Even though The Unique Sheep Retreat was back in April, I hadn't gotten around to showing off what I dyed at the retreat due to the crazy work schedule I've been dealing with. Above is the set of yarn that I dyed. The base is Wild Thing, a worsted weight silk/merino blend. I have a theory about dyeing gradiance sets and am trying to be scientific in my experiments. We'll see how it looks when I knit it up. I still haven't decided on a pattern.
I also dyed three more silk shawls. I dye three so I can take them to the Bead & Button show and give away two of them to my sister and Carol, her business partner, who we all consider a sister. Between the 2015 retreat and the 2016 retreat I had picked up a book on Shiburi dyeing, so I had a technique in mind before I got there. I brought along a dowel to wrap my shawls around after I folded them.
It is actually three dowels that I rubber-banded together, which ended up giving me some fun options for applying dye. Before the next retreat, though, I'm going to cut the dowels into three sections, to make it easier to soak and dye the shawls after I wrap them.
The first shawl I pleated length-wise, ironing between each pleat. That took a long time to do, and I realized I wouldn't have enough time to do that with the other two shawls.
The second and third shawls I folded in half length-wise and ironed, and kept folding them in half and ironing until they were as skinny as the first shawl. The second shawl ended up going home with my sister Virginia.
The third shawl ended up getting some dye from the first two and went home with Carol.
All three shawls were twisted as I wound them around the three dowels. So what was the fun dyeing option the three dowels gave me? Pouring dye down the inside of the wrapped shawl where the dowels came together.
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