Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Dying Sock Yarn...Not as easy as it looks.

I went to Olds Fibre Week this past weekend and took a two day class in painting yarn.

I came home with samples, experimental mini-skeins and yarn.This is my sock yarn. I dyed Superwash. I dyed a merino,bamboo, nylon blend. I also experimented with a merino seacell blend.

They need to be over-dyed. I like the colours. I don't like the white spots.

But, unlike my normal experiments, I kept notes. I know which colours I used. I also have my samples to refer to. It should be easy to fix the skeins.
Please refrain from laughing until I leave the room.


These were my mini-skeins. I used the same yarns and dyed them with two different types of yarn. The yarns were blends and I now have record of how the dyes work with the yarns.




This is a hemp cotton lace-weight. I did not loose my mind completely and think that this would be a pretty colour. It is not the colour I thought it was going to be. It was supposed to be green. Lime green, but still green. The turquoise washed out and I was left with a colour that is reminiscent of my last round of stomach flu.

It will be over-dyed.

It was a fun weekend and I came home with a whole new appreciation of the talents of dyers. It's not as easy as it looks.

2 comments:

Mikki Rhodes-Gloor said...

wait, before you overdye, contact me. Hubster likes the color (gasp) and wants a hat out of it. Maybe we can work something out?

Shell said...

I would try swatching some of the colours that you dyed. I've found that sometimes it looks like nothing until you knit with it.