Autumn Dying

This week I have been doing some dying.  It's been a while since I did dying, and I don't do it often.  I find that I only like to dye for specific projects, when I don't have anything that will work in my stash and when for whatever reason, I don't want to buy something.

This weekend I found some odd balls of yarn at my LYS.  These are balls available for cheap, but only available in limited quantities. I found 3 balls, about 150 yards.

I supplemented with a darker colour, because I thought I wouldn't have enough of the first yarn, I was right.

I have been wanting a cowl, specifically, the Shawl Collared Cowl by Alana Dakos.  I even loved the colour that she chose for her sample, which was also a rusty orange.  Pattern Page here.

I'm not ready to share my finished project yet, but here is a sneak peek:

Okay, so back to dying.  I had this project as inspiration, and I wanted enough yarn to make a hat that sort of matched.  I also had a skein of natural Malabrigo Worsted...

Here's what I got...

I honestly can't really tell you how I got here, there was a lot of luck involved I'm certain.  I wanted something with colour depth and variation, I wanted some rusty oranges and browns.  The final result is a little more orange than brown, but I still love it.  There is a lot of colour depth but not too much to be distracting.

I hand painted this yarn first, using browns, reds, yellows (Wiltons food colouring).  I tried using a steam bag for the microwave to lock the colour, but it quick failed (ie. got some sort of hole and started leaking) so I moved the whole thing to the crock pot.  After a little bit, I added a bunch of dark brown on top and cooked it for a while longer. 

This yarn is destined to become a Star Crossed Slouchy Beret.  Pattern page available here.