A while ago, I’d invited my former colleague Karen out to do some yarn dyeing. We picked out some yarn (a DK zebra yarn and two merino sock weight yarns) and set those soaking. Then we needed to decide on some colours. We’d early on decided that it was mostly about playing, we wouldn’t be able to fully predict the outcome so it was mostly about seeing what would happen. The plan for Karen’s sock yarn was to make it half blue and half terracotta coloured, possibly with some speckles over the top. The terracotta was made by combining orange and brown dye and letting about half the yarn sit in that while the other half was coiled on some metal objects in the pan. It worked remarkably well and I was in love with the colour. We then put blue dye in the pot and put the other half in the dye. I look forward to seeing what it will end up being!
For the zebra, we used some blue dye stock and then added magenta and violet speckles over the top. The yarn already has partial strands of black in it, hence the name ‘zebra yarn’. We weren’t sure at all how this would turn out, but it was really quite nice. I decided to ball it up and start knitting a thin scarf. I first tried December is for Stephanie by Lorena Haldeman, but then switched to a modified January is for Karen by Lorena Haldeman. The name was pure coincidence but I did appreciate it a lot. In contrast to the original pattern, I only did one repeat of the center pattern and tried to make it more symmetrical. This meant I had a total of 23 stitches, including 2×3 edge stitches. My modifications are available here.
The last sock weight yarn ended up a mid muddy. I used a roasting bag and just added colours in. I think it included yellow, red, orange, but also some grey. The plan at the moment is to try and knit some up to see if it looks nice. If it doesn’t, I’ll overdye it with something else. No use in having yarn that won’t be used.
The day itself was lovely and I really enjoyed just trying some things to see what would turn out. It’s great to be able to play with some colours and having lovely chats with a friend.
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