I have finally started a project with one of my Ombré dyed yarns. Here’s the one I’ve chosen:

Which, before I wound it up, looked like this:

For the full tutorial on how I dye these skeins, click here!

This time I am warping with alternating strands of Indigodragonfly MCS worsted, in a colour called ‘Unemployed in Greenland’ with strands of Indigodragonfly merino sock in a colour called ‘Is The Money Ok? Did They Hurt The Money? (I know, awesome, right?).

I am trying a few new things this time around:

1. I am using a pick-up stick technique to create warp floats on my piece. I’ve learned this from a combination of this pattern and The Weavers Idea Book by Jane Patrick. So far so good.
2. I decided to hem-stitch the bottom before beginning the work, so I don’t have to do it at the end when it’s all floppy and harder to work with. I got this gem from the pattern instructions.
3. I am alternating worsted and sock yarn to vary up my texture, in addition to the pick-up technique. In addition to giving me some texture, I’m hoping that the warp floats will soften up any remaining differences in how my colour transitions come out, so it looks as much like a gradient as possible.
4. I figured out a way to make sure the colour transitions in my ombré yarn stay intact (see below)

The problem I was having was this: when you wind yarn onto your shuttle, the beginning of the yarn ends up being the last bit of yarn to come off the shuttle. This makes working with gradated yarns tough. To fix this, I use my ball winder to make a mini ball. Then I start winding on my yarn from the outside of that ball. By the time I get to the inside of that ball, I’m at the beginning of my colour gradient and ready to start weaving. When I run out of yarn I repeat the process to make sure that my colours are coming up in the right order. Sounds simple, but it really stumped me for a bit!

And here is the work so far. I’m weaving something that will hopefully be wide enough to be a wrap, and also hopefully have more drape than my all-worsted- pieces did.

I hope I have enough yarn! This is only my 5th project, so I have no idea in my head yet of how much yarn these things take. I can’t wait to see how the colour transitions come out!