Coral pinwheel flowers:-)

I've been up in my shed doing a little dyeing of testers and these cute little mini-skeins are the result from yesterday. Yesterday was a coral pink day. Since I've been asked for a skein of coral yarn, I thought I'd investigate and play with this colour - who knew coral pink could have so many tones? I love pink but I tend towards the magenta/purple pinks myself so this was an exploration into pastures new:-) If you type coral pink into google images, you get the full gamut of orangey pinks to pinkier coral tones, from pales to deep rich colourations.

So if you asked me to dye you a coral pink yarn, which tone would you mean?! My first impressions of what colour to dye just widened dramatically!! The world of colour seems to grow the more I really study it - it's fascinating and I'm glad I've moved out of my colour comfort zone to explore a new palette of colour.

I'm loving this rose - look at the tones of pinks and orangey pinks, just lovely. I'm wanting some of these for my garden now - although I didn't think I was a rose girl personally. But then since I've had a garden of my own, I've discovered I tend towards big and blowsy flowers like Dalias and Peonies:-) So this one is very much in keeping - and it's very bright and in your face!!

My first attempt at coral went a lot orangier than I wanted so I overdyed with a pinkier tone to get this deep orangy coral. It matches the heart of the rose perfectly! And it definitely comes under the coral colour umbrella;-) But is it the right tone of coral for my request?

I also dyed a test skein of 100% silk worsted weight using the same dye colour which came out a lovely soft crab pink/coral - you can see it at the bottom of the pinwheel garden pic at the top! But the light failed today as I was photographing so it would be best if I waited to do the yarn justice - it's just so gorgeous and soft with a lovely sheen - yum! Hopefully I can capture it in better light tomorrow.

I used the mini-samples to explore the differing tones of coral, from orange tints to more pinkier tones in a cross range of semi-solids, subtle and strong variegateds. So, now I'm going to knit them up and see how they turn out and maybe they will make it into my shop as a new colourway - we'll have to wait and see.