Happier Than A Pig In... Pink!

This weekend I tried dyeing some yarn! I have had a little experience with acid dyes under the instruction of my good friend Jo Anne, and I have been craving to give it another go for a while now. So last week, I bought some acid dyes from Maiwa on Granville Island and started to play with some different hand-painting techniques. I have only cracked open one colour so far - but even playing with different dilutions of a single shade has provided me with lots of inspiration and experimentation!

I tested out a few different strengths of one shade of fuchsia - just by adding more water, I got paler shades of pink.

Than I hand-painted two skeins to try to achieve a "tonal" look. The first skein is purposely lighter than the other.

I was fairly happy with the lighter skein, but I thought the colours in the darker skein were too broken up. So the next day, I decided to try to over-dye both skeins in a diluted shade of fuchsia to see if I could even out the colours a little.

The bottom skein in the above photo is my first/lighter skein and top skein is my second/darker skein.  I was VERY happy with how the first skein turned out. I think the second skein is now a little too dark overall and is still has too much contrast between shades.

So just for kicks, I dyed a third skein, with a different technique to try to get the subtle colour shifts I was looking for. I wanted just a little bit of variation, so the yarn would look like a solid colour from a distance but still have a little bit of contrast to add some interest.  I believe I had success with this third skein! (Featured on the bottom of the photo below.)

I knitted up a little bit of each skein to see what the swatches would look like! In conclusion, I was equally happy with the results from skeins 1 and 3, but the third skein required less steps and gave me a more consistent look overall. If I was going to recreate a slightly-tonal yarn again, I would use the same procedure I tried on the third skein. I took photos of the swatches, but the photo for my second skein turned out HORRIBLE, and I frogged it before I checked it properly on the computer - my bad! So I apologize for the crappy comparison photos below! In order, they feature skeins 1, 2 and 3:

I can't wait to try out some more dying! Next, I want to create a lighter tonal pink yarn, then start to play with some purple.. I'm going to work my way around that colour wheel :D

Cheers!
-Grace