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Fun with Leftovers & More Sampling

This week I’ve been spinning up leftover batts from the Holiday festival-

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And doing a little more sampling for my Green Cables project.

I really like the 25% black shade, and so have moved on to figuring out the right yarn specs.
The previous samples I’d worked up were chain plied, and were a little heavy. So I thought I’d try a two-ply.

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I really like how it worked up in the swatch-

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I couldn’t get the cables to show well in the photo, but in real life they are lovely- soft rather than crisp. And the fabric is fairly light. Just what I was looking for.

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

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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.

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

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

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First I mixed 1:1 (greens:black)

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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.

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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

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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!