Misc Stuff for Jennifer

Red Vintage Sock

Yarns and a couple of experimental leaf swatches (promising, but not quite there yet). Colors are quite close to true. (Shadows are a little funky, but that's because I had to do some adjusting - otherwise the red always comes out too yellow and the greens too blue. For this once, trust the yarn colors more than the white of the Priority Mail envelope background!)

Remember that the Cookie's and Iceman colors here are the ones I used in the prototypes and may not necessarily match the production versions. The two leaf swatches are done in the Iceman yarn, which is more similar to the Celery than I remembered - but the Celery is paler and less yellow, which I think would work that much better. The Packers green is slightly darker than you originally made it, because I overdyed the remnant with a touch of black when I was trying to find the right green for Cookie's Garden. I think for this sock I'd rather go back to something closer to the original - almost a primary green. The bronze/dots - I do NOT need the dots! - but I think the basic color reads really well for the dark olive vine-leaf. (BTW I just noticed there are more pics of it further down the page, from when I showed you the Nine Tailors swatches.) The Cookie's green (also started its life as one of your bronze experiments) is a little more mottled and neutral than what I had in mind for this sock, but it's reasonably close in value. If you look at the sketches you'll see that each version of the sock uses four different greens, and that the ones in the purple sock have more yellow than the ones in the red sock.

BTW I'm quite sure that the Claret IS a Garnet-exhaust. I found my little sample skein of Garnet in the same bag - obviously I was making the connection at the time. I don't know how easy it is to contrive a dye-bath that mimics an exhaust-bath, but I hope you can do it, because I really really love this color just as it is.

Here's the red sock sketch. Color approximations, reading across the first four leaves from top left:

1. Bronze/dots
2. Cookie's Garden Green
3. Celery
4. Packers

Of these, #1 and #3 are fine as they are (except that in real life #1 doesn't need to be dotted and I only have about a yard of #3...). #2 and #4 are too dark for the sock (not to mention that #4 is KP, not FlockSock). Actually - another possibility. As a base for #2, maybe it makes more sense to work from the Lime/Kiwi color I used for Iceman - as long as it's dark enough to contrast with the paleness of the Celery.

Yardage needed: VERY little. Each color is only used for about 6 leaves per sock (or fewer if the leaves end up being a little bigger than I've drawn them). Can't tell you anything like true yardage without frogging one of my leaf swatches, but figure that all four greens together will amount to about the sixe of one toes-&-heels skein.

And here's the purple version. See what I mean about the yellow component? These are actually slightly more realistic vine-leaf colors (I think I droppered them from a photo of the real thing), whereas the ones in the red sketch were more subject to, um, artistic license.

Swatches @ 08-24-07
		Yarn for Nine Tailors Sock

		Cable swatch in Nine Tailors yarn. In real life it's shinier and more metallic-looking - the grey really looks like pewter - but this is pretty close in value. I think the closest thing to the "truth" here is the upper-left corner of the ball in this picture.

		This is the darkest "green" you did for Nine Tailors. It isn't the one we're actually trying for... but I do love it, and if we ended up with it for the sweater I would not be unhappy. At all.

		This is pretty damn close. Sorry no Priority envelope - see next 2 pics.

		A little dark at the bottom.

		A little light.

		This is the thing you did with dots. I do NOT need the dots - but I love this base color and think it would work for the darkest of the vine leaves on the grape sock.

		Close-up of same yarn with flash - color pretty damn accurate.

		Here are some of my angel-roof experiments for the cuff of Nine Tailors. I didn't try hard for color accuracy - the color I'm using is actually the Cleopatra gold (and that color will be right for this purpose). The smallest angel in the lower right corner is done in leftover ice-cream cone yarn. Ignore the color - that's the size/scale I'm shooting for (it's about 1.75" tall). There'll be a band of these going around the cuff, with emeralds hidden between them.

		This is that quilted stitch done on #3 needles in two colors of Zephyr - I know it looks like red & white but it's actually Cinnabar and Primrose. I should have pinned it out - when it's stretched to its true width it doesn't look quite as good as this. Even so you can see that the real problem with doing it at this gauge with both yarns the same weight is that the white sticks out in the middle of the figure and messes up the illusion.

		Wrong side - not bad looking.

Thumbnails for 2007 club kits
Existing Kits		Future Kits (mystery mockups)
	Cleopatra		Mystery Thumbnails, Plan C
	Cookie's Garden
	The Iceman Cometh
	Turandot

Iceman Cometh - composite photo

Red Vintage Sock
		Yarns and a couple of experimental leaf swatches (promising, but not quite there yet). Colors are quite close to true. (Shadows are a little funky, but that's because I had to do some adjusting - otherwise the red always comes out too yellow and the greens too blue. For this once, trust the yarn colors more than the white of the Priority Mail envelope background!)

		Remember that the Cookie's and Iceman colors here are the ones I used in the prototypes and may not necessarily match the production versions. The two leaf swatches are done in the Iceman yarn, which is more similar to the Celery than I remembered - but the Celery is paler and less yellow, which I think would work that much better. The Packers green is slightly darker than you originally made it, because I overdyed the remnant with a touch of black when I was trying to find the right green for Cookie's Garden. I think for this sock I'd rather go back to something closer to the original - almost a primary green. The bronze/dots - I do NOT need the dots! - but I think the basic color reads really well for the dark olive vine-leaf. (BTW I just noticed there are more pics of it further down the page, from when I showed you the Nine Tailors swatches.) The Cookie's green (also started its life as one of your bronze experiments) is a little more mottled and neutral than what I had in mind for this sock, but it's reasonably close in value. If you look at the sketches you'll see that each version of the sock uses four different greens, and that the ones in the purple sock have more yellow than the ones in the red sock. BTW I'm quite sure that the Claret IS a Garnet-exhaust. I found my little sample skein of Garnet in the same bag - obviously I was making the connection at the time. I don't know how easy it is to contrive a dye-bath that mimics an exhaust-bath, but I hope you can do it, because I really really love this color just as it is.

		Here's the red sock sketch. Color approximations, reading across the first four leaves from top left: 1. Bronze/dots 2. Cookie's Garden Green 3. Celery 4. Packers Of these, #1 and #3 are fine as they are (except that in real life #1 doesn't need to be dotted and I only have about a yard of #3...). #2 and #4 are too dark for the sock (not to mention that #4 is KP, not FlockSock). Actually - another possibility. As a base for #2, maybe it makes more sense to work from the Lime/Kiwi color I used for Iceman - as long as it's dark enough to contrast with the paleness of the Celery. Yardage needed: VERY little. Each color is only used for about 6 leaves per sock (or fewer if the leaves end up being a little bigger than I've drawn them). Can't tell you anything like true yardage without frogging one of my leaf swatches, but figure that all four greens together will amount to about the sixe of one toes-&-heels skein.

		And here's the purple version. See what I mean about the yellow component? These are actually slightly more realistic vine-leaf colors (I think I droppered them from a photo of the real thing), whereas the ones in the red sketch were more subject to, um, artistic license.