Blending the Perfect Green

I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to have a green cabled sweater.
But I had’t had much luck with dyeing greens, so I’d put it on the back burner.

Then I went to the Jonasson Farm fleece sale on Saturday.

Nothing like a fleece sale for inspiration 🙂

I came home with a big bag of dyed Border Leicester, in a fabulous range of greens

Just what I needed to get this project moving!

I was so excited about the acquisition that I dove right in and started sampling.

Here is the electric green blend after a couple of passes through the drum carder.

Fun, eh? But probably a little intense for a whole sweater.

So I started playing around with adding some Chone to create deeper shades.

First I mixed 1:1 (greens:black)

I really liked the result in the batt (on the left). However, when I spun it up and knitted a swatch, it seemed just a tad too dark.

So I went back and tried 3:1.

Clockwise from top that’s all greens, 25% black, and 50% black

Little more spinning and swatching permitted this side by side comparison of the two blends

I really like how the yellow tones still come through but don’t seem so harsh.
I think I might have found my perfect green!