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A Spinner’s Take on Pantone’s Color of the Year: Viva Magenta
Experiment with natural or acid dyes to re-create this vibrant hue by dyeing your own version.
The Pantone color of the year for 2023 is Viva Magenta. What a fabulous, bold color that’s perfect for a zip of color in a project, or, if you are brave, the entire project! What if you wanted to re-create this vibrant hue by dyeing your own version?
I don’t own a book of Pantone swatches, and I’m guessing you don’t either. You can print a color swatch from the Pantone website, but keep in mind that you will be at the mercy of your printer algorithm, the condition of the print cartridge, and the brightness of the paper you print on. I would encourage you to take a look around the Pantone website and choose your favorite image and match to that. I found them all to be a bit different. This is not terribly surprising because there is some leeway with hue in commercial matches. I used to perform commercial color matching in my early career. The fact is, most manufacturers are faced with many process variables and zeroing in on that machine-perfect match is prohibitively expensive.
Knowing this, why not go with your own version? It’s not like another spinner is going to run up to you at a fiber festival holding up their Pantone swatch and declare your work to be incorrect! Find your version of Viva Magenta, and make it your own.
I decided to do just that and explore Viva Magenta using both natural dyes and washfast acid dyes. The approach I use for this kind of exploration is based on creating reproducible color formulas using very small amounts of dye and fiber. My article “Find Your Colors! Road Map to Repeatable Dyes” was published in Spin Off Spring 2021 (current magazine subscribers can login below to get a downloadable version of the article).
Terry detailed her straightforward approach to creating dye formulas in her article “Find Your Colors! Road Map to Repeatable Dyes." Current Spin Off magazine subscribers will find the full article PDF below.
This Magenta or That Magenta?
To begin this process of color exploration, I first needed to choose a place to start with color mixes, and this was based on my own observations and color-recipe notebooks. I also needed to choose several fiber bases to dye, since the color of the yarn or fiber will affect the final hue. I selected three different yarns: a white Polwarth silk (WPS), a cream-colored East Friesian (CEF), and a light-gray Shetland (LGS).
After looking at my dye notebooks, I chose to start the acid-dye samples using a cool red (polar red, P) and warm yellow (gold, G). As I began dyeing, I also tried three samples replacing the warm yellow with the cool yellow (yellow, Y). I dyed my samples using 1% stock solutions at 1% depth of shade.
In the three images below, you can see my finished acid-dye sample results with three different Viva Magenta photos for comparison. Though the sample cards are the same, you can see the range of color possibilities with the background images from the Pantone website.
Acid-dye sample results with three different Viva Magenta photos
A Natural Dye Version
For the natural dye version, I chose cochineal at roughly the same depth of shade. I added 6% weight of fiber (WOF) of cream of tartar (CoT) to push the hue toward a more yellow direction.
The Pantone color of the year for 2023 is Viva Magenta. What a fabulous, bold color that’s perfect for a zip of color in a project, or, if you are brave, the entire project! What if you wanted to re-create this vibrant hue by dyeing your own version?
I don’t own a book of Pantone swatches, and I’m guessing you don’t either. You can print a color swatch from the Pantone website, but keep in mind that you will be at the mercy of your printer algorithm, the condition of the print cartridge, and the brightness of the paper you print on. I would encourage you to take a look around the Pantone website and choose your favorite image and match to that. I found them all to be a bit different. This is not terribly surprising because there is some leeway with hue in commercial matches. I used to perform commercial color matching in my early career. The fact is, most manufacturers are faced with many process variables and zeroing in on that machine-perfect match is prohibitively expensive.
Knowing this, why not go with your own version? It’s not like another spinner is going to run up to you at a fiber festival holding up their Pantone swatch and declare your work to be incorrect! Find your version of Viva Magenta, and make it your own.
I decided to do just that and explore Viva Magenta using both natural dyes and washfast acid dyes. The approach I use for this kind of exploration is based on creating reproducible color formulas using very small amounts of dye and fiber. My article “Find Your Colors! Road Map to Repeatable Dyes” was published in Spin Off Spring 2021 (current magazine subscribers can login below to get a downloadable version of the article).
Terry detailed her straightforward approach to creating dye formulas in her article “Find Your Colors! Road Map to Repeatable Dyes." Current Spin Off magazine subscribers will find the full article PDF below.
This Magenta or That Magenta?
To begin this process of color exploration, I first needed to choose a place to start with color mixes, and this was based on my own observations and color-recipe notebooks. I also needed to choose several fiber bases to dye, since the color of the yarn or fiber will affect the final hue. I selected three different yarns: a white Polwarth silk (WPS), a cream-colored East Friesian (CEF), and a light-gray Shetland (LGS).
After looking at my dye notebooks, I chose to start the acid-dye samples using a cool red (polar red, P) and warm yellow (gold, G). As I began dyeing, I also tried three samples replacing the warm yellow with the cool yellow (yellow, Y). I dyed my samples using 1% stock solutions at 1% depth of shade.
In the three images below, you can see my finished acid-dye sample results with three different Viva Magenta photos for comparison. Though the sample cards are the same, you can see the range of color possibilities with the background images from the Pantone website.
Acid-dye sample results with three different Viva Magenta photos
A Natural Dye Version
For the natural dye version, I chose cochineal at roughly the same depth of shade. I added 6% weight of fiber (WOF) of cream of tartar (CoT) to push the hue toward a more yellow direction. [PAYWALL]I knew to do this from experience with my well water. Your water source and its mineral content can affect natural dye results. The samples were mordanted with a 15% alum solution before dyeing.
Swatch showing the three different yarns before dyeing, plus the natural-dye results
Once dry, I compared my samples. I was surprised that some samples looked better with one image than the other two. The three images contained different depth of shade and slight hue variations. The cochineal was still too blue. I added weld at 1% depth of shade and the results were much improved.
The 50/50 PY was too bright, as was the 50/50 PG. I thought the PG hue was closest but needed just a whisper of blue. So I added 0.25% depth of shade of blue and you can see from my photograph it was too much. When you need to add just a whisper of a color, it can get tricky. Bracketing will help.
Your monitor or iPad screen will likely show these hues differently. That is why it’s okay to choose for yourself the version of Viva Magenta you like best!
Find Your Colors PDF Download
Click here to get the PDF download of "Find Your Colors! Road Map to Repeatable Dyes."
Resources
Terry Mattison learned color theory and all about undertones the hard way: through a career in the paper industry. Terry matched color on a fast-running paper machine; it was trial by fire! Now she enjoys matching color and dyeing at a more sedate pace using both synthetic and natural dyes. Find her on Ravelry and Instagram as magpiedyestudio.
