the Soxophone Player

Here’s two new colours from the dye pot.

On the left, Chocolate Brown – I’d call it a Dark Chocolate – dyed at full strength.

And on the right, Sky Blue. This batch I dyed at a medium strength.

The yarn is my own 75/25 Wool/Nylon fingering weight.

There’s very little variegation in these two batches, which is more easily attained working in small batches – 6 skeins in a 20 gallon pot.

As a general rule, I find that using a dye at full strength give the best ‘solid’ result. Lowest, pale values, I find more difficult – especially if the total amount of dye is under 1 tsp.

As another general rule, I prefer some degree of variegation in the uni colours – its what often distinguishes them as home dyed. But sometimes I like a change!

I did do something different with these two batches – I used Ammonium Sulphate as my mordant, instead of my usual Citric Acid.  The former is allegedly more suitable for getting a pastel-ish hue. (I can’t tell the difference!)

Here’s a pair of socks:

These are a size Medium, knit with the 54 needle cylinder on the Legare 400. The pattern is one I made up for some Harry Potter socks, just in different colours.

Shhhh.

I’m working on a secret project.

This is a blend I don’t use too often, but had spun as a special order a while back: 60% Alpaca, 20% Nylon and 20% my Wool. Its a fingering weight.  Some of the blended cones run to a browny-tan,  such as above, and others were blended with a greyer-tan.

To go with the tan I need: Brick Red, Cranberry and National Blue. I don’t need more Brick than the other two colours, but this is just how it worked winding off a cone.

But there’s no sense firing up the dye pot for a 100 g skein or a 50 g skein, so I dyed up some of my 75/25 Wool/Nylon while I was at it. I’m sure it will go to good use!

Of course for now it is sitting on top of my Ginger-Pile waiting to be re-wound.

And here’s something you won’t catch me saying too often – the colours (on my screen) are unaltered and are almost exactly as true.

Go figure!

Here’s some sock yarn off the drying rack.

It’s been so hot and humid here that my dyed yarn is taking forever to dry.

This is 3 batches of Bright Orange (washfast acid dye) on my own 75/25 wool/nylon fingering weight, and dyed at three different values between full strength and 1/8th strength.

Mmmm. Ginger socks!

I dyed up three batches of my own 75/25 fingering weight wool/nylon in three different values of  washfast acid dye Bright Orange.

And here’s the first pair of socks from this monochrome theme:

These Ginger Snaps are size Large, knit with the 72 cylinder on the Verdun 47.

Here are three more batches from the dye pot.  These are all 100% superwash Merino. My skeins are ~400 yds and these are running around 130 grams.

This first batch is colour Lobster Bisque. It is gently variegated and the colour on my screen is a little pinker than reality. I find it actually to be closer to flesh (as in high school biology book flesh).

This batch is Tan. It’s not what I was expecting, but I like the colour – its got a bronzy-gold thing going on – and I think it will work in the set of colours I’m preparing.

And this last batch, I’ll call Pewter.  The dye is actually Mouse Grey done at half strength, but I think it really looks Pewter. The variegation is ‘gentle and a half’ which gives it a real sense of depth.

That’s the last of my un-dyed Merino stash. I still haven’t recollected why I got it in the first place, and that’s just as well now that I’ve dyed it up to different purpose. I tried to select 7 colours for my series that will work well with each other in some kind of sock binge.

Here’s another batch of Merino sock yarn from the dye room.

This washfast acid dye colour is Grasshopper. While it looks like yellow, its definitely towards the green end of yellow’s spectrum.

Tidying up my stash I discovered a few cones of un-dyed Merino I forgot I had.  I needed this for a special project.

I have no idea what that project was! Socks, no doubt, as its a superwash fingering weight. But beyond that, who knows.  No matter, I’m dying it to fill a void in my ‘man colours’ stash, and I have a few new colour shades to try out.

Here are my first batches:

This first batch is Jet Black. I used a whopping 9 tsp of Wash Fast Acid Dye for 2 lbs of yarn. I wanted a really solid black and thus applied the dye at full strength. I’m very pleased with the results. Superwash yarn can be fussy in the dye pot, but there was no fussin’ about with this strength of dye bath. The colour is very level/even and the jet black on the merino is velvety smooth and rich.  Hopefully the superb colour will compensate for the pure torture that awaits me in knitting tiny jet black stitches on the sock machine!

This batch is Charcoal Grey. Dyed at about 2/3 strength it is almost black, but a matte charcoal black with variegated with charcoal grey undertones.

And this batch is Twilight Blue. Its a deep, rich blue, lightly variegated. The colour is deeper than it appears on my computer screen, and closer to its namesake.

The yarn runs about 133 grams for 400 yards. It’s 100% superwash merino.

No doubt I’ll remember what I wanted this yarn for as soon as I finish dyeing it for something else…