Dyeing Gone Kaput . . .

Robin and Friends,
In anticipation of knitting a shawl with the Mystery Shawl Along 2 group, this past weekend I dyed some merino lace yarn, Regina from Grignasco (a very old purchase). The yarn was originally a cream color, and anyone who knows me knows I am a klutz. Sigh, alas, any clothing in light colors gets dirty sooner (usually) or later. So, I decided to dye the yarn. Only, how to dye it?

I consulted with Robin, who is very busy right now with school and kindergartners. She and I discussed rainbow dyeing the yarn, wrapping the yarn, and then steaming it. No, I thought the colors would be too strong. My goal was a lovely subtle hued blue and pale lavender yarn. Note the word "goal" in that sentence. We discussed diffuse dyeing in the pot and decided that would work best.

The previous night I had wound the two part skein into a single long skein, much to my husband's amusement. How many boxes does it take to get a longer length than my niddy noddy? Well, apparently quite a few. I was quite amusing. Just ask my hubby. Sigh, the things we do for our craft. I have since decided that I should just break down and invest in a third, yes, I said third, niddy noddy. I decided the niddy noddy from NKK (Nancy's Knit Knacks) would work well as it is adjustable from 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 yds, but you also can use it to make a 27 inch sample, so that is in my future plans. But back to my dyeing session or would that be sessions!

Alright, I had the yarn in the pot (left picture) and I added my dyes (right picture). But I didn't see much color difference and I didn't like the streaking that was happening. I know I had some lavender in there, some light blue, and some darker blue, but do you see that? Not really, just the light and darker blue!

Unhappy with the colors and the streaking, I threw in some more blue dye, so now I was pot dyeing, no longer diffuse dyeing. Oh well, that's life. So, what does the yarn look like. Well, while dyeing I also learned to mix the dyes well. And I mean, don't just shake for a minute, shake several minutes. Let the dye settle and shake again because some reddish/purple came out in a blob and left my yarn a bit more pinkish purple in one section. You can see my mistake near the second tie from the top. And no, you can't dye over that to get rid of it. At least not and have a yarn light enough to see a lace pattern. I still have my doubts about the color of the yarn and what lace will look like, but we'll see as we knit.

Do you see the streaks still in the yarn, or the white areas where the ties are? I do. Do I like the yarn? Not sure. I have a hypothesis about those white tie areas. The ties weren't tight, so what happened. I had two different types of ties on there, two ties were wool and two ties were cotton. The area near the cotton didn't get dyed, but the area near the wool ties did dye. Is there a correlation? All I know is no more cotton ties for me, unless dyeing cotton!

I also learned that although I love using this method of dyeing for roving, I don't enjoy the results for yarn. If I want yarn dyed in subtle colors, I will rainbow dye it in the future.

This weekend I also dyed some mohair locks to make some boucle yarn. I love the colors, except for the salmon colored locks. Those locks won't go with the yarn I am planning, but they can be used in another project.
Stay tuned for the finished boucle yarn. Hopefully worked up this weekend, but we'll see. Happy fibering everyone!