Once you know how to do this, your possibilities are endless. Essentially, you'll be making your own custom dubbing. You'll have complete control of the color of your flies, which will allow you to match any hatch in color exactly. You can see how this will come in handy, right?
There are many methods of blending dubbing. Some of them call for all kinds of dies & even food processors or blenders. The way I've always done it seems the easiest to me. So, here's how it's done:
-Take a couple of different furs - those that are commercially colored. You need only a small amount of each color, maybe a clump the size of a 50 cent piece.
-Put both clumps into a jar that's somewhere around a quart in size. It helps if the jar is transparent so you can see inside it.
-Fill the jar to about 3/4 full with hot water.
-Add about 2 or 3 drops of liquid dish soap - no more than that.
-Put into the jar the two small clumps of dubbing you want to combine.
-Put the lid on the jar & shake the living daylights out of it for at least a minute or two.
-When you've done all this, set the jar aside & let it rest for a little while, until everything in the jar settles down.
-You're going to need some kind of small strainer. I use a small kitchen strainer for this. Take the dubbing out of the jar. It will be kind of "goopey", like a wet cat. Put the fur into the strainer & rinse it under the faucet. Go at this for a while & take your time, you want to make sure you rinse all the soap off of the dubbing. Use luke-warm water for this.
-Finally, set the dubbing aside to dry on a paper towel after patting it dry. Once it's completely dry package it up in an air tight plastic bag.
Like an artist painting a picture, you'll have to consider what color two different colors make when combined. You're also going to have to do some experimenting to get the mix just right. That's okay because the more you do this, the more you'll learn how much of each color you need in the mix to get the results you want ("maybe a little more yellow next time & less brown").
Once you get onto this you can try combining three or more colors. You can also try combining different furs from different animals, like rabbit & muskrat, for example. As you can see, the sky is the limit. So go ahead & give this a try. Once you know how to make your own custom colors of dubbing, you won't have to worry if your fly shop or supplier doesn't have the exact color you've seen on the insects of your local hatches. Just think of the possibilities this adds to your fly tying.....