One of Those Weekends

This weekend did not quite go as planned. It all started when I went to look for my flick carder to brush up some icelandic fleece I scoured Friday night. Couldn't find it. I eventually gave up and decided to take my spinning outside. Being a sun-sensitive individual, I went to put on a particular long-sleeve shirt. I couldn't find it either. Not to be discouraged, I borrowed my sweetheart's particular long-sleeve shirt and went outside to spin. After a while, I broke my tension band. I fixed that, finished the project and realized it didn't quite have enough twist on the ply.

By this point, I decided maybe this was not meant to be a fiber weekend, but could not help but try a few more things. I went ahead and plied some yarn that had been waiting for plying, which went ok until I wound it off on the niddy-noddy and then forgot to tie the skein up before I took it off. I just gave up at that point and read a book (Naamah's Kiss by Jacqueline Carey - great book, great author).

Sunday I figured had to be better, but just to be safe I read another book (Phoenix Endangered by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory- another great book, great authors) Sunday morning so I would start the day off well. I had Day Two of my natural dyeing class with Kristine of A Verb For Keeping Warm on the docket and was determined to learn much and enjoy myself, taking good photos and writing to my blog.

I left the house, which was a toasty 90 degrees, to drive over to Berkeley - and completely forgot the camera. *sigh* At least my phone has a camera, so I got some pictures! The class was lovely, and yet I didn't think to bring a long-sleeve shirt, which was unfortunate 'cause it was 20 degrees cooler in Berkeley than at my house. Darn micro-climates!

In class, we learned about dyeing in bell jars, kettle dyeing, proper measurements, and so on, and it was awesome. We died with madder, logwood, cutch, and pomegranate. I'll find out next week how it all really turned out!

So, about the class. Kristine's method of measuring was fun. It's kind of like watching a cook who believes in a pinch of this, and a smattering of that, as long as it's within a few grams of what it should be. It must be the right thing to do 'cause goodness knows her own colorways are awesome!

Here are some jars with logwood purple. They'll go in a hot water bath with a few other jars, allowing us to play with more colors at once than we would otherwise be able to.


We didn't start off with jars. We started off with a pot for the madder. When it went in, it was a clay-brown. Obviously, it didn't stay that way!
By the end of class, we'd made quite the mess, and it was good. :-)
To make sure, however, that I rounded out my "one of those weekends" weekend, both my arms started to rash up quite a bit by last night. I'm allergic to something in the fiber world, tho' goodness only knows what! I don't have to touch anything, I just have to be in the same room as whatever it is and if I have exposed skin on my arms, or even on my chest if I'm wearing a V-cut shirt, within a few hours I'll be all red and itchy. This morning I used hydrocortizone cream like body lotion and took some benedryl, so I don't itch any more, which is good. But I look like I'm stoned. Soooooo sleepy!

There's no giving up on my fiber love, but you know, I hope it'll be a while before I have a weekend like this again!