12 of these

I first heard of Bonnie Tarses from Syne in WeaveCast. Bonnie designs horoscope drafts for weaving. The really exciting part is the color! 12 colors woven together! How neat is that! If you take a look at her gallery you'll see what I mean. Of course I contacted her right away and ordered mine. At that time the suggested yarn was perl cotton 20/2, the samples that come with the draft are to die for. I kept looking at the samples and looking at yarn online, should I or should I not.....It did not get any easier when Bonnie started selling kits with bamboo yarn....

With all the yarn and dyes in stash I have, I just could not bring myself to buying more yarn. The solution was simple: I'll dye it! Use what I have, have a ball during the dye process, how much better can it get? Halcyon yarns has one of the best customer services I have ever come across, withing a couple of days I had the color card .



So far I have 8 colors, it is going really fast. The yarn is in 200 yds skeins and I am aiming to about 3-4 oz batches of each color. I will have leftovers so I am save. I might even have enough for two shawls, but we'll see.

I am using Acid Fast Dyes from Prochemical which is what I have used for space dying. The only real problem was how to get solid color? I had always used vinegar but with this method, as soon as you put the skein in the dye bath the color strikes. A quick email to Prochemical and the problem was solved.
Pre-soak the fiber with a bit of dish soap, no vinegar.
Dissolve the dye and Ammonium Sulfate in cold water (a bit hard to do when using reds, but it still works). Squeeze excess water from the yarn and put right into COLD the dye pot. Move the yarn around to make sure all the yarn is in there. Then turn on the heat. That does it! no strikes! Brilliant colors! I use a Crockpot and set it to high. About 3 hours, then turn it off and let it cool down. Rinse, rinse and rinse. Spin in the washer and hang to dry. I can do 2 colors a day without pushing it. I could probably do more but I like to let the pot cool down and then I forget............
The yarn should be finished by the end of the week. Once I have all 12 colors, I will decide what color weft I want. Did someone say red or maybe black? Red would be a bit too wild!