acid dyeing

She asked for purple with blue undertones. Of course, I only had purple with red undertones. Several color mixes later, still no end in sight. I slept on the task, then went at it again. The final color mix gave me this:

The blue purple she wanted. Tonal with hues moving from very dark to medium shades of purple.

I was happy to do this for her. For Sharon, one of my biggest cheerleaders. The fact that I don’t have a shop didn’t stop her from making a request. She wanted this, she thought I could do it and she asked in a way that only friends could ask and not have you tell them no. LOLOL! Because of her gentle insistence, in addition to a colorway I’m proud of, I got the chance to build on my dyeing portfolio. Win, win for us both I’d say.

Meet Rabun Gap.

Okay … every time I say the word solid, I have to do the entire Ashford & Simpson “solid as a rock” thing … hence the title. 😀

Okay, okay … I know you’re not here for that! LOLOL! So let’s get to it …

Creating dyed solid yarn is apparently a little harder to do than it looks that’s why we have … dun, dun, dun … semi solids! For the times I’ve tried to get solid yarn, I got 80%, 88%, never 100%. But after some experimenting, I finally got it. Fully saturated, no white areas in the yarn, and she’s a beaut!!! There were a few things to take into consideration — yarn content, weight of fiber, ratio of dye and all that jazz. While those things contribute to giving us a good solid (including over dyeing if the yarn isn’t already too saturated), they can also affect if we don’t get a totally solid dye.

She might become part of a shawl, but I’m not sure yet. In the mean time, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that she’s 100% solid! And she sparkles! What more can I ask for?