Dying Experiment

For my last four ounces of Cotswold, I wanted to try something different. I had liked the way the center-pull ball plying worked, and had done some interesting dying with a bit of my Bella Wool, and wanted to try combining the two.

In the Blue

With the Bella Wool, I spun the yarn, skeined it, and dyed it wrapped as a skein. I got some interesting results. The outside of the skein was covered nicely with the green, but when I opened it, I saw some interesting pockets of white where my tight twisting had kept the dye from reaching. It created a nice tonal effect that I liked and wanted to try again.

Second Blue Dying

With the Cotswold, I had a plan, or at least an idea of what I wanted to do. I realized that as you wind the yarn around the spindle of your spindle, you are creating a center-pull ball. Once I was done with my singles, I just slipped the whole cone off my spindle and soaked it for a while to help the dye penetrate farther.

The overall goal was to get a three color yarn dyed with two colors, you know because blue and red make purple. I decided that I wanted to use what I had done with my green Bella Wool and use those blank spots to reserve space for to second color. So I stuck my cone of singles into a pot of blue.

Final Blue Coloring

I figured that the dye wouldn't reach all the way to the middle, but since the center had been around the spindle there would be some coloring there as well as from the outside. As I started plying I found this was not the case (by the way, don't ever ply wet yarn; I was a bit too anxious to get this project done and tried it...it ate the finish my spindle). The outside and the tips dyed nicely, but the inside was just too dense (maybe next time I'll wind it around something thicker first and then dye it). So as I was plying, I decided to put the yarn back in the dye as the initial dying hadn't exhausted the bath. This gave me blue throughout the remainder of my yarn as the cone was much smaller and less dense due to plying from the center as well.

Skeined for Red Dying

In the Red, I did turn it over half way through

Once this was complete and the yarn all plied, I moved onto the red. Here I did exactly what I had done with the Bella Wool. I wound a skein and put it in the dye. But I forgot that with the Bella Wool, I had about 50 yards and now I had over 100. The outside dyed beautifully and did just what I wanted, but the inside was virtually untouched by the red...I could have re-twisted it and tried again, but honestly, it was around 11:00 and I was ready to be done with it all.  Plus I did want to preserve some of the plain blue.

Final Color, this skein doesn't photograph well...

Who knows, maybe I will redye the red before I use it, but as it is now, I have blue-red-purple-natural (there were some spots that just never got dyed, and I'm ok with that) through the outer half or so of the yarn and the inside is just blue and natural. Though I am still debating if I don't want to just wait and see how it knits as you can always dye knit fabric as well as yarn, but I can't fight the feeling that if I made a scarf or something (not what this yarn is intended for, but you get the idea) that it would end up half red and half natural...We'll see I guess. I'm not ready to use this yarn yet, so I have some time to think about it.