Both of the schooner projects were hooked using "Ganache" for the rope; a fabulous caramel hue that gives an aged patina you’d see in old rope. This dye formula hasn't made it into any of our dye books so I'm sharing it with you below. For my stair risers I’ve used our new formula “Straw” from our dye book, DYE ME TO THE MOON, a bit brighter considering the risers are in the shadow of the tread end and I wanted them to stand out as much as possible.
Ganache (Using Majic Carpet Dyes) 1/4 tsp Yellow 1/16 tsp Chocolate Brown 1/16 tsp Seal Brown For a 3 Value swatch, mix in 2 cups of boiling water, pour off 1/3 for the lightest value, 2/3 for the medium value and the 1 cup remaining for the darkest value. For 6 Values use 1/2 cup replacement method. This recipe makes around 7-8 sets of 3" x 11" size pieces, so you would have to alter the formula by dividing it in half for 4 sets and again for 2 sets. | The first thing you will assess is where you want your light source to come from. One side of the rope will be the shadow side and that will be consistent throughout the entire length. Usually the darker side is best put on the outer edge of the rope but it would depend on your design and what elements are in it. For example if you are hooking something with a sun, then your shadow on the rope would be at the farthest point away. I always like my borders to be darker than my center colours and the shadow on the outer edge will help for the eye to detect the graduating darker edge and flow from the darkest to the lightest bits from the outside to the center. The values run from dark to light, 6th value being the darkest. The first line hooked is the 6th value and runs along the inside bottom of the curve of the rope. It starts under the rope segment before it and all the way to the bottom where it joins with the next segment in the line. Now hook the 5th in the same way. When hooking the 4th value don't take it directly to the bottom, stop short a few loops which will allow the lighter values #3, #2 and #1 to be on the outside of the curve and act as the highlight. |