Well, it turns out that that due to a shipping error at the mill, the yarn that Jennifer received from her supplier is not the lovely superwash/nylon blend, but regular wool/nylon instead. They are sending her more yarn, but it will take a while. I guess the mills that are willing to work with small orders are, well, small, so perhaps not with huge warehouses of product just sitting around waiting to be shipped. But, the order also included a nice bamboo/wool/nylon blend and I have scored a cone of that.

This is lovely stuff with a gorgeous sheen, fingering weight, 4-ply, and will work up into lovely socks or whatever amuses. I am calling it Leafy Sheep Blend.  As there is both cellulose (the bamboo) and protein (the wool) fiber in this yarn, to get the best colors you need to use two dyebaths, one acid and one alkaline.  Or, there is a nifty product called I’ve used to dye devore scarves, called Alter Ego Dyes, where you can dye mixed fibers in the same dyepot. I pulled out the last bits of my sample kit, and there turned out to be enough of both types of blue dye to do at least one skein.

Here’s what I used.  If you look closely, the bottle of Bleu Infini, the cellulose dye, is empty.  I was supposed to use 30ml for 100 grams of fiber, but there was only about 20 ml left. Remembering  that these are pretty  intense dyes, I also put in  25 ml of the Turquoise and proceeded.

Bring up to temp, and simmer for 20 minutes  . . . At this point my son came in and asked if we were having blue spaghetti for dinner.

After dyeing the first skein, there was still a good bit of dye left in the bath, so I dropped in another skein. Here they both are, taking the air after drying overnight:

And here are the closeups:

The lighter blue is above, the darker blue is below.

Here they are together, and you can see that while there is a difference in color saturation, it’s not dramatic enough to make good stripes were they to be knitted into the same piece.

I think since there are only two skeins, I’ll not worry about putting this up on Etsy, but if any of you find either of these of interest, they are for sale for the bargain price of $15 each, plus postage.  Unique dyelot!  Let’s call it Robin’s Egg.  They are both 400 yard skeins, plenty for a pair of socks. 40% wool, 40% bamboo, 20% nylon, fingering weight. Leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you via email — your email address comes to me when WordPress sends me an email containing your comments. And I could send a wee bit off in an envelope if you want an up close and personal look at the color and the yarn.