Startling Results With
Plymouth Baby Alpaca Brush
Alpaca is exotic, but this overdye turned into a walk on the wild side. Plymouth Baby Alpaca Brush is a blend which produced the mother of all halos.
A halo is usually produced when the food color you are using is a blend of two colors. One color strikes fast on the surface of the yarn and the other color travels into the yarn further.
Baby Alpaca Brush seems to have a core of acrylic wrapped in alpaca.
Food color will dye alpaca but not acrylic.
When overdyeing with a food color that is close to the original color, the core is camouflaged. This is what happened with the yellow food color.
But when the dye color is quite a bit different then the base yarn - a cool effect emerges. The wisps of alpaca are a completely different color than the core.
We overdyed the dusky pumpkin colored Baby Alpaca with Wilton icing gel in Sky blue and McCormick yellow. The small snippets of yarn on top of the hanks show the color of the dyebath.
The Wilton sky dyed the outer layer of the yarn a mallard green and the core layer a dark gold.
This is a cool effect, and I can't wait to try other dyebath colors. And who knows how the finished yarn will knit up?
The McCormick yellow brightened the hank to a tangerine color. Which shows you can lighten a base yarn, but only a touch.
Hints about dyeing - Allow several hours soaking time to be sure the yarn is wet all the way through.
- The fuzziness of the yarn causes it to stick together when wet. Handle it as little as possible during dyeing.
- Allow to dry completely to avoid ripping the alpaca off the core.
Yarn Band information80% Baby Alpaca, 20% Acrylic US 9 needle, 50 grams, about 110 yards
Hints on Dyeing Blue.
Go from Plymouth Baby Alpaca back to base yarn page.
More orange yarn! yippee!
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