I spent last weekend in the dye studio creating some new repeatable colorways. They’re still drying, but pictures will be coming soon.
Just as a teaser, here are pics of the full rack– 84 skeins in total!!
LaLaine
I also dyed a new yarn base – LaLaine — 100% BFL superwash wool. Soft yet durable, and takes up dyes beautifully! I am in love with this stuff!
Jasmin
Ruby’s Slippers
Lichen
Raspberry Spritzer
Velvet Underground
Wuthering Heights
Campfire
Mermaid Tresses
Roasted Walnuts
Roadkill
A giant leap for me
I just delivered my first batch of yarn to Beth’s shop — Les Lainages du Petit Mouton in the Pointe Claire plaza. Not quite a leap forward for mankind, but definitely a big leap forward in my dyeing. I’m so proud of these yarns, and love each one. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
Before I brought them to the store, I took some photos, so let me present:
Pink Peony
Autumn Leaves
Jasmin
Blue Sea Lake
Roadkill
The making of…
I knew that when I started dyeing “for real” that I’d want to be able to make repeatable colorways.
Before I embarked on anything too monumental, I wanted to make sure that I could get back some of the colors that I’d used, and decided to start with some samples.
I decided that I needed a little sample booklet with the colors that I had. Jenn came over to help, well, she didn’t know she was helping… She needed some custom yarn for a submission to a magazine, so at the same time she helped me make up my sample booklet. It did take longer than anticipated (thanks again!!) but in the end it was worth it.
I made a 1% solution of each colour I have, did a swatch of the colour by itself then started mixing up the colours to see how they could blend. You can see the little plastic tags attached to each sample. Each tag has a number, which corresponded to the list of the actual colours.
I have to say — it was a load of fun to do this, and now I have a booklet with about 100 samples that I can use to make up the colors for the yarns.
Ugly duckling
Just a thought..the green absinthe coloured yarn made the most gorgeous socks that have been my raves for the last 2 years.
I’d post a pic, but they’re in the laundry. Hooray for super wash.
The aftermath
After the dyeing, I did the winding and the swatching.I will let the photos speak for themselves.
First Yarns
These are the yarns that I dyed at Gillians — the yarns that created a monster.
Chocolate Cherry
Van Gogh green (one of the greens was called Absinthe)
Cottage Sunset (this was the first one that I’d dyed so the colors aren’t quite what I had envisioned) It’s a learning experience yarn 🙂
It all started here…
In April of 2008, another member of the Montreal Knitting Guild — the lovely Gillian — invited Jenn and I to come to her house to do some dyeing. I had bought some undyed sock yarn about a year before and had wanted to start playing with color.
She had some silk dyes, that also work well on wool, so we started getting our yarns ready.
We lined up the skeins and prepared to dye them. Some of the colors were mixed already (Gillian had gotten them from a friend who had already done some color experimentation). Since the dyes didn’t quite always give you exactly the color of the liquid, we needed to trust in the process and hope for the best.
After we’d colored up our yarns, they were wrapped in saran wrap and microwaved for a few minutes to set the dye. The colors didn’t change much in the process, but some did intensify. After the first batch was done, we saw the final (though still wet) colors and were able to pick and chose the ones we liked best for our second skeins.
I ended up making three skeins of sock yarn and love them all. I made a pair of socks from one of them, and have ideas for the other two.
That day created a monster. I wanted to dye more and more, and kept seeing photos, CD covers and other items in real life and just wanted to use the color combinations I saw to dye more yarn.
The next post will show pictures of the skeins that were dyed.
Distinct Fibers 
