Look what the brown truck brought today!

Look what showed up on my porch today while I was out walking the dog this afternoon.

That is 30 pounds of white yarn that is soon going to be dyed for my students.

There is nothing better than a big box of undyed yarn waiting for the magic that turns it all the colors of my color wheel and many in between. I love dyeing yarn in a weird, unexplainable kind of way. I probably shouldn't love it. It is really hard work. Those pots are heavy and there is a lot of water to schlep. There is the messy process of measuring the dye in both liquid and powder form. Then there are the constant trips inside and outside again to check the temperatures, add the acid, make sure the burners haven't blown out and that I haven't run out of propane. There are the pots I forget to time and have to guess (actually I'm getting pretty good at telling what stage the yarn is at and rarely even use my thermometer any more). There is the worrying that I am wasting too much water and the attempts to reuse some of the dye baths (which usually does work out). There are the dark evenings when I am in the backyard with my headlamp rinsing yarn to hang and the times I have to try to keep it from dripping all over the house because it is too cold or windy or smoky to leave it hanging outside. But still the magic of the resulting colors, which are surprisingly almost always what I expect, is really fun.
 
The weather is much warmer now and as some days it is even above freezing, I think I may be able to brave the dye shed before too long. I am looking forward to making this white yarn colored.

Here is my niece helping her auntie with the last batch of yarn I dyed before the weather turned colder than is really reasonable.