Need a dye class?

I have had many students ask me lately when I am teaching in 2013. I have some classes in the works, not to mention the online class I'll be launching this year. It looks like I will be teaching in New Hampshire this summer for sure and probably somewhere in Colorado. I am still searching for a New Mexico venue if anyone has any requests...  Those dates will all get worked out in good time.

In the meantime, for those of you who have asked me about whether I teach dyeing, consider a class coming up very soon at Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center. Cornelia Theimer Gardella weaves wonderful tapestries and is also a master dyer. She is teaching a dye class March 1-3 based on Itten's color star and incorporating a lot of color theory. I really recommend her if you want to start dyeing your own tapestry yarn. Sign up quickly! She doesn't take many students and March 1 is right around the corner. Look at this link on the EVFAC site with a description of the class and a great bio of Conni. And even if you don't want to take the class, click on the link because the tapestry pictured there is stunning.

Cornelia Theimer Gardella, Tomorrow II, 32 x 51 inches; hand-dyed wool tapestry

Espanola Valley Fiber Arts Center: Phone number is (505) 747-3577

Warm sunshine

Today is a beautiful sunny day in the San Luis Valley. The temperature is just above freezing and it feels warm and beautiful. As I trek in and outside again to check the dye pots and give them a little stir, I stop to watch the cranes circling high above my house. Sometimes I have to search a long time to locate them as they are circling so high they are just little dots in the sky. On days like this they do big lazy circles around and around, croaking and crying the whole time.

I am making black today. Very light and very dark. I am attempting to level the very light black (gray) with the addition of Abegal SET and sodium acetate to my usual glauber's salt. We shall see if it works.

The sun shines brightly in my south-facing studio and I am happily winding yarn. Life doesn't always seem so idyllic, but it is amazing what a little sunshine, some crane cries, and a pile of yarn can do for me.

Happy Monday from the San Luis Valley of Colorado. (I will let you know how the black turns out.)

A bad dye job

Today I was working to turn this yarn

into colorways for a class I'm working on.

I suspect that I waited a little too long to add the acid on this teal batch and the dye hit quickly. I use glaubers salt as a leveler and there was a lot of it in this dye bath, but clearly I did something else wrong as you can see the unevenness before I even took it out of the bath.

So I am afraid I am going to have to go back to using some of these especially for my lightest colors.

I used to use all three at various points (Synthrapol, Abegal SET, and sodium acetate), but dropped them one at a time as things seemed to be going well. Perhaps I'm having trouble with the well water here and probably I should test the pH of it right off. Heaven only knows what else is in it as it frequently smells like sulfur (which is a nice addition to the frequent skunk smell around here especially this time of year--we measure the seasons by the skunk migrations now).

Synthrapol can act as a surfactant to improve the penetration of water and dye into wool. I always soak my fiber overnight but this doesn't seem to be enough for the lightest colors.  Glaubers salt is sodium sulfate and is used as a leveling agent which I do use in all of my dyeing below about a 3 depth of shade and with colors as light as this teal, I use it at 10% WOG.

Abegal SET is another leveling agent which helps create an even color by slowing the rate at which the dye molecules attach to the fiber as well as increasing dye penetration. Sodium Acetate is a pH buffer and my research suggests it helps keep the pH of the pot from drifting upward at the end of dyeing. I am not sure I need to return to using it as my pots seem to remain below pH 5.0 during the whole process.

It is also possible that the pot was too acidic for the light color which helped the dye hit quicker. I don't usually measure the pH of the dye pot very carefully. The citric acid I use takes it down to about 3.5 and so I just put in enough to do that. But maybe pH 3.5 is too low for these light colors.

At any rate, I will have to take more care with the lower depth of shade colors in the future and experiment with some of these assists for them. The colors at DOS 1.0 or more are quite even almost all of the time.

Alas, this teal yarn is going to need a do-over. Good thing I like dyeing.

DY Begay's show at U.C. Davis

Sara Lamb had a post about DY Begay's show at UC Davis this past week. I really enjoyed her words about DY Begay and greatly wished I could have heard DY speak (not to mention seeing these gorgeous weavings in person).

Sara's blog is Woven Thoughts and the post Recharge about DY Begay is HERE. In her post, Sara has this to say about DY, which echoes my own feelings about this amazing contemporary Navajo weaver.

It was a quietly revealing and inspiring talk given by a woman who knows her true place, and her value, along the continuum of weavers, mothers, Dine, and desert dwellers.

DY's show is at the C.N. Gorman Museum at U.C. Davis. The curator of the museum was kind enough to send me a catalog the day she got them as I realized I was not going to be in the vicinity of Davis during the run of this show. The catalog is very well done and I recommend a copy. You can purchase it HERE.

Here is an excerpt of the artist statement in the catalog. DY's words:

I am blessed that I can stand outside my home (hogan) and see far in all four directions. There are formations outlined in stepped patterns painted in bundles of red streaks, subtle shades of pinks, clusters of dusty-ochre, and flickering sand tone colors. At dawn, shoots of pale baby blue awaken the sky, and I sometimes see deep dark indigo, pinks and shades of soft yellows. The sunrise is often my canvas - it seduces my imagination with colors, curiosity, and beauty. These images are replaced at the end of the day by flaming oranges as the sun sets for the evening and night takes on dark, forbidding colors. These daily encounters with light, color, remarkable land formations, and a lifetime of memories are the textures I reflect on, interpret, and explore in my tapestries.

I grew up in Gallup, NM near the Navajo Reservation and I can feel DY's descriptions of the land she is from in my own heart.

Here are two photos from the northeastern part of Arizona near Chinle where DY is from.

Hope

The cranes are back. This morning I was re-tying yarn skeins to get them ready for dyeing and I heard them through the double pane windows. I ran outside, and yes, it was the unmistakable sound of sandhill cranes calling. This is the front of the troop. Thousands and thousands more will be arriving in the next few weeks.

These birds are a big sign of hope for me. It is a time of indecision and uncertainty in my little family. The return of the cranes is something I didn't think I would be here to see, but here I am. They make me feel hopeful. Time isn't linear, it moves in circles. The good we plant comes around again. I am so happy to witness the return of these big beautiful birds. They'll be here a few months before heading north to Oregon or Canada to their summer nesting grounds. Maybe by the time they leave I will be following them on my own migration.

Here is a video compiled from photos and video taken over the last year. Listen to the sound of thousands of cranes circling. The cranes arrive in the San Luis Valley sometime around Valentine's Day, stopping here after leaving their wintering grounds at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near Socorro, New Mexico. They will be here for a couple months before they fly north for the summer. They stop here again in October and November on their way back south with their new young in tow. Most of these cranes are greater sandhill cranes as opposed to the famous flocks of lesser sandhills on the North Platte in Nebraska.

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.

Off Broadway

And as a last bit about my trip to Fort Wayne, I couldn't resist mentioning their fantastic yarn store, Knitting Off Broadway. This is probably one of the best I've been to. They had the right mix of gorgeous yarns that included some gorgeous yarns I could afford. They had an astounding collection of terrific patterns, and Natalie and Tami knew everything that was in the shop and where to find it.

The stone sheep that meet you at the door (in the back in case you go) are perfect for a yarn shop. Who needs stone lions?

I have to find one of these old hotel mail slot thingies to hold my knitting yarn. Emily is gasping right now at the thought of that much knitting yarn, but I probably could fill at least half of it with what is stuffed in the bottom of my closet and in the ottoman in the living room right now.

Because I was traveling light on the trip to Fort Wayne, I bought a bit more yarn than I could stuff in my little bag. Natalie, being the great business woman she is, was quick to say she could ship it to me.  A few days after I got home this pile of yarn arrived in the mail. It was Christmas all over again. I can't wait to dig into some of those new Steven West patterns Natalie!