Lovebird Lane x Louie & Lola - A Special Dye Collaboration

March 04, 2021

When Julieanne, the lovely & talented dyer from Lovebird Lane based in Adelaide, suggested we join forces for a mystery dye-along, my response was an instant 'yes'!  I have long admired Julieanne's talents in the dye pots and knew our dye styles could nicely complement one another.

Both Julieanne and I had enjoyed watching the Voolenvine Yarns x Gynx Yarns dye collaborations on YouTube a few years ago, so we knew it would be a fun, creative challenge to collaborate together in a similar way.

A plan was quickly hatched whereby Julieanne and I both selected a colourway inspiration from our home states and dyed up the 'base' layers of a mystery colourway based upon our respective inspirations.  We then mailed the half-finished skeins off to each other....a total mystery as to what we would each receive.

We agreed that we would both dye up our respective Merino Singles and BFL Sock yarn bases and hold Shop Updates one hour apart from each other with the completed skeins.

SA > TAS

So, what an absolute delight it was to receive Julieanne's skeins featuring gorgeous shades of teal, pink and sand.  She later revealed that her inspiration was this image of the stunning pink salt lake of Lake MacDonnell in South Australia.

Upon receiving Julieanne's beautiful skeins I literally gasped! She had laid down the most blended tones which worked so harmoniously.

But obviously the aim of the collaboration was to then see if we could then add our own little twist and colour pops to each other's base layers, so after some careful consideration I decided I would focus on enhancing the stunning teal tones within the colourway.  

I added two more dye layers, one of teal pigment and the other of a smokey charcoal pigment.  I then randomly applied of navy, dark teal and a little fuschia (you have to be quite restrained with fuschia, else it can take over a colourway!).

After the skeins cooled down and have their final soak, wash and spin, I was thrilled with the completed colourway, as pictured below.

The Lovebird Lane x Louie & Lola: SA > TAS - First Edition colourway will be available in the Louie & Lola Yarns shop at 1pm AEDT / 12.30pm AECT, Friday, 5 March.

TAS > SA

My inspiration for the TAS > SA colourway was the Tasmanian Fagus, a decidous Tasmanian beech tree only found in the highland areas of Tasmania, renowed for its golden displays known as the 'turning of the fagus' every Autumn.  

The image I used as my particular inspiration featured some beautiful smokey, dusky and golden shades in the background that I choose to focus on for the early dye layers.

When I am creating a colourway based off an image I often create a colour palette (using Adobe Photoshop) from the image, which helps me distill down which colours I would like to focus on when designing the colourway (as you can see above).

An image of the yarn in the dye pans after my initial dye layers were applied - before I sent them on to Julieanne.

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Upon receiving my half completed skeins, Julieanne worked her particular brand of colour alchemy by adding some gorgeous warm golden layers, followed by some rich chocolate speckles.  The end result is simply stunning!

The Lovebird Lane x Louie & Lola: TAS > SA - First Edition skeins will be available in the Lovebird Lane shop at 12noon AEDT / 11.20am ACDT on Friday, 5 March 2021.

We have you have enjoyed this little insight into our special collaboration and hope you like our completed colourways.

Cheers,

Karina

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