise immersion dye bath, with only very slight dye variations
- (bottom left) scrunched up and dyed with relatively strong solutions of green and turquoise
Of the four, I think I like the undyed version the best, but the colors don’t look good on me, so I am thinking of using the dye processes in either sample 1 or 3. (Sample 4 doesn’t work, in my opinion; the colors are too strong and the sea turtles are hard to see.) But I can’t decide between 1 and 3.
Conceptually, I like the idea of the mottled dye job in sample 1: it gives the impression of looking down through water at the sea turtles, which is (thematically) what I was after. But the irregular dye job also draws the eye away from the sea turtles towards the variation in color, and I’m not sure I like that. Sample 3 is simpler, and keeps the focus on the sea turtles, but isn’t quite as visually interesting. Across the length of a 72″ scarf, the mottled dye job might hold up better.The good news is that I have to do sample 3’s dye technique (weak immersion dyebath) before I can get to sample 1, so I can always do the dyebath and then decide whether to stop there. But I wish I could decide whether sample 1 or 3 looks better.
What do you think? Please let me know in the comments, below.
And thanks to everyone for the surgical well-wishes!