This summer I had a visit with my new grandson, who is five months old in this photo. 
One of the fascinations with babies is watching how they grow and develop. I am aware of the research that shows babies’ fascination with black and white patterning, and so I included a lot of that in the baby quilt I made him.
Henry is entranced with objects, trying to manipulate them and grasp them. He engages with everything black and white, but particularly with eyes. He shows an amazing amount of focus for such a little one, engaging for 20 minutes or more. I don’t recall my sons doing that, but maybe the reason is when they were focusing on something, I was focusing on something else!
Lately I have had a similar focus on black and white myself. This spring, the dye houses discontinued several favorite black dye mixtures because the manufacturers stopped making a component. Ripples went through the dye lists as people sighed because all their samples and mixes with those colors are now out the window.
As a color mixer, I love to mix my own custom black dyes, so this announcement was a very small blip on my radar screen. I have been dyeing a neutral black – one that gradates to neutral gray – for years. However, one area of fascination for me is a wide range of blacks, some of which are neutral, and some of which are chromatic – with a color leaning – when dyed in gradation.
These custom mixes are fascinating because they all discharge differently as well.
So I am super excited to announce my newest class, Neutral Territory: 50 Shades of Gray + 50 Shades of Brown, premiering at Nancy Crow’s Timber Frame Barn in Ohio next May. I am super excited about this class! We are going to make a veritable library of black and tan mixes, and see how they discharge as well! Registrations are already coming in!
