Diary of a Yarn Dyer – Fade Dye Along Recap

We recently wrapped up a fade dye along and I wanted to do a little reflection on the series and where you will see the dye with mes go from here. Make sure you check out the series on YouTube.

Before we get into it, I will be hosting a LIVE dye with me session this Saturday, September 26th at 2pm ET. I’d love to have you there. It’s a virtual event for the kickoff of the Pigskin Party, hosted by BostonJen of the Pigskin Party. I’ll be dyeing up the exclusive colorway for that makealong.

Back to this series – overall, it seemed like everyone had a lot of fun participating in the series. I cannot thank everyone who commented, participated and purchased the kit enough. THANK YOU! It couldn’t have been done without all of the participation and back and forth conversations we were able to have throughout this series. I really learned a lot and I hope you all learned something too.

The final kit

We started off the series with a lot of interest in a fall kit with pinks and greens. You can see that was the feel I went for in the first skein. There was the least amount of constraint for me in dyeing skein #1 because those were the only requirements! As the first skein, I just had to worry about including the colors we talked about and making it capable of setting up the second skein.

When I went to skein #2, I really struggled in getting the skein where I wanted it. The skein you see above is actually attempt #3. We talked about adding in deeper roses, browns and incorporating purple.

When I dyed up the first attempt, I started with a similar base as to skein 1, but I made the pinks, reds and greens darker than in the first skein. I think this happened subconsciously because of all of the gradient dyeing I tend to do.

Gradients stick to the same color, but change tone. This is my Rose Gold kit.

When I then added the purple, I added too much and the skein just became too dark for this fade. I LOVED the result and if you’ve been following along, this colorway became one of my new fall colors – Autumn Vibes.

Autumn Vibes

Knowing now that Autumn Vibes was originally meant to be skein #2, do you see the similarities to skein #1? You can see the pink/red and green base, but it’s deeper tones. You can also see I went heavy handed with the purple. I LOVE the result, just not for the fade.

I found the issue to be with attempt #1 that I went too much off of what I was used to doing (hence the regression to the gradient). I ended up doing attempt #2 more literally to what people were commenting. The problem here was I ended up adding some orange to the skein that didn’t work. I think I knew that making attempt #1 (no orange) and went too far the other way of giving up control of the skein. I again, was not a fan of the skein for this fade.

Attempt #3 was the happy medium where I lightly added in the roses, browns and just a bit of purple. I ended up blending the purple with some of the pinks to change the tone so it wouldn’t be so harsh. This allowed it to fit in better with the skein.

Different, but blends well

Because I learned so much in skein #2, skein #3 went in one take. There were a lot of comments about a neutral color. I created a neutral base with hints of the purple and rose to tie it to skein #2. I’m really proud of this skein as well and love how it came out.

Skein #3

I really wanted to also show that the fade didn’t have to go from lightest to darkest. I didn’t want this kit to be a gradient and so I was happy to bring the tone back down a bit from skein #2. The fade really needed to change colors and not necessarily to change tones. You can see the purple is lighter and blends in much more. We also have lots of the neutral feel as well.

The skeins really can be mixed and matched within a project however you want. I don’t think it’s a traditional fade because I really wanted to show different things in each video, but it definitely hits on the fade techniques. The kit is a soft fall theme with beautiful colors. I hope you like it!

Again, make sure you check out the videos on YouTube or read about each recap in prior posts on this blog. I’d love to hear what else you want to see. In the future, I plan to do more series like this and one off videos as well. Coming up will be dyeing batches and one of a kind skeins.

Check out my more in depth recap here:

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