The pillow project is still underway. No actual knitting has occured beyond the initial swatch though. My first impression was that I just didn't feel like I could do the whole project from the three wee charts in Rutt's book, so I've been taking them and putting them in Excel. This is looking like a good choice. Mucking around with how it's supposed to look and counting of every block means I'm that much more familiar with the pattern before I even take up needles, and I can make lots of mistakes first where they're incredibly easy to fix en masse. Like, for example, noticing that the border pattern is set up so the "pointy side" always points in, so I need to think about three other orientations for it.
I've almost finished the eagles/fleurs side, though I should go back and adjust head directions, and I've started the chrysanthemum/castles side, which is already proving to be a pain since it seems like some of the sections are biggest than others in ways that somehow don't impact the pieces below it. I doubt this is actually the case, but I haven't figured out what's causing it, so I will presumably continue to bang my head against it for a while. Woo.
About the time I was reaching maximum frustration with clicking on little boxes, I took a break and made a few steps in the color department. I could buy what looks like the right colored yarn and be done with it, but I have white silk in the proper gauge on hand (20/2 weaving yarn), and I have a good variety of dyestuffs that ought to get used. So on Sunday afternoon, I grabbed as many onion skins as I could fit into our biggest regular pot, soaked and heated them for 45 minutes, strained off the liquid and then soaked about 100 yds of silk in it for 15-20 minutes. According to the books it should give a clear yellow, but the liquid was quite orange and previous results have also been orange, so I wasn't surprised to get a lovely reddish yellow brown.
The funny thing is that according to the Piecework picture, it's actually a pretty good match for the background color, so now I need to make another attempt at a clear yellow. Weirdly, I don't know that I have any yellow dyes on hand except for the Jacquard acid dyes we used for the copes. I haven't decided what I'm doing about that.
Semi-related is that I finally read the saffron section in the Scottish dye book, and they say it was unlikely at best that the Scots actually used saffron to dye their "saffron shirts", at least not exclusively, with the possible exception of a short period in the 1500s. Not sure what this is going to do for my WW plans. It may just encourage me to go with a pale linen and not mess around with yellows that neither flatter my complexion nor showcase my group's heraldry.
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