A Beginner’s Guide to Hand Dyed Yarn
For all the years that I've been knitting, it’s only been since GoneAwool and Suzanne Ellsmore Designs has come into being that I’ve started using Indie Dyed or Hand Dyed yarns. I'd always bought big brand yarns like Rowan in store before the first lockdown happened. And to be honest, one of the reasons I’d not bought hand dyed yarns was because the indie section was either non existent or expensively unexciting! But one thing I’ve discovered on my recent yarny travels, is that there is a whole world of colourful goodness and incredibly talented, creative dyers.
Many of these wonderful humans ply their craft from kitchens or small units, hand dyeing small batches of yarn to create a product that adds a little pizazz when worked with a plain yarns or used on its own to make amazing garments and accessories.
And although one of the reasons we buy hand dyed yarn is because we want to support small businesses...which is a very good reason...we also buy it because it's pretty, it's eye catching and a riot of colour that we just need in our lives. But what also makes these skeins of squishy goodness so special is the fact that they’re unique and, in our own way, we all like being a little bit unique. Unfortunately, though, it's this uniqueness that can cause problems for indie dyers when it really shouldn't!
Because, what happens is, you see a gorgeous skein of yarn on a website or on social media and you think, “that’s lovely, I know what I’m going to knit with that. Take my money!” You are so excited that, after days of waiting for your new yarn order to arrive, you immediately rip it from the delivery person’s hands, decide to forsake all other works in progress (admit it, we all do it!) and cake it/wind it up into a balls ready to cast on. Immediately!
But it’s at this point, if you’ve bought more than one skein, that the enthusiasm may begin to wane as you realise that none of the skeins you ordered are exactly the same. You may now feel the overwhelming need to get in touch with the dyer and say, “I wish to register a complaint…” or you may just relegate the lot to your stash and start looking for one skein wonder patterns (of which I have designed a few…just saying!)
But as with anything that is hand crafted, even if you follow a methodology, process or pattern, there will always be slight variations. It's like baking a cake: you may follow Mary Berry's recipe to the letter, but no two cakes will ever look exactly alike…or in my case, actually look like a cake…but you’ll still eat it! And in the case of artisan dyers, if you also add in the unpredictable organic factors of different yarn bases, liquids and the steadiness of hands, what you end up with are skeins of gorgeous dyed yarn that look pretty similar, but may be ever so slightly different in terms of colour saturation, colour mix or colour bleeding/blending.
The thing is though, dyers are very upfront about this. They’ll always try to match up multi skein orders or even dye a new batch just for you. There's also usually a disclaimer in the product description along the lines of “products may differ slightly from the image shown due to the hand dying process.” Now, we often see disclaimers when we buy online and think “oh they’ve got to put that to cover themselves.” And if you’ve not bought hand dyed yarn before it would be easy to dismiss this information as just that. But it’s not just there for legal reasons! The same goes for when a dyer advises you alternate skeins when working on a large project to even out any variations. It’s all there to help you.
And variation isn’t a negative thing: it’s adding another level of uniqueness to your project. If you know the skeins won’t be exactly the same you can do a little planning to make them work for you in the best way possible. It may be that simply alternating skeins is the way forward. Useful tip: I tuck a different piece of scrap yarn into each cake/ball so I can remember the order. Or you may notice that one skein stands out more visibly because one particular colour might be more vivid. But you can use that as a feature to add an unexpected, but welcome extra dimension to your knit! Because as the batch is dyed together, the variations will still look great together. And this is one of the pure joys of hand dyed yarn.
The point is, though, whilst you don’t get the uniformity of big brand yarns, what you do get are yarns that are carefully created by really passionate people who are more than willing to help you give your makes the wow factor they deserve.
I hope you’ve found this useful. And if you ever have any concerns about buying a skein or three just get in touch with the dyer. You won’t find one who isn’t totally enthusiastic about their colourways and bases. They really are the most helpful bunch of artists I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with!
Until next time…
