Experimenting in the lab

Thought I'd try an experiment...





My plan was to make self-striping yarn (with Ye Olde Giant Skein Maneuver), but to do it three times (on the same skein) with three different sized skeins and colors, to see how they overlapped together.

First, I rolled up my skein and put it in a bowl (for easy unwinding), and, using my trusty fence post and kitchen chair, I made a 20m skein. I tied it tightly one third of the way along, rolled up the other 2/3 around my hand, and took it inside. The marked off third was dipped into cold water, vinegar, yellow dye and a tiny bit of soap, and left to heat.

Then I stretched it back onto my “big skein holder” (BSH) and balled it back up.
As soon as that was done, I reset my BSH to 12m and made a new skein. When one third was dyed blue…



I stretched it back onto the BSH, balled it back up, and set about making a 30m skein.



Dipped a third of that one into pink, spent about an hour untangling it (the overcooked cashmere element was getting a bit felty about the whole ordeal) and reskeined it into a Normal Skein at last!



The overlaps did, of course, mix nicely into orange, purple, green and brown. Although I’m not a pastel pink sort of girl, I am looking forward to seeing how this knits up. It should have wide pink stripes, medium yellow stripes, and lots of thin blue stripes, randomly overlapping and mixing.




I wonder what it will end up being? It's a bit soft for socks. I want to make something square or rectangular or tubey, to keep the stripes straight, and something for Jasmine.