Decisions and Calculations

I've decided that for my crochet mandala cushion, I'm going to use Janie Crow's Lily Pond Flower for the centre and Dedri Uys's Sophie's Mandala outside that. I hope I can integrate the two successfully.

I finished spinning cotton for the project but had absolutely no idea how much of each colour to dye. I crocheted 10 trebles, undid them, measured the thread and then used that as a basis. Eventually I decided to make each skein 10 times round the niddy noddy for both the handspun and the commercial cotton. That was simpler than working out a different length for each colour. Then I got out my dye pot (an old coffee tin!) and dyed the little skeins. Where the colours are related, I could dye them together - put one skein in to absorb most dye, then add another that comes out paler, and then a third. It worked excellently for the blues, but the pink shades are a bit closer than I intended.

Now to begin.