First I got out all my gear. In the Becel container I have my yarn soaking in Synthrapol to scour it and get it ready for dye.
I have four little eyedroppers that have .25, .5. .75 and 1.0mL markings - that came in very handy. One for each colour meant no mix-ups.
I got an extra plastic cup and started mixing up my yellow, blue, red and brown. Here are all the ratios I used:
Looking at the wet yarn in its wee plastic-wrapped package, I could tell that the yellow had a lot of power. I did several tests without it and I think the one that I (and the wearer of the garment to be knit with said dyed yarn) choose will be one of the non-yellow ones. They turned out more golden brown and that's not a look my manly man is likely to like.
I had to keep the packages numbered to match the notes. Once they're dry, I'll staple them into the book so that the yarn goes with the record.
You can see the strong yellow in some, a more reddy nature to others, and the ones that are the deepest browns seem to be the ones with the most blue.
Now, here's the thing: I didn't measure the amount of dye to the weight of fibre because they were six-inch pieces of yarn and I didn't want to go there. So once we pick the winner, I'll do a proper test of that one using the right amount of dye for the weight of fibre, and see what colour I actually get. I may need to up it from my expected 2% in order to get it closer to the sample, but I can do that, so I'm not too worried. More testing is required, though.
Eventually a sweater will be born.
As I already said WOW! What a lot of work, you are so organized . What pattern are you going to knit. Did you spin the yarn too??
ReplyDeleteYou have to be organized to do this well, I think. You know what I didn't have organized? A SMOCK! And I realized halfway into making the dyestocks that I was wearing a white shirt! It came through unscathed, so I didn't have a regret there, but I'll definitely smock it next time.
ReplyDeleteI didn't spin the yarn (1100g ... yikes), and I think this is the pattern, although hubby may change his mind if I show him more options - _http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/burnley
I'm going to scour the samples tonight and see if i can get more of the intensity out of them and get down to what the true colour will look like at only about 2% depth of shade. Here's hoping that works!