Things I'm Dyeing To Learn

Today I drove the 50 miles or so to A Verb For Keeping Warm for Kristine's Natural Dyeing class. It was a very intimate class setting - there was only room for 6 people in the class! I'm tickled I managed to sign up! My fiber friend Judith was also in the class - it was nice to have someone in there I know. And another indie dyer, Janelle of Snicklefritz, was also in the class. I bought some awesome dyed yarn from her through Ravelry! It was great to meet her in person.

The dye studio is a rather cozy place.
Basically, we're talking the size of a one-car garage. The class is in three parts over the course of three weeks. There's a reason for that span of time - natural dyeing takes a long time to do it right. To mordant the fiber, you should really count on letting it sit for a week. The dyeing, same thing. And the last class will be about how to wash it all up, 'cause that's an art form in and of itself.

Kristine was a fabulous teacher. Dyeing isn't just her job, it's her calling. I think she should have a little halo around her head in this photo:

Our job today was to measure the fiber, get it to soak in what I think is a large turkey fryer, and listen about the different types of dye we'll be getting in to next week. What do you think, is that a turkey fryer or some other strange contraption?
Our wasn't the only class being held at the store. A supported drop spindle class was going on inside, and I got to see my fiber friend Jenne who just happened to be taking that class.
The store is full of beautifully dyed yarns and spinning fibers. I can't seem to come away from the store without buying at least 2 skeins of Kristine's yarn. Today, it was 4 skeins and they're going to look great on my loom. The purple yarn that I'm weaving now is one of hers called "Glenda". (That project is coming along famously and I should be done sometime this week. More pictures soon!)

To round out my fiber weekend, I got in some spinning as well. I finished up my alpaca-pygora batt in to some nice, fine woolen yarn. It's mighty fuzzy, as one would expect from pygora, and I'm still not all that great at spinning from the fold, but it's still pretty cool stuff. Taking a picture of it is going to be quite a challenge - it's mostly black. Have you ever tried to take pictures of something mostly black and get the texture and color right? I'm going to have to enlist my sweetheart's assistance on this one.

My only complaint about this weekend is... it was too darn short!