To re-skein or not to re-skein ... that is the question

One of the dilemmas I have faced since starting to dye yarn for my Etsy shop is whether to re-skein - i.e. re-wrap the yarn in a different sized skein - after dyeing. One of the issues is that the yarn sometimes looks a little messy after the dyeing process, since I end up using a mix of foam brushes, squirt bottles and my fingers to get the dye just where I want it in the quantity I want it in. This ends up with some really neat effects, but the yarn sometimes is off-kilter in the skein after it dries, which is sort of annoying.

Some knitters have a preference one way or another, either liking to see the original dyed product (to see how long the color repeats are) or prefer to see the colors all mixed together (so they can get the idea of how the fiber will look knitted up).

So far, I've just been leaving the yarn as is because I like the way it looks after being painted. And it saves me time, which is awesome, because I'm a low-tech kind of re-skeiner, wrapping it around a board in my apartment. Still, I was curious if it would make much of a difference.

One of my favorite skeins was this rainbow-colored beauty.





I had pretty much decided to keep this skein, so I decided to re-skein it, just to see how it would look.



Hmm.

Granted, this picture was taken indoors in not-so-good light, but this yarn definitely loses some of its luster post re-skeining. One of my favorite things about doing one-of-a-kind hand-painted yarns is the variety of tones, shades and color mixes I can achieve. It's kind of hard to notice that when it is re-skeined and twisted all together. I think I'll stick to the original skeins for now, as messy as they might appear.

Because they are prettier.

And quicker. :)