Dye Day

Laura called me as she was leaving her house in Prineville which is about an hour from here to say she'd be over as soon as she was done at the Social Security office, however long that might take. It took no time at all and she rolled in the yard as I was cleaning up my breakfast dishes.

Set-up took a while, partly because she was instructing as she went. Ian found a six-pack of "ketchup" squirt bottles at Cash-and-Carry which were invaluable. Laura measured the dye by eye, pouring into the squirt bottles and mixing at the same time. She did samples in a cup using syringes so she could measure cc.s and so I could write down "recipes."

This one of the colorways, ready for the steamer.

In order to keep the dyes from contaminating each other, we had to blot the daylights out of it before rolling up the plastic wrap. The paper towels were so pretty, it was a shame we had to throw them away.

It really was a beautiful morning so we weren't in a hurry, but we should have been because by the time we were finished, it was cold and windy. That's when we went Ian took us to lunch.

We hung the roving still in plastic to let it cool down and then after we got back, removed the plastic to let it continue to drip. I draped the rovings over plastic coat hangers and left them in the garage overnight.

These are my results. Instead of doing the five single solid colors as I had planned, I followed some of the colorways that Laura has already created. The two on the left are the same, as are the two in the center. The one on the right is all the mixed dye that we had left. I had planned to use the colors in these to blend with other dyed wools but I may spin one of these as is and ply with with a silk thread - just to see what happens.

My great granddaughter Alexia cradles her new baby brother. I now have a great grandson - Owen - and he's every bit as beautiful as his sister.

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Dying to Dye

I was browsing Cindie Kitchen's Etsy store to see what other kinds of fiber she has (for future reference) when I came across this bump of roving that she had dyed way back when she dyed roving as a business.  It's Merino and Tencel and some of my favorite colors at a discounted price.  It's does need a little purple I think.

Nobody in our family drinks juice so I finally broke down, went to Bi-Mart and bought eight of these priced at 2/$4.  I really want to dye my white roving this week.

Glug, glug, glug, down the sink went the "juice."

Today was the day.  I've only ever dyed with Procion acid dyes and was flummoxed by these "primary colors" from Jacquard.  I crossed my fingers and called Laura, hoping she would pick up the phone!

She tried to explain some of her favorite blends and I was madly jotting note when she asked if I could just mix the dyes today and when she comes to the Social Security Office in Bend this Friday, she'll come over and help me blend the colors I would like to achieve.

The painters mask was miserable.  I think I had it on wrong but I once got started, I wasn't willing to take a risk and mess with it.  It's old and if the elastic broke, I'd be stuck and I really don't want to breathe these tiny little dye particles.  All instructions on dyeing warn you to wear a mask and I'm not a risk taker.

In the end the final result almost looks like the original bottles.  I have eight dyes:  golden yellow, teal, cherry red, turquoise, yellow sun, brilliant blue, hot fushsia and gold ochre.  If I need black I'll just use a couple grains of my Mother MacKenzie black dye powder. Between now and I Friday I'll get to the dollar store and buy some squirt bottles and mesh laundry bags.  More hurry up and wait.

The Navy blue and white roving that I blended is turning into a really pretty scarf.  I'm pleasantly surprised and especially like the pop of white from the soil noil.  I probably should just have stuck with weaving towels in this short time period as I'm not going to have a lot of either scarves or towels.

These towels bring my total count up to 43.  I had planned to make my current "desert sunrise" warp be the last one before the fiber show and even though I'm following from my notes, it's a disappointment.  I blame bad note keeping - not the first time that's happened.

We've had several unusually warm and lovely days.  It was 65 yesterday which set a record, but that is changing today.  My back hurt after I finished standing on the tile floor mixing the dyes so I made time for a visit to the hot tub. The birds were singing and the sky was blue.  Much better now :)

Painted Warps

I went to Rae's this morning to learn how to make painted warps. I've wanted to do it for a long time but learning how to mix and use fiber reactive dyes and also the mechanics of applying the dyes to chained warps was just too intimidating for me. This is one of her examples - I love her fringe!

This is a 9" wide scarf but she wound the warp in 1" bouts before dyeing. The color movement up the scarf is wonderful.

I took the dyes I had purchased from Dharma,, and Rae showed me the Dharma catalog where she had marked the dye powders she owns. This was an older catalog and she gave it to me. Her teacher had recommended no more than three colors and I can tell you that picking just three colors was torture. That took the most time of all. I borrowed moss green from Rae and need to order some of my own.

I ultimately mixed up four colors and when I still couldn't select just three, I used them all. She uses 1/2 teaspoon per one cup of water. The hot water is the only hot part with fiber reactive dyes, so different for me than dyeing protein fibers like wool and sillk with acid dyes. I just realized one disappointing omission - I changed out colors and rearranged so much but didn't write down my final choices and I can't remember now what they are. I think the above are Cayman Bue, Plum, Bronze and Moss Green. Or not.

We started first thing by immersing my two warps in soda ash water, which is a mordant of sorts. It's recommended that you soak for at least a half hour and it was longer than that because I was stymied by color.

I had wound my warp in 2" bouts for an 8" scarf and labeled them 1 to 4 to keep them in order for later when it's time to weave. Once the soak was completed, we opened up the three yard warp chain and slipped both ends through dowels. I'm using 8/2 Tencel, a form of rayon.

We blotted the excess dye from the plastic wrap and covered the top with a second sheet of plastic wrap. This is to keep the color from unintented bleeding. It's rolled up tightlly to keep the yarn wet for the next day or two.

The color on the yarn is really dark and looks terrible. These are the colors that I blotted up so I'm hoping my results will be closer to them.

I chose analogous colors for my second warp and just a word of caution. When mixing dye powders, it's imperative that you wear a dust mask. You may not see anything in the air but the risk is serious. I think the colors here are Raspberry, Lilac and Fuchsia Red. Or not.

We put the warp ends on dowels again but this time I scrunched them together and then painted sections on the diagonal. I'm trying hard not to focus on how ugly the warps look at this stage and just believe the colors that are on the paper towels. This is definitely not for someone who requires immediate gratification.
The two warps are wrapped securly in plastic wrap and are batching in the garage. They recommend at least 24 hours and 48 is even better. I'll probably rinse these out sometime tomorrow afternoon. I'm going to our local farmers market on Sunday then have a school library sub job all next week so I wanted to write down the steps that we took today while they are fresh in my mind. And then I need to do it again as soon as I can.

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Color on a Sunny Day

I realized about half way through my second towel on this warp that the fourth stripe in from both edges is wider than the others.  I got my stripes turned around - those should be on the edge so that the edge strip isn't more narrow than the others.  Now it's a design element.

I'm weaving another scarf on Maudie Mae.  I have two skeins I spun that are wool in both ply.  I made them before I started thinking about scarves and haven't known what to do with them, so today I warped and started on this.  It's going to be pretty.

This is the other skein and I'll weave it next.

I wound this yarn into a warp and ordered a teal Tencel from Yarn Barn for weft, but when a week passed by and I hadn't heard anything, I gave them a call.  That's about how long our answering machine had been turned off and there were some problems with the order.  For one thing, the teal has been back ordered since January.  I'm looking to maybe using this green silk instead.

I decided to dye some BFL/silk yesterday. These are the primary colors that I've used ever since Charlene Schutch's dye workshop a decade ago.  She called them warm and cool primaries so that's what I've always called them.  Mim also still uses these dyes, though she's supplemented them with some other hues.

I was dragging my feet about dyeing since I couldn't figure out how to get magenta and I really want to add that in my blends.  I learned that magenta and fuchsia are the same thing.  In fact, what was originally called fuchsia was changed to magenta in 1869 to celebrate the victory of the Battle of Magenta, near the town of the same name.  I also learned that Charlene's "cool red" is magenta.  I had it all along.

Ready, get set - steam!

I decided to keep the cue-tips for future color reference.  Mim has told me forever that when you blend three or more hues, the colors break out during the steaming process.  You can that they separated right on the paper towel when I was testing my mixes.

And these are my results today after I fluffed the dried roving this morning.  I got much more complex results and am really pleased even though while I was dyeing yesterday, I was nothing but frustrated.

And this is the full palette I'll be working with.  I have no stash anymore so my blends will be variations of these eight, plus black and white and some extras.  I meant to add some silk noil to the roving I dyed yesterday but my intentions were left at that - intentions.

 I had company in the studio this morning.  I think she was just exhausted from being naughty.  

Color on a Gray Day

I calculated that I had enough yarn for an 8" scarf but discovered that I actually had enough for 10" and kept winding.  Once I saw it in the reed I realized that 10" is a *really* wide scarf and I couldn't imagine wanting to wear it so I tore out enough for 7 1/2" and tossed it over the back.  I thought I'd wind it onto a spool and use it for something later but I wasn't quick enough and Maddie turned it into a cat toy.

Once I started weaving I could see I was right.  I was a little concerned about the hairy alpaca yarn but the tencel weft seemed to tame it nicely.

I decided that the fastest way to get more roving for blended batts was to dye up the 8 ounce bump of BFL/silk that's been sitting around here.  Cindie Kitchens had sent me a great link to Design Seeds, a color inspiration web site.  I chose these colors from one of the palettes but didn't like the options for a fourth color.  I had enough roving for one more color but was stumped.

 It's probably been two years since I've dyed anything and I felt really awkward.  I had asked Nina at Odette's Obsessions for help on kettle dyeing roving and in response she sent me a chart of dye strengths to WOG (weight of goods).  I followed her chart but decided to steam packets so I could get four separate colors.   I had the perfect ratio of dye to wool as the dye completely exhausted and there was nothing to rinse out afterwards.

These are my results.  I only blended two colors together, as though I were blending to paint.  I can see that on my next set I need to blend at least three colors to get more complex results to tone these down.  This is a good starting point though.

 The scarf is finished and I absolutely love it.  I have come realize that patience is required throughout the entire process because it a scarf isn't a scarf until it's wet finished. It looks horrible until then. After a press on the mini mangle, it's an entirely different thing.  Between the alpaca and tencel, this is all about drape.

I finished spinning the last of my blended batts.  I don't have a good color to use as weft so finally took the time to put together an order of weaving yarns.  When you order more than $200 from Yarn Barn of Kansas, you get a 20% discount which saved me over $50.  I ordered teal tencel for the weft on this and I'm sure I'll use it for other things later.

Maddie discovered yesterday how to get up on the counter.  I was sitting there, eating breakfast, when suddenly she hopped up on the stool next to me.  She sat next to me for about five minutes and then curiosity got the best of her.  As you can see, nothing will ever be safe again.  I was trying to full my yarn and she wanted to help too.  Actually, she's fussed at me all morning to go up and work in my studio.  I've made it a routine to weave mornings and if I don't get up there as soon as she thinks I should, she turns into a complete feline nag.  She goes up to the balcony, sticks her head through the posts and mewls at me.

I don't have time today to start anything as I need to get ready to leave pretty soon.  Today is Tommy's memorial, or Thomas as his family calls him.  I'm stuck in time as he was just a boy when I last saw him.  It hasn't even been a month since he died of pneumonia after catching a respiratory virus, dead at 38.  He leaves two children and heartbroken parents.

Clean Up

The fourth and last looper rug is done.  I think I might have had room for a fifth on the cloth beam, but I'm glad I didn't warp for it.  I want to clean up my mess and try some scarves.

This is the mess I'm talking about.  One side of a looper is a raw edge where it was cut from the loom.  I have looper lint everywhere and suspect I will for months to come.

I hauled our heavy vacuum cleaner up the stairs, shoved Lilith back to the wall and sucked up this mess.  And then of course, since that part of the rug was clean, the rest looked messy.  I ended up vacuuming everything and I realized when I moved Maudie Mae and found a half inch of lint that it's probably been over a year since I've done it.

 I recently realized that when I used this kind of knot (I don't know what it's called) when I lash onto the front apron rod, when I'm done weaving, I can quickly pulled it open and I don't have to cut anything.  The loom is clear in minutes.

I bought eight ounces of silk noil in my Yarn Barn order.  I've never worked with it and didn't know that I had just purchased a life-time supply.  Not knowing the first thing about it, I thought I'd just do some lumps using Gaywool dyes.  It only took a few crystals in hot water for a lump.

Today I blended more stuff together.  I've spun up my other batts and I'm still learning how to make ugly yarn.  My soil noils are on the left behind the pile of silk.  The lavender fluff is mohair and the white wool is badly processed, neppy Cormo which actually does well in these blends.  I'm using the last of the dyed roving I bought from Mim and need to get over to her place soon for more.

These are my first batts.  

These are the second.  I left out the mohair but added sari silk.

These are some of the yarns I've spun up and want to weave.  I'm driving over to Nevada City on Tuesday to attend the Not 2 Square weavers interest group.  Instead of taking something I've woven to share, I'm planning to take these yarns and ask for advice.  The drive will be five hours, round trip but I've talked my neighbor Kerry into going with me. 

Ian loaded up the bark from the firewood he cut and was taking it to dump.  The dogs waited in the cab while he went back into the house.

Was that the front door?!!!

Oh it was and he's coming, he's coming, he's coming.  It's been two minutes!!

Oh happy day, we're going to haul the bark away.  Happy dogs.