Natural Dyes: Day One

Today, Day One of the Natural Dyes class in Taos. I think I've found an additional creative outlet. The first day was tons of fun. We made a mordant of Alum with Cream of Tartar, soaked the fiber, and prepared 6 different natural dye baths in mason jars for the small skeins of wool. We worked with: Madder, Marigold, Cochineal, Cutch, Logwood, Brazilwood, and Osage Orange.

It's interesting how different each plant dye stuffs needed to be prepared. From using an electric blender to chop up the Madder to the instant mix and go of the Cutch. So far the Logwood is my favorite; beautifully rich blues and purples. A tie for second goes to Marigold and the Cochineal. Yes, yes, i know...the Cochineal is bright magenta; but i'm drawn to it. I think it's because it's SOOOO super concentrated in the final form.

After getting all of our mini skeins through the dye baths we pulled out one of each color to run though an Iron shift. Neat! Who knew that Iron could have such an effect on color, "Saddening" as Lisel called it, all of the colors to a softer shade. Only one was drastically changed - Marigold. I now know where 60's olive green comes from.

Last was "leaving everything out to dry". Tomorrow we dye and over dye some from today in Indigo. I love blue.

Ready for Class

I'm in Taos, settled into a decent little hotel (after fleeing the 1st place that i am apparently allergic to), and super excited about tomorrow. Tomorrow = Day 1 of Natural Dying Class. YEA!!! I've got gloves, way to much paper, new cute "The Great Pumpkin" 80's slip pencils from Target (in the dollar bins). Also it appears that there are TONS of yarn stores, and general fun stuff to check out, all over the place in Taos. Goal tomorrow is after class to hit La Lana Wools. Multiple people have already mentioned it while i've been here, which is less than 12 hours.

Back to the Airport

Back from Russia...all packed for Taos.  You'd think i loved traveling, which is partially true.  I love doing "stuff".  Be that stuff visiting 400+ year old cathedrals in Moscow or sportin the sun hat in New Mexico checking out some fiber.

Russia was amazing.  So amazing that i took over 1000+ pictures and need to spend some serious time trying to figure out where each icon is from.  Fingers crossed i can work on it while in Taos, but i think that's being overly optimistic.  Russia also produced a pair of socks!  Cast on morning of, and grafted the toes when we got back.

The Taos Fiber Festival is this week!  I signed up for a natural dying class and have spent the last two months convincing them that 2 people is plenty for the two day class and that cancelling the class would really suck (yea for special attention while learning new things).  I got confirmation last night that the class is still on and to bring some gloves.  I'm super excited...my first step into the world of dying fiber and yarn.  As a kid my science fair project was on fruit and vegetable dyes, forcasting?  I'm SUPER EXCITED!!!  I will arrive in Alburquerque this afternoon and make the drive up to Taos.  I've heard even the drive is beautiful : )

All great things must end

Last night was the last in a four week series of learning to spin on the wheel. This class has been awesome! Not only did i learn, i also understood it and within the month and gotten to really enjoy what i am producing. Sadness in parting with the wheel that i have been renting...but joy that in October i was become the proud owner of a Matchless by Schacht ... oh they're beautiful. October is forever away, but it's totally good timing as i will be traveling to Russia for two weeks in September along with the Taos Fiber Festival the first week of October. Both of these trips require planning and preparation that is not nearly as much fun as listening to War and Peace and spinning.

Yesterday before class was a dash to wash the haul from this week. I love yarn on the back railing...

Finished skeins...

I ran this one back through to give it a bit more twist. It came out wonderful and is currently the favorite.

In the final class i think i finally got Andean plying. I'm still cutting off my circulation, but not as bad, and i was even able to ply the yarn without it getting caught on itself. YEA!!! Last night there was talk of different kinds of classes to potentially be offered. All of which sound awesome. Some ideas thrown out were:

• A Carding Class (Right of the animal/plant...help?)
  
• A Fleece Class (I bought it...now what do i do?)
• A Natural Dye Class
• A Novelty Spinning Class (Beads, sequins, ribbon, oh my!)

All of the classes sound awesome and i can't wait to for my next class with Brooke and Maia (Tactile Fiber Arts). They are both amazing teachers with awesome patience and mad skillz.

Other News:
1) Massive amount of fiber were purchased last night at the end of class (my credit card hurts). Update once pictures and inventory has been taken.
2) I still have at least 35% left to finish on my mom's socks before her birthday, which means before i leave for russia, which means in less then two weeks. Ahhh!!!

Long Draw Color

Spinning is awesome! I totally didn't know what i was missing. This weekend i focused on spinning up the 4oz's of Merino in "Kelp" i bought from Tactile. At some point on Sunday i decided it needed to be plyed with some black. So off i went. I found a super nice Alpaca/Mohair blend by Louet at Article Pract. 4oz's of that came home with me : ) Everything was spun. The two were plyed together and... I like it! The top is all Merino. The bottom skein is a a mix based on each ply. Both feel great to the touch. The bottom could have used more spin during the singles to help it ply onto each other better.

Tonight i started into some more of the fiber purchased from Lambtown. I picked this up at the booth and but it down atleast 5 times. I very walked away, outside of the building only to realise that i had to buy it. I'm not a "pink" person, but it called to me as too crazy to pass up. Long draw spinning and it's coming out pretty good. I'm getting better at the width consistency on the singles and really enjoying the crazy pink wool.

The PVC Niddy Noddy

I had plyed yarn, and nothing to get it off of the bobbin into a pretty skein. After all of about 30 seconds of google searching i came across a gazillion different sites explaining how to make a niddy noddy out of nice and cheap PVC. I looked at the different designs, not much different you can do with the PVC. I decided to make some changes to the re-occuring stats. Here is a list of my materials:

• (4) 6" PVC threaded 1/2" thick pipe
• (2) 7" PVC threaded 1/2" thick pipe
• (4) Female threaded caps 1/2" thick pipe
• (2) T-Bar threaded 1/2" thick pipe
• (1) Connector threaded 1/2" thick pipe

Total Cost @ Osh in Berkeley = $9.33 (with tax)

Not bad! I imrpovised the niddy noddy to be able to create a 1 yard - OR - a 2 yard group of yarn by adding the connector in the middle of the center bar. I've already used it, and i put this together 6 hours ago ; )

It is SUPER travel friendly as it breaks down and fits easily into a purse or bag.