Rainbow schnoodle

HGA task 20: Weave a color blanket, minimum size of 12 inches by 12 inches, in balanced plain weave, incorporating no fewer than twelve hues of the colour wheel. Warp colors are to be repeated in the weft in the same proportions, at least one inch per color. Show the yarn colors by finishing with fringe.

Here the challenge is not the weave structure, but where to get one’s hands on yarn in the 12 colours of the colour wheel. It proved impossible to buy cotton yarn in these colours in the UK. I toyed with the idea of dyeing it myself, but I’m only set up for acid dying on protein fibres and would have to do it in silk, or a silk-merino blend that I can get in bulk skeins. I dye loads of silk for repp rugs and other projects, but committing 12 hundred-gram skeins of silk to this small project seemed excessive. Lunatic Fringe came to the rescue. They sell colour gamp kits just for this purpose, and they were able to expedite shipping to me during my recent trip to the US.

I suspect that 99% of people, upon receiving a box from Lunatic Fringe, arrange the magnificent colours into a giant fruit loop. The dog decided to help.

As my friend the sculptor Henriëtte van 't Hoog says, 'een regenboog is nooit leuk' (loosely translated: rainbows are stupid and should be avoided in design). The dog agreed and mixed up the colours some more.

He clung to the yellows and attempted an extended complementary scheme with blue-purple and the oranges.

He became a constellation defined by points of coloured light.