Lace at last??

Lace at last??

Bases have so much personality; they can really make or break your colours. Some of them are luxurious to the touch, and some of them practically drink in colour. On the other hand, some of them aren’t robust enough for my ombré dyeing process, and some of them require entirely different treatments that are difficult to incorporate into my dye routine (like my vegan yarn experiment, lovely, but difficult to maintain). I love trying new bases, and these one of a kind beauties make their debut at trunk shows and yarn festivals-and sometimes you find something so nice you think it deserves a permanent place in the line up.

For my experiments on these bases (all strong contenders for a permanent collection!) I’ve chosen to dye just one colour; Grand Turk, so we can compare apples to apples. Grand Turk is saturated and challenging, so it was the ideal choice.

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I’ve shied away from lace for a while, because of the yardage. Laying our yarn out for hand painting takes time, and the idea of a 1000 yard skein made me shudder! However, lace is versatile and beautiful and, at 600 yards, still totally usable and well worth the trouble.

I decided to experiment with two different lace bases; Here is a 100% merino. It takes colour beautifully, and would come in skeins of 600 yards.

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But why not go big and try a luxury lace while I’m at it? This lovely thing is 70% Merino, 20% Cashmere and 10% Nylon. 600 Yards of pure luxury.

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Then there’s the hole at the other end of our offering; worsted. Worsted, so easy, so versatile, so satisfyingly quick, has long been missing from the Blue Brick line up. I’ve been experimenting and searching, and I think I’ve finally found the right base; it takes colour like a champion and it’s soft and smooshy to the touch. Worsted would come in 200 yard skeins.

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Finally, something fun. Sparkles, some folks love it, some could leave it. I personally love sparkle yarn, but I’m not sure I love it enough to add it to the permanent line up, so I had to go huge. Meet our luxury sparkle, 80% Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Stellina. The weight is fingering, and it would come in 500 yard skeins.

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So what do you all think? Let’s hear it, and I can figure out how to proceed from here :)