Okay, so I had a tie between combo 1 and 3 and ended up trying 3 (since I didn't know if I could pull off red). I also over dyed a skein of Trekking in yellow and orange. So here are all the pics and a description of what happened. Let's say things didn't turn out as expected!!
Here is the Trekking XXL that I overdyed. First yellow all over then orange in spots.
This is the Trekking after dying, while it is cooling.
And then with the variegated, things didn't go as planned. I read in several places (and some of your comments) that purple was hard to do. But I had heard mixing flavors could lead to a decent purple. So the plan was dye a pink all over and then do one end purple and the middle a brighter pink. This was to be my variegated. So the pink and purple went alright. Thought the purple got a bit carried away and the yarn sucked it up like crazy. At this stage things were more marbled (not intended, but liked and I was forewarned by Rowena that this would occur). So I liked the yarn here and should have stopped. The way the yarn sucked up the purple should have told me things would end badly.
So I didn't listen to my instinct yelling stop, I was having too much fun. And I tried doing a darker pink middle section. I put the yarn in for a second (I swear!!) to see what would happen and didn't like it at all. So I dyed the majority of it the red/hot pink. So the end effect was more of a tye dyed reddish pink and purple. I think next time I will try hand painting any 'variegated' yarn ideas I come up with.
Overall, I learned a lot. I learned that lighter colors need more than one pack to 50gm of yarn. That variegated isn't good unless you do a color study or hand paint. That overdyeing a yarn can be fun. And that you really can't predict the end results. Or at least I can't. Those of you who do this for more than fun and with more experience can...
I will post more pics when the hanks dry. And I will be doing much more yarn dyeing soon!! It was so much fun. Even if I did get carried away.
