Gradients, again.
So, I took another stab at long gradients. This time I tried to learn from the mistakes I made the previous time. As with last time, I did a base dye of red. From there, things differed.
After dying the red, I unwound and measured it out like I did the previous time. 50 yards out, and then come back, so we had 100 yd loops. This time I didn't tye it up in multiple small skeins. Instead, I tied a loop of twine through the skein to mark one end, and to keep the yarns apart. We're talking only about 6 strands per side here, so it's possible to figure it out, but easier to just mark it. This, I should mention, was done wet.
Next up, I prepared the dye pot and dye. The dye was dissolved in a cup, and a portion poured into the pot. I then took my large skein and starting at one end, started to put it into the pot. Once most was in, I let it soak a couple min, then pulled some out, add more dye, and let sit. This was repeated over about 30 min.. The last few yards were left in as long as I could with as much black as I could to get them as dark as I could. It never really turned completely black though... slightly disappoined about that.
Once this was all done, I microwarved to set the dye and rinsed. The yarn was then re-hung and left to dry a bit. I then spent about an hour trying to get things untangled while winding a skein. This was frustrating, but it's unlikely that doing it this way I could ever get it done better.... the one thing that comes to mind is adding more pins so I can loop the skein over 100 yd instead of 50, basically as a full loop and not a doubled loop.
The results though are more along of what I was wanting to do. The gradient is more gradual. It's off to a friend to be knitted, so when he gets around to that, I will share the results. I'm sure it'll be pretty, just not sure if 100 yd repeats on the solids will be enough, or if I need to do even larger.
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