If you remember, I brought back some amazing Cowichan yarn from BC, knit up some headbands and thought about dying the ivory yarn. I bought some icing dye (because it’s non-toxic and I don’t have to worry about acids and fresh air, and a gas mask and such) and dyed some yarn green and made one headband. I loved the process and seeing how the yarn absorbed the dye and then knitting it up.
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen the process.
I wound up all the yarn I had into skeins and picked my colours. I decided not to dye anything more green and just to focus on the yellow and blue.
The blue looked lovely in the pot- the dye was Cornflower Blue.
While still lovely, when I took the yarn out, I realized there was a lot of purple in the yarn, and not quite the blue I had wanted. After some research, I realized there are some red pigments in blue dye, and while the Cornflower Blue I picked up was beautiful, it’s not one of the ‘true blue’ that some other fibre artists have used. The mini skein had really lovely shades of purple, but the two larger skeins had too many light purple areas. I think this was because I didn’t have a large enough pot for all the yarn so the dye didn’t pick up on all the fibres. I had wanted to dye the large skeins together to give people enough yarn for a larger project, but I then had to dye them again, and did it separately.
too much light purple
I dyed them each again and am so much happier with the results. While each skein had the same amount of water and dye, one is slightly darker than the other. The blue and purple in the yarn reminded me of the deep ocean, so I called this lot Tidalwave.
You can see a slight progression in the darkest the the lightest lot (the mini skein is the lightest)
All the yarn is now up in the Knitley Road shop; the large skeins are 50 yards, and the mini skein is 25 yards. If you do need more than 50 yards, I’d recommend alternating rows of Tidalwave 001 and Tidalwave 002 to blend them in more naturally (the same way you may knit with variegated yarn to avoid colour bunching). This yarn is classified as super bulky, however when I bought it, I was told it could be further spun if you wanted worsted weight (or maybe even more…while I’d love to learn, the last thing I need is another hobby- so no spinning for me!…yet)
I’ve got another colour to share with you, but the weather hasn’t been cooperating and it’s been difficult to find time to take pictures.
Happy Knitting!
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