Into the dyepot

A while ago my mom stumbled onto a large wool find at a thrift shop near town. About 12 skeins of hand-painted wool; some sock, some 100% superwash merino. More than $300 dollars of wool, for just a few dollars. One of the skeins is 960 yards/250 gm of fingering/light sport-weight merino, and it feels heavenly.

$55, and my mom thrifted it for just a few dollars. What a find! Thanks, mum!

What a great find. So glad that my mom has my back in those thrift shops! (Love ya, Mom!) The only problem is the colour. Maybe some of you blog readers will shriek when you find I'm putting it into a dye bath, but I'm not a fan at all. The wool is lovely, but I don't like the red and blue together. It's too high contrast between the dye colours for my liking, and none of the stripes are more than 3-4" in length, so pooling is going to be a problem. If it had nylon, I'd make socks. If it were less crazy, I'd make a baby set, but no-one I know who is procreating right now has the aesthetic sensibilities to appreciate these colours together.

So, I'm going to over-dye the whole skein in some purple dye my aunt Margo gave me a while back. I've been meaning to try these dyes, but I never had a sufficient quantity of white wool to dye. This yarn feels amazing in my hands, so I'm looking forward to making something I'm excited to knit with too. Dying it all in purple should mean a very tonal, multifaceted purple, because the blue and red will react differently, but the whole thing will be lower contrast. Maybe a large lace shawl, because of the shine, drape, and great yardage. Fingers crossed. I'll let you know how it turns out.