These yarns are all dyed by Biscotte & Cie (blog in French). Her yarns are available through her Etsy shop, and they are notable because of their beautiful presentation and colours.  The first three yarns shown here are all dyed on our Merimbula base yarn, which is a 100% merino superwash worsted weight. Merimbula is also available as individual skeins in our Ebay store.

Biscotte & Cie has also dyed sock yarns using our Footscray base yarn, and while the colours certainly look pretty in the skein:

look for the seed surprises when they are knitted up!

These beautiful yarns have been created by Fire Lizard Studios using Yarn Workshop Footscray and Bambaroo.

Fire Lizard studios yarns can be bought through Etsy, and will soon be available through a stand alone website.

These socks were completed by Cyclomania (her Ebay identity), who also happens to be my sister.  They were knitted using Footscray and the Madder Ribbed Pattern (Ravelry link) from Knitting Vintage Socks; on our Addi knitting needles.  They were made for her 11 year old son, who is also the model.

Abbenormal (her user name in Ravelry) is creating a beautiful stole using Killara, our smooth silk/wool blend laceweight. She is knitting up the pattern Sarcelle, which is available for download for $6. Here is a link to her project page on Ravelry (membership required).

Abbenormal will receive our “Your Creations” bonus of $10 off her next order. Please see our policies page for further details.

At Easter, I thought that dyeing yarn with Easter Egg dyes would be fun to do with my daughters. We mixed up the dye (including vinegar) in accordance with the instructions on the packet, and dip dyed the skeins.   

I had wound one skein of Footscray into two 50 gram skeins, on a skein winder with a circumference of approximately 68″. The skeins were soaked in warm water with a little dish washing liquid prior to dyeing. We left them to absorb the dye for about half an hour, and then I placed them on a clean oven tray, and put them uncovered in a 100 degree celsius oven (200 degrees fahrenheit) for about a hour.  

I then placed the skeins into a lingerie bag, and put them on the machine wash wool cycle with some fabric softener.  The colours are surprisingly intense, and the striping is much liked by my small children. 

If you would like single skeins of Footscray, please visit the Ebay Store. Of course, wholesale orders are also very welcome, and wholesale enquiries should be directed to ingrid at yarnworkshop.com (replace ” at ” with @).

Merimbula is our classic worsted weight superwash 100% merino yarn. The page fully describing it is here. For retail sales, please visit our Ebay store, but wholesale queries are very welcome. 

The hat below is knitted up in the Amanda hat pattern, available for free from here.

At Yarn Workshop, we are always delighted to show the hand dyed yarns created with our base yarns. Knotanotherknitter is a client of ours who purchased Grafton, our yak/wool blend. The colourway above is Velvet, while the colourway below is Forest.

While Knotanotherknitter is based in the UK, she ships worldwide.  The yarns are really gorgeous!

These socks were knit from our 75% Wool/25% Nylon Fingering weight yarn in the pattern “Madder Ribbed Sock” from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush. The yarn matches the gauge specified in the pattern, and no other alteration was made to the pattern except to knit them using the Magic Loop technique, and to make the leg 2.5 cm (1 inch) longer than specified in the pattern. They fit a US size 9 women’s foot, or a European 40. Over 25 grams of yarn (nearly one ounce!) was left over from a 100 gram skein.

The yarn was kettle dyed using Jacquard acid dyes in Sky Blue, Sapphire Blue, and Yellow Sun. White Vinegar was used as the fixative. I made a 30 inch skein, and soaked it a warm water with a good squirt of dish washing detergent.  Two dye solutions were made, one of a mixture of the blue dyes, and one of a mixture of Sapphire Blue with a little Yellow Sun (when combined this makes a brilliant emerald green). The green dye was added to the dye pot first, and half of the soaked skein was dipped in the pot until the dye seemed to be half exhausted.  Then the rest of the dye was added to the pot and all the yarn submerged.  The yarn was then left until all the dye was exhausted. This process gives a lovely subtly variegated yarn without the wrapping needed for other hand-painting methods.

We’ve been very happy with the durability of the socks made for our family from this yarn. It holds up very well to repeated washes in 40 degree celsius on the wool/delicate cycle, and air drying.

The photo above is of our Merino Laceweight that was originally dyed with Jacquard Acid Dyes in Fire Engine Red, and then overdyed with Ashford dye for Wool and Silk in Brown.  The whole skein had been immersion dyed, but I was after a more variegated effect, and chose to overdye it using the following method.

 The yarn was soaked with a good squirt of hand dishwashing liquid and cold water, and then the dye solution was added to the dye pot that had been filled with cold water. I then arranged the skeins so that they were partially immersed in the dye solution, and slowly raised the heat and simmered (no stirring because the Merino Laceweight can felt) until the dye bath was clear (about 20 minutes).

The resulting yarn is red with long flashes of deep burgundy brown.  Our Merino Laceweight is a perfect substitute for the recommended yarn in Juno Regina which is available for free from Knitty.com. 

In the next week, we expect to be listing wholesale quantities of Grafton, our 50% Yak/50% Wool sportweight yarn; and Killara, our smooth and very soft 50% silk/ 50% wool. Our deliveries of sock yarn and merino yarn are currently delayed, but hopefully will be received soon. 

TheWoolenDiva has sent Yarn Workshop further photos of her finished product – the socks.  You can see the wonderful variation in the yarn.

 In the close up you will see the detail of the yarn.

At Yarn Workshop we are proud to provide the raw materials for your creations, and are delighted when our customers send us photos of their creations.  With your permission, we will be delighted to share those photos with all our customers.

TheWoolenDiva (her Ebay identity) has sent me these photos of her most recent creations. She dyed her yarn after using her knitting machine to create a sheet of knitted fabric, and used a dyeing technique called abrashing. Here is a photo of the sheet of fabric as it dried.  The colour is Jacquard Pumpkin Orange #605.  It looks amazing!

She then wound the yarn back onto the cone, where the beautiful variegated effect can be seen.

Here are the sample socks knitted up from hand dyed 75% wool/ 25% nylon sock yarn.  The yarn was dyed using Dylon general purpose dyes, and the socks had been washed several times prior to the photo being taken.  They continue to wear well, and are pleasantly soft.

More swatch samples will be posted in the near future.