About

Hello and welcome to Dyestock Yarns - thank you for dropping in!

I'm Rachael, and I started Dyestock around May 2019, to provide another hand-dyed yarn for Tash at Holland Road Yarn Company, the lovely LYS where I worked. In October 2019, Tash decided to take the shop online only, so I thought I'd branch out my own, which has been a different sort of challenge for me!

I live in Pukerua Bay, a small seaside settlement just north of Wellington, New Zealand. We're famous for our wind here, but if you can handle that, it's a great place to live.

I love dyeing and seeing yarn transform from simple cream to an amazing range of colours. My dyeing adventures started as a child, exploring the dyepots with my mother. The family joke was that we had in-blue-enza when we turned up for dinner with blue fingers! I've dyed off and on over the years and it's always been interesting and satisfying. And quite often surprising as well.

I generally find flat colour to be a little underwhelming. I love the extra texture that heathering and marling introduce into projects, and have a soft spot for socks in highly variegated and bright yarns. For most of my projects though, I want more subtle textured colours, enough to make the final fabric interesting, even in plain stitches, but not so much that cables or lace are overpowered. So that's my aim with my yarns, to have an interesting and dynamic final fabric, no matter what project is being made.

 

I dye in small batches and there are inevitably small differences between skeins, as well as potentially larger differences from batch to batch.  I recommend alternating skeins for larger projects. I will always supply multiples of the same colour from the same batch - if there's not enough stock showing for your project, contact me and I'll dye up a batch for you.

The yarn bases

At the moment I source my main yarn bases from a well-respected company in England in order to get the qualities that I'm after. I plan to add more bases, ideally from New Zealand, over time.

Caring for Dyestock yarns

While the dyes I use are reasonably colourfast, they will last longer with gentle treatment.

For superwash yarns, a gentle (wool or delicate) wash in the washing machine is ok, but handwashing is still preferred. Use a ph neutral wool wash or detergent with cold (or at the most, luke warm) water, and leave for 20 minutes or so before gently squeezing out excess water and gently rinsing with clean water. Generally, knits are best laid flat to dry (I make an exception for socks, they're tough enough to be hung up), and drying them in the shade will maintain the original colours.

I wash and thoroughly rinse all my yarns after they are dyed, so you should experience minimal dye loss when using cold water. If you are using dark and light coloured yarns together, it's a good idea to make a swatch and wash it, just in case.  

If you have any issues or questions, please get in touch.