Dyeing yarn vs dyeing unspun fiber

I recently found my way to Becoming Art's colorways page via a designer whose blog I occasionally peruse. I found myself charmed and engaged by the page of colorways, mostly sampled in yarns. The color blocks shown on the page of her hand dyed colorways were mostly solids, mostly saturated and mostly all of a close range of variation in a band of color - for example, a whole slew of variations on a theme of warm, orangish browns, or cool greenish blues. Which I liked.

When I clicked through to the Fibers page, I was a bit disappointed. The spinning fibers were mostly heterogeneously painted, with wide swings in a single braid among a bunch of disparate colors, kind of disunited blobs of hues, some warm, some cold. I was expecting the same array of dyed options, but the two sets were wildly different in style. It was like Helen Frankenthaler did the yarns and Jackson Pollock did the fiber bumps. I didn't get it. Why would somebody want to do the latter when they can do the former so prettily?

I don't want to give a negative review of Becoming Art - based on the colorways page I have to say I love the hues displayed. I just was moved to comment on the trend that this brings to mind.

I know this is definitely not true of all dyers, but I do get the impression some think they should use color differently on yarn vs unspun fiber. It's possible the slight difference in the medium might result in a difference in how the artist puts color onto it. But I suspect many dyers feel like they are supposed to use a whole bunch of different colors in the same bump when working with unspun fiber. I see this a lot on Etsy. I think there are very few artists who can pull this off (Pigeonroof Studios being one of the rare artisans capable of it).

While I'm on this topic I'll just say, I think the best way of perusing a dyer's wares would be for them to have a colorway page (a la Becoming Art's) except in all the same fiber or all the same yarn. Then, they should have a fibers or yarns page with all the different options shown, each dyed some neutral but not too light hue to best show the texture and hand of the fiber and spin. Finally, you could simply order whatever fiber or yarn in whatever colorway, or even get different fibers and yarns all in the same colorway! I think if I ever came across a dyer's site organized like that, I'd never stop talking about it.

Once I get some colors I want to stick with and make repeatable, I'll do it myself.

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Per my musings last time, I did go ahead and mix up four bottles of concentrated liquid dye, using the new colors I received from Dharma. They are much nicer red and blue, but I'm not so convinced about the brown - it's too cold (and the other is too warm).

It's so scary to mix up concentrate! When I use a little dry dye in the pot, I don't feel like I need to worry about it too much - I just measure it out and put it in and that's that. But it's super quick & dirty. But when mixing concentrate, I feel like I do need to observe all the safety rules: I put a mask over my nose & mouth, I wear gloves, and I wear an apron. My hands don't shake, but I do feel nervous and uptight. It's not like working with hydrochloric acid or anything, but it feels intense. Especially the notion that exposure is cumulative, meaning a little at a time adds up to it eventually having an effect on one. (In fact ... I probably shouldn't be lax about safety even when just measuring out tiny amounts into the pot.) But I did it, and I now have concentrate that I can for a while now. Let's see how long it lasts me.

Anyway, I already used the red and the yellow to augment a pot of pink and really liked the effect, which was like peonies. Very pretty!

I'll post a shot of it once my camera battery recharges ... grrr.