weekend to dye for (sorry!)
That was a pretty good weekend. I erged a total of 20.5 km (13 Saturday, 7.5 Sunday). On Saturday after erging we headed up to Scappoose, Oregon to Blue Moon Fiber Arts, where they were having their annual barn sale and, more to the point, dyeing workshop. I keep trying to persuade Ted to learn some kind of fiber craft, because I think he needs a hobby that can be done indoors in bad weather and that he can do in our townhouse - when we go down to the lake house he seems to have no trouble finding endless things to potter over - the house, the landscaping, the boats - but in the townhouse where we spend most of our time he’s only got his computer and the TV to relax with. Anyway, he said a while back that he had no interest in knitting or crochet but might find dyeing more interesting, so once I heard this workshop was coming up, I signed us up.
We planned to each dye two skeins; I ended up asking to dye one extra, because I couldn’t decide on colors. It was interesting to see the differences between our approaches; I kept mine to colors I’d like knitting and eventually wearing, whereas he was going more for just interesting things to do with dye. I started with Socks That Rock Mediumweight and dyed it purple that had some red and blue and a touch of gold mixed in to add interest, then did semisolids in red and turquoise (Cool Sock and STR Mediumweight again, respectively). The turquoise was beautifully saturated; unfortunately the red faded to a pale rusty shade, where I was hoping for rosy red. Either their reddish dyes were less saturated (the purple faded a bit too) or I just used too much water in some of my dying, that ended up even diluting the areas where I’d squirted undiluted dye straight on. Or possibly the Cool Sock yarn I was using just didn’t absorb color as well.) For Ted’s first skein, I suggest that he do something in colors his mom would like, that I could knit up as socks for her. For his first skein he dyed it in a gradient from turquoise at one end of the loop shading to dark blue at the other end. On his second skein he dyed some BFL fingering weight in shades of dark blue that shaded to forest green and then neon green. I’m looking forward to knitting all of these! Though I have no idea yet what they’re going to become, other than mostly socks and maybe a shawl or two.
On Sunday (after erging, of course) we got our hair cut, and then in the afternoon headed out to Ardiri Winery. Every year they put out a Pinor Noir that’s a blend between their California and Oregon vineyards, and they let members vote on which blend to bottle. I voted, but I can’t say I was all that fond of any of them - but I’ve never really tasted wine before it’s bottled, and I’m sure this will improve as it ages.
Mirrored from Dichroic Reflections.