Shades of grey

I've spun enough dark charcoal grey merino with white silk and white merino and silk to make a sweater but to me the white and charcoal were too eyepopping for the design I had chosen. So I decided to dye the white in shades of grey. After Tracy's course I had enough confidence to try repeat dyeing. My test skein (the top one) used from left no dye, black dye at 0.2%, 0.02%, no dye, black at 1%, 0.1%. The 1% was too dark - I felt it didn't have enough contrast with my other yarn, the dark charcoal.

I opted for no dye, 0.02%, 0.1%, 0.2%, 0.1%, 0.02%, and no dye. I put markers on the bench to show the length to paint each dye. With a large sheet of plastic over the markers, I lay out my cling film and started applying the dye. I"m thrilled with the result. It's what I wanted and each dyed skein is similar to the others. There is no felting and no runover of dye.

I did some other dyeing too and kept all the water I'd used to rinse the brush and the containers. At the finish I tipped this rinse water into the dyepot, added some fleece. This gave me a lovely soft mauve. Previously I would have thrown the rinse water onto the grass. Thank you Tracy.

Here's the two yarns knitted together. You can see the subtle gradations of the dyed yarn.