dye lot woes

Damn. Caron’s “Pebbles” (Wildflowers, #011) has been a favourite colourway of mine since i started working with the natural dyes. (My cloth is naturally dyed, not *most* of the threads, though some are occasionally.) The soft variations of purple and pink worked so well with rust and brazilwood, but alas, i noticed with the recent order that it wasn’t different pinks and purples, but completely different……………

The original on the left, the new on the right: greens, blues????????

Same name, same number, different dye lots.

I’m quite disappointed, but not really surprised. I’ve been buying this number for at least 5 years, and knew that eventually the dye lot would change, as it’s impossible to duplicate things over time. I did however think it would at least be close. Buying online precludes being able to actually see the difference, especially when the photo used is the “original” one. Even then, in real life, there would have been no guarantee that any in stock would all have been from the same batch!

Having used up one skein that was 3/4 left from other projects, i have one left of the original colourway. I’ll have to either integrate the new one, or find a reasonably close sub: Smoke is too blue, and Ash has too much white…..

In the grand scheme of things, most won’t notice the difference on the actual work, but i wanted that particular dye lot for other work as well.

AND lest anyone suggest i dye them myself, and ask why i’m not using naturally dyed threads instead of commercial “chemical” ones, i haven’t the skill, time or inclination to dye 1000’s of yards (praying that i get close to the colourway), and natural dyes do not do well on finer cotton threads in MY experience. I’m also not that much of a purist that everything has to be “natural” to get the colours or effects i want. Potassium permanganate after all is a chemical, not a natural. In my books, colour is colour, period. If that offends ya, too bad. My circus, my threads 🙂

C’est la Vie!