playing around in the dye studio

One of my constant worries when I'm dyeing a custom order is how closely I'm matching the stock photo. I know that the nature of the hand-dyed beast is the variation among skeins, and I know that most of my customers know, too. I fret anyway.

Since January, basically all my dyeing has been for wholesale and co-op orders, so it's been a long time since I've been able to just dye without worrying about matching. I didn't realize how much this stress was affecting me until last night, when I dyed some of my sparkly vampire yarn (a superwash sock-weight yarn with actual silver spun into it) for this week's science fiction/fantasy stocking--official name: Out of This World. While I was working, I fretted about the purple dye that was turning blue at the edges, that was darker than I wanted, that wasn't like what I had pictured in my head, about the raspberry that I overdyed on two of the skeins ... until I realized that I liked it.



It felt so liberating to just go in and dye something and see what happens! I really love how the sparkly vampire yarn turned out, in particular. I've never read the Twilight series--my husband, who has actually watched the movie (unlike me), suggested the idea of dyeing shiny yarn. He gets bonus points for a great suggestion.