another dye day

it seems that i  passed the apprentice dyer test and was asked back to stone edge fibers for another day of playing with color. that's my term for it, amythefibergoddess tells me that we are working our butts off!

last week she was deep into the jewel tones. these are the skeins that we handpainted. there were a few that needed a touch -up as the dye didn't saturate to her liking. today i got some tips on preventing that from happening.

the plan was to work on the colors of autumn... reds, oranges, greens, browns ... it was a challenge seeing this out the door and dripping in the humidity of august. planning ahead, amy had lots of wool soaking and i could jump in with the basic set up tasks. it really did make it go so much faster. every dye reacts differently with each type of wool and wool preparation. i also learned to not be so stingy with the dye brush!

i lost count of the number of 'fiber-sausages' we rolled up. i'll be doing these in my sleep! this time i made sure the i laid out enough plastic wrap, kept the table wiped clean, and squeeze out that excess water. amy had to scamper out for a kid-run, and left me alone with roving, dye and permission to give it a go. sadly that was still in the oven when i left. but i did get to see these done.....

 

all of this will be in her booth and The FingerLakes Fiber Festival in September.

and i got invited back!!