I have quite a bit of dyeing to do…with these various projects, so I decided I’d better be a little more organized about my requirements. This is an area I haven’t worried about until now…for the hall rugs, I just kept dyeing more wool as I needed it. However, I found, with the change of water, that in a different season, I couldn’t duplicate some colours, and I’ve been advised by Linda Sullivan, the teacher for Trent, to do all my dyeing for Hygieia  now. That means I have to figure out in advance, how much of each colour I may need. 

I’m quite a ‘low’ hooker…that is ….I don’t pull my loops very high. I think 4x coverage should be fine, but I wouldn’t want to run out, so I’ll be very generous when estimating the amounts needed. To date I have dyed 2 yards of red, and 1 yard of gold. (not counting the pancake dyed wool, or the red houndstooth)

I laid out the wool roughly on the pattern to see what it should cover.

I’ve dyed enough to cover this much. 1 1/2 yards more of red will probably suffice, but I’ll do 2 yards to allow plenty, and freedom to choose the variations I want.

By folding a strip of the gold in 4’s, and  lying it along the shape of the snake, I estimate it will take about 1/2 yard to do it.

1/8th yard will easily complete each circle, and there are 10 of them ..so that would be 1 1/4 yd’s, plus all the small gold ovals, which should easily be completed with 3/4 yd…making a total of 2 yards gold required, but I’ll probably do at least a total of 2 1/2 yards of gold. I’ll follow the same process, when I decide the colours I want for the flesh, and the background etc. I also need an outlining colour. At this point I’m thinking of using a very dark mahogany …but I need to see what it looks like before I decide.