# Techniques for Heathered yarns



## minnikin1 (Feb 3, 2003)

What are your favorite dying/blending methods for getting heathery colored yarns?


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

I'd say over dyeing a naturally colored wool. For example if you have a gray wool you can over dye it with any color and you will get a really nice heathered effect. Gray will or a light brown/tan would be your best bet for over dyeing.


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## Ana Bluebird (Dec 8, 2002)

I haven't done over-dyeing but I'm anxious to try it. I have some light gray I'm saving for that (when I get it spun up). Right now I'm spinning up some white, some kind of morino mix, not great wool and has lots of second cuts, not real soft, but I'm thinking it would be fun to try some dyeing that I have done before. What do you think would be fun on white??


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## Liese (Dec 12, 2005)

Ana, so are you wanting to dye this spun yarn in heathery tones? I've only done heathery yarns by carding 2-3 colours on my drum carder and then spinning. You might try painting singles and then plying ...


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## Ana Bluebird (Dec 8, 2002)

Oh, good idea, Liese, hadn't thought of that. Didn't mean to side-track the thread, minikin1. But it's kinda the same thought, right? Now if I can just get all this spinning done. If winter continues to be so bad here, it just might happen.


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## ozarkcat (Sep 8, 2004)

Yeah, Marchwind does it the same way I do. I think if you try to ply different colored yarns together, you're just going to get different colored yarns - not the blending you usually see in heathers. You can also card together different colored fibers - purples with a bit of red & blue, greens with a touch of yellow & blue.


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## MTDeb (Feb 20, 2003)

Yes, dying a light gray/silver fleece or yarn makes a beautiful heather color. A light gray Romney comes to mind. One of ewes that is a hampshire x romney looks white, but when you look close, she has a lot of gray in her fleece. I don't really like it just plain cause it comes out looking like a dirty white, but when you dye it, it comes out a nice heather color. 

I wonder, is there gray dye? Or, I wonder if blending a little gray with something dyed would it produce a heather? Hmmm......


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## jerzeygurl (Jan 21, 2005)

I blend the colors as I card them.

orange maroon was one that was great(but is it a heather if there is no grey?)

this blue lemonade and black is great...

most of my shetlands have grey hairs so I get natural heathering(is that a word?) with them...


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## Annie in MN (Oct 15, 2002)

Somebody was asking about overdyeing. Here's an example.

This is the original natural rose gray roving.










This is after it was dyed with a light purple/blue, and then run through the drum carder to blend the colors.










Here it is spun up.










The color is most true in the last photo.


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## Liese (Dec 12, 2005)

Oh, isn't that lovely! Now what do you mean by a purple blue? Purple and blue dyes or 1 dye?


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## jerzeygurl (Jan 21, 2005)

yes that is pretty

I had thought of over dying the grey/white/black shetland with purple, I may next year...


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## Annie in MN (Oct 15, 2002)

Liese,
I mixed three colors of Gaywool dye, Indigo, Cyclamen and Alpine and ended up with a blue-ish purple color. I used it to dye some white, too, and that ended up sort of periwinkle. I can take photos of that too, if anybody is interested?


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## Liese (Dec 12, 2005)

Ya need to ask?, lol I, for one want to see this periwinkle!


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Annie beautiful color. I'm with liese post the pictures. Periwinkle is one of my favorite colors.


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## Somerhill (Dec 13, 2005)

Another thing you can do is blend white fiber with natural colored. I have a roving on my website right now that is a deep chocolate brown Corriedale/Leicester cross and I had it blended with white mohair. It spins up into a grey-brown yarn with a silvery white frosting. Then you dye the yarn, and voile! Heathery yarn.  
Lisa 
www.somerhillfarm.com


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## Annie in MN (Oct 15, 2002)

I finally remembered to take a photo of the periwinkle roving. This was a natural white blend of alpaca/domestic wool/silk/nylon intended to be spun into sock yarn.


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## Marchwind (May 10, 2002)

Very pretty!


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