I am keeping a gallery of the things that have been in my shop or done on commission on this site for my own reference, customer browsing, and to help in formulating new colorways, so be sure to check it out from time to time and let me know what you like and dislike.

It's been a very busy week for my dyepots! Three custom orders, continuing to bulk up and replenish store stock, and trying out some new color combos to see if they should make it to the final product. The custom orders, in particular, have been difficult but LOTS of fun. Highly magnified versions of all the images are available in the galleries.




I am doing one that is based on this skein, Berry Berry:

The problem was that the results of that particular skein are impossible to reproduce accurately, because it was overdyed from a dye job that didn't take. There was a customer who loved that colorway, but needed closer to 1300 yards of it. So the only thing to do was make a dye lot from scratch using the dyes from the overdye job, and see what came of it. Upon inquiry I discovered she wanted a more purple-toned skein, so I adjusted the percentages of each shade. it was a very labor intensive process to get tones that rich and involved several dye baths.

The first was the Strawberry/Ruby shade, which was a strong red with high acid twice over. Each skein had to be done individually in the pot because there simply wasn't enough room to double them up or do them all at once and still have the dye take evenly - that requires a pot with about 20 gallons of volume! I was meticulous in the grams of dye used, the heat, and the set time, and so even though these were technically different lots they came up visually identical, which I am pleased with. The colors took very well, but I purposely left them a little mottled in spots to retain the hand-dyed look and feel.

The second color take (third dye bath) was a bluish violet that I knew would overdye to plum. The skeins were suspended so all three could take dye at once, and only a portion of the skin was affected. The dye wicked up the yarn giving it a nice fading effect, and the dye bath was increased halfway through and the dye quantity increased so that the bottom half of that bath was a much deeper shade than the top portion.

After this was completed the skeins were handpainted on the end with the deepest grape purple, so deep it looks nearly black when not in sunlight, and it turned out brilliantly. The pictures don't do it justice.

Here are the skeins laid out awaiting the final steaming, with the un-set deep purple on the ends, in just a strong enough quantity to highlight. This is under fluorescent light so the colors aren't entirely true:

The skeins were then steamed together and left overnight to naturally cool, before being rinsed in Synthrapol to prevent bleeding and then Eucalan to restore the hand of the yarn.

The finished product in light closer to natural. The red is a bit less orange in person, but this is as close as a photograph not taken in the midday sun can get. One hank was reskeined to show color distribution:

It's in the mail and off to the customer, I certainly hope she likes it as much as I liked making it! Complex - but very fun.

Here is another custom order I was working on for an acquaintance from a parenting site I am on. This one is probably one of my all time favorites, it is just stunning in person:

It was also an extremely involved, complex colorway. First, the skein was dyed a pale, toned blue that resembled that great blue you see on old T-Birds. Then the skein was handpainted with no less than seven different blue dilutions - including teal, cornflower, indigo, royal blue, sky blue, and greyish blue in stripes. It was steamed and set, rinsed for any excess dye, and then I sat down and tried to figure out if I wanted to do more for it.

I decided I wanted to blues to be more subtle, as the skein was quite distinct and stripy by this point. I overdyed with a beautiful turquoise just slightly shaded with orange to take off the technicolor edge and make it more sophisticated and subtle. The acid and heat of the dye bath leveled some of the previous dyes, making their lines less distinct, as well as imparting a uniform overtone to unite all the shades. I treated the skein in such a way that the last dye layer took on a heathered effect, further blending and easing the strong shades in the skein. The end product was gorgeous and truly subtle, I am extremely proud of it!

The customer requested it be ballwound (I don't blame her!) and so here is the final product, with some of the shade variation more visible:

Not bad for a week's work, I'd say!