So, it’s been about a year since I last dyed yarn. Terribly unhappy with the color for the Iridium sweater, I thought I’d overdye it and see what happens. Sweater quantity of yarn is a LOT OF YARN, and I couldn’t just … toss it or give it away.
I was shooting for a navy-ish color, so I just used blue, with a little black mixed in. I weighed the yarn, and then calculated how much dyestock I’d need to get the shade I would want.
I threw the dye in the pot, gave it a quick stir and then dumped the yarn it. That ‘quick stir’ was a mistake. When you pour dyestock into a pot of water, it doesn’t mix. The color kind of suspends there, which can lead to some really great tonal colors, but I was aiming for a more consistent application of color than what I’ve got.
I also have some Blue Faced Leicester sport weight undyed yarn hanging out in my yarn stash. Drachenfels has been in my knitting queue for almost 2 years, and I bought this yarn to make one. I split the yarn – 70g, 125g and the rest 205g – and dyed it. I was aiming for pink but I added too much blue to the red and now I’ve got this light purple. Happy accident. I like the light purple. The two grays are made from the same dye, just a different ‘depths of shade’ – the light is at 0.5 DOS while the darker… well, I started at 0.75 DOS, but then I poured more dyestock into the pot. I don’t exactly know what DOS I ended up with. Either way, I’m in love with these!
