Mixing colors

[calftail]

Fly tyers are cheapskates aren't we. We wander the isles of sewing shops, hobby and craft stores, K-marts, Walmarts, Home Depots...all with our fly tying eyes peeled for the magic material to tie the fly that's going to be "the" fly.

I bought a skein of real funky yarn at Walmart for a buck 29 and really questioned whether I needed it or not , the colors were down right primary, but I needed something yellow for Dave's Hopper and it was the only yellow I could find that suited my eye.

Today I decided to play with the skein. I picked three primary colors, yellow, blue and red and as you can see the colors are far from anything you would consider insect earth tone. Olive was my goal....



Olive didn't turn out to bad.....

 

[mcnerney]

That was pretty cool, thanks for sharing!

 

[comeonavs]

Alright, as El Cheap Skate you peaked my interest.

As a tier of midges,nymphs and some standard dries....please expand on what i am missing here. Does this replace dubbin or emerger / post type of applications ?

Someone posted a video of tying a RS2 with a yarn body

Now I am curios

 

[guest64]

I'm always drawn to those skeins of multi-colored yarn in the craft store. They make a great starting point for custom mixing dubbing for specific hatches and, IMO, a mix of colors is more lifelike than a similar uniform color. With a skein of multi-color yarn, a scissors and a coffee grinder, you can fill a 12 compartment dubbing box in no time and quite inexpensively.

 

[calftail]

So..here is a fly tied with the the dubbing. Western Green Drake...

 

[lv2nymph]

the olive tone looks real good, fly is real nice. Do you use a bean grinder to mix?

 

[calftail]

the olive tone looks real good, fly is real nice. Do you use a bean grinder to mix?

At first I pulled the yarn loose with a comb and snipped away with my scissors, later figured I needed a better mix so I got my coffee grinder out and gave it a whirl.

 

[Liphookedau]

I've been using Virtually The Same Type of Acrylic Wool & any other Synthetic material as Wools Dubbing for years all I usually do is unravel it sometimes I also Comb it out with a Very Fine Comb.
I also find any of The Flosses are also good a as they come in all Colours.
Brian

 

[lv2nymph]

That's how I go about it as well.

 

[calftail]

Alright, as El Cheap Skate you peaked my interest.

As a tier of midges,nymphs and some standard dries....please expand on what i am missing here. Does this replace dubbin or emerger / post type of applications ?

Someone posted a video of tying a RS2 with a yarn body

Now I am curios

Not sure what your question is ?

ct

 

[comeonavs]

Not sure what your question is ?

ct

Sorry what I meant was do you just buy spools of yarn vs bags of dubbing and make your own so to speak. Also is there patterns where you would actually form the body out of segments of yarn vs dubbed thread.

Probably to open ended of a question but I hadn't seen this before since I am semi new to tying.

 

[calftail]

Sorry what I meant was do you just buy spools of yarn vs bags of dubbing and make your own so to speak. Also is there patterns where you would actually form the body out of segments of yarn vs dubbed thread.

Probably to open ended of a question but I hadn't seen this before since I am semi new to tying.

I have used all kinds of materials to make fly bodies and really don't have a preference for store bought or DIY dubbings. Fly tyers have been using yarns for bodies before you and I were born and what's in style one week goes out of style the next and then comes back again...that's the way this fly fishing goes.

Yarns are a good material to tie big flies. They make really good underbodies, even if you dub over the yarn or use just the yarn itself. You can take a look at http://www.theflyfishingforum.com/forums/general-fly-tying-discussions/349679-daves-hopper.html. The body was made from the skein of yarn I pictured above and wound on the hook as strands rather than dubbed onto the thread.
Mohair yarn is particularly buggy stuff and makes great stoneflies and a popular Angora yarn was a favorite for tiers tying the Wulff series.

The uses are endless.

If you want to make some up for yourself use a kitchen blender or a coffee grinder, coffee grinders are about 10 bucks, tease apart your yarn and snip pieces about 1/2" to an inch, toss it in the blender/ grinder and spin it for a few seconds...viola ! You can also mix natural furs and synthetics.

ct

 

[comeonavs]

That is awesome, thanks for the info

I might have to dig in to this and see if it would be worth me exploring a little more. I am always looking to learn a thing or two.

 

[calftail]

Yarn wing from the skein...."Lil' Trout"



---------- Post added at 12:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:43 AM ----------

These pics are underwater in a bowl. The colors change more trout-like when wet.....

At least to the human eye,,,haha !

Anyways...........

 

[guest61]

Great topic!

I am a pretty frugal tier and can often be seen cruising the isles of craft stores. When I use to do a lot of saltwater fly fishing and fly tying I discovered the economical benefits of tying big streamers with macramé yarn. I used to get it from Carols Rugs as they had the largest color selection anywhere. You separate the individual braids and comb them out with a flea comb or similar. The result is a long flowing fiber like EP fibers that sheds water on one back cast making huge flies extremely castable.
The only problem was Carols Rugs only sold bulk amounts of the stuff. After a few orders I called them and talked about the benefits of macramé in flyfishing but we didn't need those huge amounts they were selling. I would make custom orders of specific amounts of certain colors. Eventually, they gave in and started catering to fly tiers.
I hadn't been to their site for a long time and was happy to see they still have the fly fishing section. Check it out!

Fly-fishing cord - Carol's Rugs, macrame cord