Inky the Squid Boy

I'm having a peaceful week. I'm working a bit, but mostly I'm coasting. I worked very hard to get ready for last Sunday, and the work paid off -- my stock is high, and full of variety. In fact, when I was struck with a dyeing idea on Tuesday and pulled out my undyed wool, I found that I was almost completely out of the BFL. Time to reorder!

26 lbs of undyed wool is on its way to me, and I'll undoubtedly have a big production week when it comes, but until then, I can regroup, and experiment a bit. I was struck with this idea. Or rather, I was struck with a neat yarn made by someone else, and I stole the idea. The yarn I was knitting with -- just a partially synthetic Patons yarn -- had one ply of black yarn, and one ply of various colours. The effect was a sort of all over tweedy, but with different accent colours. It would be easy enough to dye for -- just make a bunch of pure black, and then short bits of various other colours, joining one to the next as the whim strikes me. Here's the first attempt to dye this style of colourway:


I also did one batch of what I presume is my shetland wool. It was in an unmarked bag. It felt like the shetland, but the differences between the fibers are somewhat subtle, until they're washed. Once it dries, I'll know for sure what it is. I was asked to do some "boy" colours, and I rather like how this turned out -- it's all inky. Dark enough to be manly, but varied enough to be interesting to spin and knit. I call this "Inky the Squid Boy." (I've been watching a lot of Buffy lately.)



Lastly -- this one is brand new. It's a wool/soysilk blend. I ordered a single, 4oz package, just to try it out. My attempts at dyeing a merino/silk blend haven't gone great -- the stuff is touchy! And I hated spinning with it too. So, no more of that. But I have these wool/seacell socks that feel so wonderful, so I thought I'd try to spin enough of the wool/soysilk to make myself a pair of socks, and we'll see how the yarn turns out, how it knits, how it wears. Then I'll consider the possibility of making more for friends or for sale. In the meantime, I still want to show off the dye job, because it breaks my heart with the colourful blendy wonderfulness.