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.

Tracy White dyes

After our Open Day some keen dyers took part in a 2 day workshop run by Tracy White called Double Dyeing. Here are some photos.

 My samples of alpaca, silk, fleece, yarn and sliver after the first day. Tracy organised the workshop so we all contributed to a colour card which had dyed samples of  each combination of colour the group had used. What I appreciated the most was Tracey's attitude to dyeing. She made sure she used every part of the dye rather than add toxic dye into the ecosystem.

 Samples after day 2.

Gael concentrating on dyeing.

Finished Noro jacket

Interesting design with back shorter than front

 It's taken me a while to get these photos onto my blog. Way back last July I dyed some commercial Perendale yarn as one of the colourways for this Noro jacket. It was a massively long skein to dye - 300 metres in total. Together with the Noro colourway I had bought from Laughing Hens in England I made the jacket. I love the way the colours move across the garment and the way the short rows influence the shaping.

Brilliant design with short rows

Rows become vertical on the back

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.

 

Fractal waistcoat

Here is the finished waistcoat. The superwash Polwarth was soft and springy. My grandson loved the colours and the teddybear buttons.

 

Here is Sam wearing it. He looks more than happy.

 

I liked the way the bands of colour showed in the knitting.

 

Fractal spinning

Last year I spun and knitted a hoodie for my 2 year old grandson. It looked great but was a bit scratchy. I'd used a Romney fleece and spun it with too much twist.

Top down knitted hoodie

He looks happy enough in it here

So this year I am determined to make him a garment that is soft and gentle on his skin. I've chosen superwash Polwarth to spin and I shall include yellow in the dyeing as that is his favourite colour.

I painted the dye onto the sliver in bands of red, orange, yellow and brown. Altogether there were 12 metres of sliver with 8 repeats of the colours. I steamed the sliver for about 40 minutes.

I wanted to use fractal spinning for the yarn for this project. To prepare the dyed sliver I split each set of the 4 colours in half lengthwise. One half I split further into 4 equal portions.

One of the eighths being dizzed.

 I spun the halves one after another onto one bobbin (right one in the photo). The eigths were spun onto a second bobbin (left). I used a worsted spinning style. When the yarn is knitted I should see bands of colour and within each band, for example the red band, there will be red with red, red with orange, red with yellow and red with brown.

Closeup of the yarn

200 g of glorious yarn