#gradient yarn tutorial

First up, gradients themselves. In this post I'm specifically working with commercial top that is dyed in slow changing colors along the length of the entire top. There are other techniques that can be used to make gradients from fiber dyed in other ways but they'll need their own posts.

This is an example of a simple gradient, dyed on BFL wool. Dyes have been applied along the length of the top and allowed to blend at certain points to help shift from one color to the next. This type of gradient is the easiest to start with and what I'll be demonstrating with.

Looking at our BFL gradient, we can see there are roughly four main defined sections of color and in between we find sections where the dyes have met and blended. These blendy sections are where we will be splitting our top. These blended sections are also important in spinning as they are what helps us see a smooth, flowing shift from color to color instead of more solid, striped blocks of color.

Weighing your fiber before you begin spinning is the best way to get started. I use a basic digital scale and prefer to weigh my fiber in grams, even if I'm working with something originally sold in ounces.

First we weigh our wool. This wool weighs 101 grams, so by the end of the splitting process I want to have two halves that each weigh about 50 grams.

This is our first section we'll be breaking off. Usually the ends of dyed wool can be a little more compacted, which can help in remembering where the end is. I find it can be helpful to take a photo of my wool before I start breaking it apart so I can refer back if needed, though with more practice I don't need to very often.

I like to gently pull my wool top horizontally to open it up a bit before pulling it apart. It can make it easier to split the top exactly where I want to, especially if the top is compacted.

Now we need to weigh our first small section of top. 23 grams in this first piece means I'll be looking to divide this first piece into two pieces that should each weigh around 11 ish grams each. The reality of natural fibers is that it's very hard to get a perfect split, and that's okay, we actually want a little bit of extra here and there. We want some optical blending to occur so that the colors overlap more gradually. Too harsh and you get more of a striping effect.

Most commercial wool tops will split in half fairly easily.

I do not recommend trying to vertically split more than about a third of a 100 gram braid at a time. I've seen many people claim that they can get perfectly even splits every time, however I can never rely on this method. I find that even if the split initially appears even, when weighed there is often a far more noticeable difference. And since we are trying to get long, slow color changes without needing to break our singles because we have too much of one color, take the extra time to weigh out smaller sections of your wool.

So what do you do if you have a large weight difference in your two pieces of top? You'll need to vertically split a small section of top from the heavier piece and add it to the smaller one. It's just like when you initially divided the two halves. Start with a section smaller than a pencil. You want each half to be close in weight.

My two pieces of BFL top couldn't quite settle between 11 and 12 grams. That's fine, that is more than close enough.

On to the second section. You can see how using the color changes helps me keep my wool in the order I want.

If you get excited or in a hurry and split your top vertically before weighing it, no worries. Just weigh the two pieces together and then continue.

I just gently wrap my wool on itself as I finish weighing and splitting each color section, taking care that my gradient stays organized and the colors are not out of order. I then weigh the two halves and note which one is heavier (and one is always slightly heavier). As I continue with sections, I add heavier color sections to the lighter weight half of the wool and vice versa. Again, I'm aiming to keep my halves roughly but not exactly equal.

Alright, last color split. I'm still splitting my sections at points where it's easy to see the color changes. Same steps as above two more times. Weigh, split, weigh again, add from the heavier piece to the lighter piece as needed.

So that is the basics of how I split a gradient dyed braid for spinning. The post with notes about spinning the singles and plying will happen, er, after I spin this gradient. Sorry.

But, here's some more notes and things for the meantime!

Remember how I said I do not rely on how the top wants to split to get even halves? This is why. The wool fell apart beautifully. But if I tried to spin it as is for a 2 ply, at some point during plying I would have to break my singles and splice in the extra blue single. If I didn't break and splice, my colors wouldn't be aligned.

Mirror dyed gradients are fun and you can absolutely use the same techniques to spin one. They still need to be weighed though, and because dyers are human they may not be as identical as they seem at first glance. See that dark blue section on the left? There's not much showing on the right side, and you might assume that it's because of how the wool is braided or maybe it's on the back.

Oh dear. The blue is nearly all on the left half, with next to none on the right, and there are other colors that have extremely unequal representation. So what do you do?

Tear out each individual color. Weigh and split them. You might decide you don't want that dark blue in there at all. You'll be able to adjust the colors that have unequal sections. You get to be in control of the fiber and the colors if you split your colors, weigh them, and divide them. This wool can make a beautiful gradient but it does need a little more work to get there.

Here's another example of a gradient that needs adjusting by weight. It looks fairly even.

When opened up we can see that one of these silk bricks has more of the coppery section than the other. Silk brick is something I'm still learning to work with but pretend for a moment this was wool. I would tear a small piece of top from the color I need to even out, split it in half vertically and adjust by weight until I have roughly equal amounts of the copper section. This is possible with silk btw it's just trickier due to the length of the fiber. Silk will get it's own post eventually.

In conclusion: Split your fiber by color.

Split your colors by weight.

Aim for roughly equal. About 1 gram difference between the fiber for each intended single is my sweet spot.

All three of the shawls in the above pic are made from yarns spun using this method. When I first started I did have to break my singles and realign my colors sometimes. The shawl on the left has some areas where I spliced in sections. The shawl in the middle was originally a randomly dyed top that I tore apart, weighed out and then carded before spinning. It didn't need any splicing. The shawl on the right was a mirror dyed gradient top that I weighed out to ensure equal colors, no splicing needed. This type of long slow gradient spinning takes practice. It's absolutely achievable.