Fiber Dyeing for Featherweight Cardigan

I started spinning and knitting a sweater - the Featherweight cardigan a while back.  I had 12 ounces of BLF fiber that I spun into a 3-ply and while knitting the sweater, I came to the grim conclusion that I was going to run out of yarn - this seems to be a continuing problem of mine.

I hit my stash and found another 4 ounces of natural colored BFL and decided to try to dye to match.  I'm lucky in that the original fiber came in batts so all I need to do is dye in similar colors and run the different colors through my drum carder.

Here is the fiber prior to dyeing.

I used a variety of different purples and a green to try to get an approximation of the batts I bought commercially.  After steaming - some in jars of solid colors and some in plastic wrapped bundles after painting, the purples all came out about the same color.

There was one instance where the color broke and that could have been the age of the mix.  I had newly mixed Dharma dyes and some old bottles of mixed Cushing dyes that I have no idea how old they are now.

This is the batch from Dharma steamed in jars - pistachio and deep purple.

Here is the batch that I painted from Cushings purple and royal blue and one of the Dharma in lilac.

Next up is the drum carder for some color mixing.