dyeing to be or not to be...

This April I took a wool dyeing class at Webs in Northampton, MA. It was great fun, I posted pictures of the class activity then and an array of colorful skeinlets that were a result of the class exercise. What I didn't post were pictures of the sock yarn I dyed at the end of the day with the leftover dye solutions. A little canary, a touch of peacock and some cherry, that was all I had left.




I wanted to continue dyeing at home, but lacked an area to do it in. Over the course of the next few weeks I gathered supplies and more dyes and cleared a counter in my garage for mixing dye stocks and painting. Finally, Thursday I mixed the dye stocks and on Friday I was able to do my first dyeing project, finishing the sock yarn from class! I re-skeined it into a larger hank and did some over-dyeing inspired by the new leaf growth colors in the backyard!




Ready to knit into a pair of leafy Spring socks--- should I call it garden camouflage?

1 out of 500 Chairs, page 83

I got a nice surprise in the mail on Friday. My copy of the recently published 500 Chairs arrived and inside on Page 83 is a chair that I submitted to Lark Publications on their call for entries last spring. I'm very happy to have my work included.

I suspected going in that wood and metal and hard surfaced entries would be the norm, I gave it a shot anyway. I'm also relieved that my photography of the chair is passable. Ppphew! So here's a similar angle of the chair, if not the same shot that's in the book and a view of the back and an detail shot.




I'm a penny rug fan and wanted to relate to them with my chenille stitching. So this is one example of the penny rug effect on my work.

Washing instructions

Where did April go? Not that I haven’t been making anything…I have lots of projects going but nothing completed. Sewing chenille pieces, designing knitted pieces unsuccessfully, putting together lavender sachet kits for my etsy shop, setting up a wool dyeing studio in my crowded garage…and well, life.

This morning as I was on my way to the washer with a stack of chenille pieces (logs to be exact), I was thinking about how much I like them before they're washed. So I set up the camera and took some shots. Once they're washed and dried all you want to do is snuggle with them.





I also really like the backs...if I intended to draw with thread it would look like this.

Anyway, I'm having a very capable seamstress install a zipper in a guinea pig log to see how feasible it is. My dream come true---that all future logs will have that option and some overlock too. Oh, the little things!

Dasi's bootees

When I signed up to get on Ravelry, a great beta website for knitters, wool dyers, crocheters and any other aspect of yarn you can think of, I had no idea it would be such a great resource. You can document projects you knit, see what others are knitting, look for yarns for patterns, patterns for yarns and more. Everyone on Ravelry, it seemed, had knit a pair of the cutest, tiniest Mary Jane bootees with buttoned crossing straps. After I knit my first pair of socks (and only, so far) I had enough hand-painted merino sock yarn left over to knit baby bootees! I sewed the first one up to see just how cute it was when the second bootee was in progress----



Until I sewed up the second one I had no idea how much they differed in size. Same needles, but different tension? I knitted a third bootee---and came up with a matching pair. Pphew!

These were for Dasi who arrived last week. Congratulations to my friends Deborah and Andrew!



If you need to knit a pair or three of Saartje's bootees, the pattern is available online.

Dyeing day

I love hand-painted-, kettle-dyed-, hand spun-, multi-colored yarns, however it happens. Inspired by these yarns I wanted to dye my own palette of ribbons and yarns, so I've looked for a workshop in the Northeast. And...

I drove from Long Island to Massachusetts early Sunday morning to take a class in dyeing yarn with acid dyes at Webs in Northampton. Gail Callahan aka Kangaroo Dyer, Webs resident dyer, was our instructor. Gail shared her dyeing history with us and we made our introductions/confessions. She gave us a lesson in the use of the niddy noddy and we started skeining our base yarnlets.



Everyone seemed to master that process, yarnlets were then dunked into our buckets of water and vinegar solution and we ventured out into the retail sales area of Webs to clip samples of various fibers from cones to test along with our yarnlets.



As if that wasn’t enough, to be in the store unfettered by April sale shoppers, we moved into the warehouse to clip more yarns and gather stray skeins! My head was swimming with too many fiber options or lack of latte, I don’t know which.



Fibers gathered… we measured 3 “primary” Cushing dyes into our quart containers, made pastes with tepid water and added boiling water to create our 3 primary dyestocks.


From the dyestock bases we then measured “transitioning” combinations into 12 smaller containers.

The alchemy began when our yarnlets were submerged into the multitude of cups that obscured the tables. One by one, the yarnlets were removed from the cups, wrapped in plastic wrap and popped in the microwave. They emerged as shrink-wrapped spring rolls and rinsed in the sink to ohs! and ahs! We had 3 different base Shetland yarns to choose from for our test mini-skeins and the differing results were evident as we spread them out to compare.





Everyone had chosen full skeins and hanks of additional yarns to experiment with until the class was over. What a variety! I was so busy with my own that I didn’t get a chance to shoot anybody’s creations. Mine are hanging in the motel bathroom until tomorrow’s return home.

Gail wrangled the group through the different steps of the process throughout the day and removed the intimidation that some of us/me felt about the chemistry of the procedures and empowered a roomful of novices and inspired the more experienced dyers. I would recommend a trip to Webs, of course to see and buy yarns (Kangaroo dyer’s creations among ‘em) and most certainly to take a dyeing class from patient Gail.

Tomorrow, with the class out of the way, I will be more able to focus on shopping at Webs!

Zipper = headache = no logs

I've been avoiding making logs lately, because I have yet to solve the zipper issue that I think exists. I've had lots of interest in the log bolster, but I have been procastinating going into production, even if it's only a small edition until I resolve the no zipper/yes zipper issue. Once the fabric is constructed it's not easy to seam accurately due to the thickness of the fabric, so thinking about installing a zipper just becomes a headache. Zipper = headache = no logs.

Instead I chase the marauding guinea hens out of my yard and into the neighbors with a camera which stops my dogs from barking. A win win situation all around.

Pictureless on Long Island

I had such a great week of fiber activities to blog about last week…but didn’t take any pictures. What was I thinking? I had the camera with me but neglected to use it. Not on the fiberarts field trip to Manhattan with my very pregnant friend Deborah---Sullivan Street tour of Purl Patchwork and Purl Soho yarns, Global Table, or on to lunch at Le pain Quotidian, or up to City Quilter for a very interesting talk by Donna Wilder, Free Spirit fabrics founder. Great! No pictures! People talking about making things all day long. No pictures!



Went to a meeting of the Spinning Study Group of Long Island in Smithtown, in an historic barn--- 50 or so people, all ages, arrived to set up their spinning apparatus, roving, yarn and projects! Everyone was so willing to share information about their wheels and fibers---I’m joining that bunch! Can’t wait for the next meeting---but once again, no camera.



April will be better. I won't forget to feed the blog!