Tuesday 31 August 2010

Indigo Dye Day

Hello Jellos!

I participated in an indigo dye day with a few other ladies from the local weaver's guild on Sunday and these are the results!

The center skein is what the natural colour of the hand-spun alpaca yarn (my old buddy Airo) was when I started. The skein to the left is after three dips, and the skein to the right is four dips.


A closer look:



The center skein hasn't been washed/set yet and has been in storage so that's why it looks a bit crimped. Here's a shot of just the two indigo skeins:



I dyed a few skeins of crochet thread I had kicking around waiting for some colour. These will be used for inkles of course!



I had spun a chunky looking sample of angora bunny fluff awhile back so I thought I'd throw that in as well. It will have to serve as a super soft blue accent on something, because there isn't very much of it!



I have been dying a bunch of the lopi wool I had in bags in the basement and have a few skeins drying int he basement overnight. I'll try to be back in the next few days to post those results!
Happy September everyone!

<3
JQ

Monday 2 August 2010

Dye Day!

Greetings Jellybeans!

Today was a total success! I got a bit of creative writing done this morning, and then proceeded to dye a whole slough of colours for my Elevator rug. I even managed to come up with a decent grey scale without separating all my strips into different jars.




I was singing and stirring dye pots all afternoon and it was glorious! There were buckets of wool soaking, and garbage bags laid out over counter tops and floor! Now the kitchen is clean and the wool is all dry and fluffy and ready for the cutter. I just can't wait to get started!






There's a shot of some of the turquoise I dyed today, though not much of it will wind up in this rug. Some of the paler stuff will.



VICTORY!

The next post will have photos of the rug in progress!
Have a fantastic week everybody!
Hearts off the charts,

JQ


PS: Many thanks go out to Rita, Gloria, and the rest of the rug hooking gang, for helping me out so much by providing me with the necessary knowledge, tools and encouragement!

Cheers!

Sunday 1 August 2010

Beginning My Elevator Rug

On the way to the campsite somewhere between Swift Current and the lake, I saw this gorgeous old elevator in someone's field, took a picture and then tried a few different effects on it. I came up with this:


And got it blown up up 400% at Staples, then transferred it to my Burlap (making certain to include my signature and the date):



Now very very WHITE is a hard color to find, but I found some pale cream, and will be dying a grey scale using some pickle jars and an old stockpot on my stove. Then Dip dying some lovely pale caramel coloured wool into a vat of Mauve brown, and also dying some peaches and a very pale turquoise , which I will string along sparsely in the foreground, amidst the black and white, to add a bit of dynamic, and compliment the warm vanilla sky.

:P