Dyeing Noro style

I fell in love with a Noro Jacket pattern. It was knitted in garter stitch using alternate double rows of Silk Garden sock yarn. For night after night I searched the net looking for the colours that matched those in the photo in the Noro magazine. I managed to purchase 3 balls of one colourway from Laughing Hens in England but I mismanaged the purchase of the second colourway and finished up with balls that didn't suit the first ones. Grrrrrr.

I was determined to get the colourway I wanted and it was clear I would have to dye it myself. I had several cones of white Perendale yarn that I could use. I carefully wound the first Noro colourway onto my niddynoddy. Next I counted the number of turns for each shade until I reached the end of the first repeat. One repeat was a staggering 100m. Luckily the knitting pattern had a large photo of the back so I could work out the sequence of colours for the colourway I wanted which was:
pale grey       18m
pale mauve   12m
deep mauve  12m
turquoise        8m
deep mauve  12m
pale mauve   12m
dull gold       14m
cream           12m

I knew it was about 25m from one end of our house to the other so I set up, or rather set sideways, a chair at each end to use to wind the yarn. Altogether I wound 800m which amounted to 250g. I put various coloured ties on the skein to indicate the different colours.

 

Then I did some challenging chaining of the sections that were to be dyed the same colour, worked out the colours and did the dyeing. It worked.

 Dryed and dyed skein below

All that remained was to put the yarn back on the two chairs and wind it up. Luckily my friend, Catherine was here to help. It took two of us. One to walk the 800m while winding the yarn on the ball winder and the other to separate the yarn being wound from the rest of the skein as dyeing had very slightly felted the strands together. My only concern was that once the yarn was dyed it looked fatter than the Noro Silk Garden Sock however the two colourways are knitting together well.
You can see one of my dyed complete colourways on the back starting on the left with deep mauve and ending at white.