photo from archives: Knitting In Nature
Moss is the most complicated color in nature that I can think of. Here in the mountains of Northern California, it is dormant through the dry season (most of the year if not half) during which it shrivels and turns an olive green to brown color. When the rains come, it is fat full of water, it glistens with nearly neon golden tips and has every shade of green present, plus a few other colors in there too …
photo from archives: Fog & Moss
I could never really quite figure out if real moss in nature is a warm or cool green, so I figure I’d just layer and layer and layer the colors until it seemed right, improvising as I went along …
which spun up to be as complex of a green in yarn form as I thought it should be …
but I do think in hindsight I should have added more dark green, which I didn’t have any of, so if I did, I would have added in the greens.
Anyway, this is how I did my ” moss “…
♣ ♣ ♣
Techy stuff for Moss…
- Began with Primary & Secondary Neutral recipe using approx 2.5g each of green, purple, and orange, blue, red, and yellow, (or alternately 5g each of primary or secondary triad colors) blended thoroughly on blending board (see Blending For Tweed Simplified)
- Lift color saturated neutral batt, layer alternately with 5g each of grass green, leaf green, and olive green.
- Lift batt, layer alternately again with 5g each of grass green and mustard yellow.
- Lift batt, layer alternately again with 5g each of grass green and mallard teal. (I think next time I will blend in more Mallard teal, perhaps along with the yellow in previous step).
- Layer again on blending board and draw off rolags.
- Improvement for next time: Add more mallard (teal) with yellow, as well as a dark green.
- Colorway blend: ” Moss” .
- See ALL color blending experiments & recipes archived in Tweed Chronicles
Jenjoyce Design 
Amazing. The whole of Donegal ain’t got nothin’ on you. You are re-inventing Tweed, it would seem. I’m pretty proud of you, ya know. ♡
I love that you think so!
I love moss and lichen, they amaze me. Your latest tweed is beautiful Jen 🙂
Thanks so much ~~ this shade is definitely one of my better ones I think.
Yes! Well Done! I love that you included the golds and russets to crimson that are hidden down in the moss. I actually used to own a tweed shooting jacket that was this color.
I want an old tweed jacket like that!
Ya, me TOO. One of those bad purging decisions. It was vintage as well. Boo.
Well fortunately with the internet these days, Ebay and such, you could probably find the exact same one.
Interesting color! I guess I wouldn’t have added hardly any of the blue or bright red. I don’t know, I guess I would have used what I got out of my dyepots instead.
I did some batches last year of Juniper green, using the brand Wash Fast Acid Dyes. It’s sold by Yarn Barn http://www.yarnbarn-ks.com on thier website. You can use ascorbic acid powder that you mix up to the correct strength or white vinegar to set the dye and you mix up the dye solution thoroughly in warm water before adding the fiber or yarn and then heat it it up slowly until it steams a bit.
The first time I got great even color but it was Kelly green. The purple/reddish part was separated and sitting on top of the dyebath. It would not mix in.
Subsequent batches gave me a wierd mix of Kelly green with odd purplish/reddish and yellowish splotches. When I blended those together on my combs I got something much closed to Juniper green. But I still don’t know why the dye solution separated.
Interesting, but very odd.