A huge part of what I do in my yarn and fiber business revolves around coming up with names. Names for yarn bases. Names for colorways. Names for special coupon codes or snazzy sales. This in itself can be exhausting (I can’t imagine what Adam went through – naming all those animals) but when you add in the fact that the name should be somewhat appealing, descriptive, and easy to remember and spell, you have a recipe for a lot of hyperactive tension.

For instance, shall we look at a sample?

This might look familiar. It’s that beautiful fluffy green roving I mentioned a couple posts ago.
Now, how to go about coming up with a name for it. First up, the first few things that pop into my head. Lemongrass. Leaf bud. (Which tangents into Twigs and Twiggy.) Cucumber. Silver veil.

What on . . . .? Where did silver come from? I think it snuck in there because of the softness of the green. Rather like dew drops.

Well, I already have a lemongrasss in my store, and it’s a much yellower green than this, so that’s out. Leaf bud just doesn’t have a nice, aesthetic sound to it to me. (Everyone has a different opinion on this, which is what makes names so personality-filled.) But I do like the idea of a leaf bud. Some other ideas coming from that might be “tender.” Now, I like tender. We’ll just file that away and keep skimming.

Twig sounds cute, but could create issues with people visualizing vegetable matter in the roving. Otherwise I’d go with something like “Tender Twig.” But “Tender Cucumber” just sounds weird.

Leaves. . .Tender. . . Spring. Spring is a good word, and we’re getting close to Spring, but to me “Spring” is a much lighter green than this roving. (Maybe it I just wasn’t so picky we’d have this figured out by now.) Rain! Rain makes things darker and carries a sort of silvery conotation to it.

The final name? (After several days of not thinking about it.) “Spring.” Although now that I’m thinking about it again, “Spring Rain” would be a nice one, but that would call for blue. Or even “Budding Leaves.” But! It’s named, and we’re going to leave it. (For the sake of my sanity.)

I finally got this braid, and a couple others up in my store, so take a look and let me know what you think.

It’s been a busy week on the dyeing front around here – as evidenced by the growing pile of yarns and fibers to be photographed, the rapidly filling drying racks, and the ever-changing splotches of color on my hands. It’s not every profession that allows you to get away with blue and yellow streaks on your fingers. (Yes, I love my job, why do you ask?)

The biggest project has been a twenty-skein order from a local yarn store. Remember, the one that carries my merino/silk laceweights? We’re swapping out some current colorways and renewing some old favorites.

I’m a little concerned though. My supplier might be hiking the price on the laceweight yarn base, and that would mean hunting for a new yarn blend. I have a potential source in mind as backup, but we’ll wait and see.

And, in and around those twenty skeins, I’ve been doing a lot of fiber dyeing. I’ve got at least five batches of rovings ready to be photographed, and listed in the near future. I’m rather tickled about that. It’s been awhile since I brought in some new fibers.

I have once again been reminded that dyeing is a ridiculously emotional art-form for some of us. Maybe it’s the chemicals. Maybe its the wet wool fumes or knowing we eventually have to stop and make supper. Or maybe (like today) it’s because almost everything you touch goes wrong.

Notice I say “wrong”, not “hideous.” I have to admit that some of the colorways I came up with are not at all horrible. (Like the one pictured above. It’s beautiful!) They’re just not what I expected.

I’m sure overloading the schedule had a lot to do with the inevitable break down. Now that I’m using a shiny new method for measuring the dyes, (which lets me make things more than once!) developing a new set of colors is a very time consuming process. As much of a bother as it is to haul all the dye equipment out and put it away, I really need to start breaking a typical dye session into two days or more. One day for developing the colorways on a few select skeins, and then the next in actually dyeing the bulk of products.

Hey, anything that will keep me from trying to get through three or four pounds worth of dyeing in one afternoon. All new combinations, or trying to recreate non-documented colors. Yep. Stick a fork in me, I’m done. I didn’t make it past the first pound or so.

Ah well. Tomorrow is another day. And I rather like how this one turned out, even thought it was supposed to be blue with green hints. (Too much yellow, you think?)

While I was getting ready to make the previous scarf, I had an idea for a fun spring/summer design to create on a chiffon. The idea was vaguely inspired by cherry blossoms and tiny spring flowers, and involved having tiny white circles dotting one end of the scarf. As you can see, it worked.

I’m thinking I might offer these for sale for this coming spring. Any idea on what colors? I’m liking the green, although I might go a bit softer with it. A nice, distinctive pink would be pretty. Something between peach and petal. And a soft, French blue-grey would be gorgeous. Maybe a golden-yellow, like a mango? Does anyone even wear mango?

For this project I used a different kind of silk scarf. One that is called “Habotai” and has a slicker, shinier surface than the chiffon. (Now there’s a tongue twister for you.) I figured it would hold the pleating better than the filmy chiffon kind.

I decided to start off with ironing the fabric into some fan shaped pleats, in the hope that I’d get some fracture-looking lines from the dye running along them.

The trick with ironing or pressing the pleats is that silk doesn’t like extreme heat. I used a low setting, mainly steam, and didn’t stick around too long in any one place. Basically, I used it to sort of ‘draw” the lines which I then tacked down with a needle and thread.

As a side note, I found it a little easier to stack up a whole section of folds and hit it once with the iron, than trying to fold and press each individual line. The individual way I spent way too much time accidentally flattening my previous creases.

Then I tied a whole bunch of cotton thread bits on the diagonal along the whole length of the scarf, giving me something akin to a very unusual spine.

After swishing this around in mild fabric detergent and rinsing it out, I squirted dyes directly on it. Gold ochre, chestnut, black, red, and teal all went into this, then I plopped it into a pot of hot water, gave it a couple stirs, and let it simmer away.

The brown proceeded to go crazy and swallow up everything in sight. When I pulled it out to rinse any excess dyes away, it literally looked like a pile of those dark, shiny brown leaves you see in winter puddles.

Then I took the ties off and pulled out the running stitches. And got this.

Cool, eh? I will be playing with this more – I think a crimson red will be in order – but I got these amazing fan-shaped color swathes due to the pleating and tying.

So, lesson learned – my “gentle pleating” method didn’t do much for direction the dye colors, but it did allow me to tie nice semi circles. Also, watch out for the chestnut dye. It’s rabid.

Here’s a quick tutorial I put together on my recently learned method of dyeing silk chiffon scarves. –

Start by unwrapping the scarves. Mine came in these little plastic bags. (I got them from Dharma Trading Company. Nice stuff, good prices.)

Next, fill up a large pot with water. This is to wash it in Synthrapol (or the cheaper knock-off brand I was using), so give it plenty of room to swish around in the water. The chemical bottle suggested doing this in the washing machine, but I didn’t want to toss just two scarves in there by themselves.
Add the synthrapol (or cheap knock off) into the water, using your own common sense and the recipe on the bottle, if all else fails.

Then, lower the lovely soft swishy stuff into the water. Put on gloves and swish the swishy stuff in the wet stuff. I may be notorious for not following the exact directions, but I do wear gloves when possible. I’m attached to my hands, and I’d like them to last for several more years.

Next, fish out the scarves and rinse them silly. (Nicely, of course.) I put them in a clean colander and gave them the works. Then I put them in another, smaller pot of water to sit and soak until the next morning.

At that point I am afraid I stopped taking pictures. I will be remedying this in the near future.

For one scarf, I wrapped it around an empty glass bottle and poured dyes directly onto it. (Following this video tutorial here. And it’s a nice one.) I then set the bottle-wrapped-in-a-scarf into a large pot of water. I kept the bottle standing upright so the scarf wouldn’t get too hot against the bottom of the pot. If you’re doing this, put some water into the inside o the bottle too, or it’ll float.

I then simmered it with some vinegar until the water around the scarf was pretty clear. (No dye left swimming about.) Then I pulled it out, gave it a minute to cool off, and unwrapped it. A quick rinse in luke warm / coolish water, a hang up to dry, and I got the gorgeous watercolor-y scarf you see at the top of this post.

Now, for the second scarf, I used a different technique that is very similar to tie-dyeing. I crumpled the scarf up, then tied it very tightly in five places using a cotton thread. The whole kaboodle went for a swim in a pot full of deep burgundy-cranberry dye and some vinegar. I stirred it every so often, and let it simmer until the dye was almost all gone, and the scarf was a nice deep tone.

Out it came, another rinse, the ties came off, and here we have it!

The beauty of dyeing the chiffon scarves is that they dry really quickly. It was no more than a few hours before they were wearable. I’m going to be experimenting more with this over the next couple of weeks. (I’ve got eight more scarves to play with, yay!) And some of the scarves are of different weights and types. So between that and all the different methods I want to try, prepare for a scarf-filled December! Now to find a ton of people who want silk scarves for a New Year’s present. . .

This week has been a little more laid back than usual, but I don’t mind that at all. Friday will be a dye day, with some “hired to dye” yarns in various colorways.

But last week I was able to dye a whole bunch of my Fall yarns, and I am thrilled to report that the new yarn bases behaved themselves better than expected. Here are three of the new single-ply fingerings –

And here is one of the two-ply superwash skeins. This one took the colors just like I thought it would – lots of brilliance and depth, and it held color changes quite nicely. I still really want to make something for myself from a skein of this yarn, and I finally found the perfect pattern. Now I just need to decide what color I want!

First step is to select the yarns about to be dyed, and put them in to soak the night before the actual dyeing will take place. This requires decisiveness, planning ahead, and a keen sense of your own limitations. (“No, beautiful skein of laceweight, I’ll be tied up with all the other skeins and won’t have time to dye you. I’m sorry, truly I am, but I simply cannot squeeze you in.”) Technically you only have to soak yarns or fibers for about half an hour before dyeing, but I prefer overnight. Particularly if I’m working with a silk blend. Silk takes awhile to give up and pull in the moisture.

Then, the next morning, I rush through breakfast and hurry to get all the dishes put away. The sooner I can get started, the less chance I have of getting stuck without lunch – hunched over the twentieth pot of dye, growing faint and crazed.

Once the dishes are taken care of, and the kitchen is spotless, I get out my baskets of dye bottles and equipment and set up the counters. Inevitably, there’s a sort of hush that falls as soon as the items are out and ready to go. Partly anticipation for the good things in store, partly the result of my having forgotten to heat the water for color mixing. Once that last issue is dealt with, I’m off to the races and mixing my colors.

As a side note here – a dye morning usually means a special beverage of some kind. Most often it’s a soda of some sort, but the day I photographed, it was sweet tea in a brand new mug. Isn’t it pretty? (Yes, I bought another mug I loved. At World Market, if you’re wondering.)

First batch of color (or colors) mixed, I pour, dunk, paint, heat, or whatever else is needed. The first skein of yarn goes onto the stove or in the oven, and it’s back to mixing, mixing, mixing. Really, what can take the longest is mixing dyes to achieve the perfect colors. Every time I rush, I wind up with strange colors that really don’t make me happy. Not this purple yarn, though. That one behaved beautifully.

The mixing and dyeing process usually lasts in the neighborhood of two or three hours, and involves six or seven skeins of yarn. Sometimes it has grown to four or five hours, depending on the amount of skeins I’m dyeing. About three-quarters of the way in, fatigue sets in, and with comes all sorts of volatile color-related emotions. Picture, if you will, the weary dyer, staring down at the yarn which just came out of the pot and realizing that the blue dye expanded and made the scarlet yarn purple. (Imagine violin music here, too, and the proper degree of soap opera angst.) And if a second yarn goes “wrong” – oh goodness. Life isn’t worth living! At least, not until later in the day when everything is cleaned up and I am once again myself.

Once the yarns – perfect or character – are done dyeing, they get hung up on a wooden rack to dry and be admired. This is one of the really pleasant parts. As the day goes on, the rack fills up with colors. In fact, I recently had to buy a second rack, just to hold all the drying yarns.

By the time the last yarn is done, I’m dragging myself about the kitchen. But I still have to put everything away, haul the wet towels back to the laundry pile, and replace whatever I displaced from the kitchen counters. Then, and only then, do I get to grab a refill of my drink, and collapse in a chair.

This one is a very smooshy single-ply of a wool and nylon blend. I think it would make gorgeous scarves, cowls, or even a shawl. I’ve already gotten to dye some up as a test, and this yarn is begging to be dyed in rich tones of a kettle-dyed nature.

As a side note – I will also be carrying a more familiar fingering base. The 70/30 merino/silk blend I’ve had in before. It’s a nice four-ply, non-superwash yarn with a little bit of shine to it. Lovely lovely.

In case you’re wondering, I’m moving Maiden Yarn to mainly fingering weight (my favorite to knit with) and spinning fiber at the beginning of October. It’ll simplify things for me, and allow me to offer a wider range of colors in the same weight (if not same fiber blend) of yarn. Plus, who doesn’t like fingering and sock weight?

I’m really rather excited, but I shall try to remain rational.

One moment while I get a grip on myself –

- ahem -

The second new base is this two-ply superwash merino. I’d call it more of a lightweight fingering, but we’ll see what it does after being dyed. I haven’t worked with this particular yarn before, and I’m really eager to see what it does. If I’m reading it right, it will probably have a lovely shine, and look great in variegated tones.

I bet it would do great fingerless gloves. Or maybe a hat. (Ooh, a tam or beret! I must try this now.) The two-ply construction seems fairly durable, while still being plush enough for comfort. (Yes, definitely a beret.)

Alright. Back to the subject at hand.

I have grand plans to have skeins in each of the two new bases dyed and in the stores during the first week of October. We’ll see how it goes! I can hardly wait to get that superwash one in the dye pot.

~Rebekah

Lots and lots of Bluefaced Leicester roving. Yum.

It’s getting towards time to order in lots more undyed materials, and I’ve been trying to narrow down the plethora of ideas I have. Believe me, if I had my way I’d have twenty or thirty pounds of raw materials on their way to my doorstep right now.

One thing I’ve been pondering would be a new line of merino/cashmere/nylon lace in my Laceweight Yarns store. It’s a slightly heavier lace, (extremely soft and squishy) and I think it would make fabulous scarves and such for fall.

The other idea is coming up with a few special colorways on worsted or aran weight yarn, and offering special “sweater’s worth” deals. Something along the lines of “Here’s the yarn, I’ll custom dye it in one of these colorways, and you order eight to ten skeins and get a good sized discount” sort of a thing. As someone who loves knit sweaters, I don’t like the idea that you’d have to pay a couple hundred bucks to get enough gorgeous hand-dyed yarn. I think a discount should definitely be in order for such a large undertaking.

Lots to think about.