Building a dye kitchen
Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Chemical Dyeing

I think I have exciting news.  I had some carpenters here this a.m. about building a dye kitchen in my office area in my basement.  Last year at Xmas dh gave me an upgrade in our electrical service so I'd stop blowing breakers with my dyeing.  As we thought about it more and some things we want different about our kitchen, we started talking about adding a small kitchen down here.  That way the overload from holiday cooking can be down here too.  Last summer when I taught at Red Deer and this summer at Helena, I had commercial stainless steel sinks.  The biggest challenge is to get the long stainless steel counter built. 

So anyway, I think they are going to start in about 3-4 weeks.  I can't believe it.  This is too good to be true.  Of course that means a HUGE cleanup of my office/studio.  I'm not sure where all this stuff will go, but I guess I'll figure it out.  Good news is that one of my daughters is buying her first home tonight and I can tell you everything she is storing here will be there FAST, so I can use her room to move lots of the things in my office. She might even inherit some furniture.  Linda

Back HOME
Mood:  happy
Topic: Chat
Yeah--I'm back home from my last trip for a long time.  Had a great time in Seeley Lake with family.  Forgot how gorgeous it is there.  The whole state still looks pretty green.  How wonderful.  Now I can stay home and spin, knit, dye, etc. etc.  Oh yeah there are those responsibilities too.  I'll guess I'll try to fit a few of them in.  I even have a couple of Finished Objects which I need to post a picture.  Linda

Knitting at ANWG meeting
Mood:  happy
Topic: Chat

Have had a big knitting week while I'm off at family events and then to ANWG meeting.  We stayed at Gonzaga University for about 36 hours.  Nothing like a dorm bed and plastic pillows to make a person appreciate home.  They had a wonderful show and tell today with lots of woven items and some handspun items.  We voted on 4 categories to vote, but best of show was a nuno felt piece by Lyn Pflueger.  Wonderful inspiration.  I even got some good handwoven buys at the silent auction. 

On the road I started a baby blanket I have had in the brain for quite a while.  It has an applied Icord trim.  Make quite a bit of progress.  Part of the yarn I dyed, but most is a commercial light green.  I head off to Sealey Lake for another family thing.  No computers for 4 days--I'll probably make it.  I brought lots of knitting and a spindle and some neat fiber, so I'll be happy. 

Also saw some sun printing on silk scarf.  She said you needed a sunny day with no wind.  In Billings the sunny day is easy--no wind not so easy. Linda

Off to ANWG meeting
What a fiber summer! I'm barely back from Fibre Week in Canada, spent all weekend in a tent at Summerfair teaching others to dye silk and hanging out with my fiber friends.  Now I'm off to the Association of Northwest Weaver's Guild annual meeting in Spokane  and a family event.  This weekend while I had my dyes all out for Summerfair, I dyed some superwash dk yarn to start a baby afghan I've had in my brain for a while.  Once it gets started it should be easy knitting, good for family vacations.  I have so many fiber experiences from this summer to blog about, but can't seem to stay put enough to process it all.  I can't wait for August to get here so I can settle down for some home time.  Hardest part of all this packing is making sure I have enough knitting and spindle spinning stuff to keep me from going crazy during my down time.  Linda

Swedish Weave
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Weaving

Here is the edge of the blanket. I now have to do the other edge, but I have developed SSS. Second Sock Syndrom is a term used by knitters. The first sock goes along just great. All your energy is put in to getting it completed. When it comes time to knit up the second one, you feel hard-pressed to repeat all those steps again!

Diana

 

 

Summer Fair
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Spinning

I had a great time spinning at Summer Fair yesterday. I see why Linda was nominated Volunteer of the Year by YAM. She always does an excellent job of putting these together. As always, it is nice seeing PHS and BWG members that you don’t see over the summer. My friend Anne rated well in the Fencing tournament she went to the year - even after healing from the violent squirrel attack she suffered earlier this year (Okay, it was bunion surgery, but my story is better).

I decided to ply some of the first yarns I had ever spun. I went rummaging around my fiber room gathering my collection. If you have plied from balls, or have plied from cardboard tubes, you know what a hassle it is keeping those balls tame while you ply them. Here is my solution:

 

 

Diana

More Swedish Weave
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Weaving

Since the baby isn’t due until Oct., I, who invented procrastination, ;-) will wait while I squeeze in another Swedish Weave project:

 

Here is the beginning of a blanket that will be a housewarming gift for a friend. I have used part of an idea from a Swedish Weave book, but added my own touches. Not sure if the purple designs looks like wisteria, grapes, or??

Here is my chart for the purple design:

 

Anyway, like I said, Oct is months away and I have become re-addicted to Swedish Weave!

Diana

Natural Dyeing at MAWS
Mood:  bright
Topic: Natural Dyeing

Here are most of my students and a lot of their yarn from our class in Helena.  We spent 1.5 days natural dyeing.  One student isn't pictured and all the green and most of the blue yarns are still dyeing. We used indigo last and many of the blue and all the green skeins were outside drying.

I had premordanted eight  100 yards skeins for each person.  A few brought more skeins we mordanted and I brought some more to sell.  We used cochineal, black walnut, osage orange, indigo, cutch, apple leaves and twigs, pine needles, cottonwood leaves, and a couple other I can't remember.  We had lots of fun.  Our indigo experiences with instant indigo went very well.  We added a little Rit Dye remover (about 1/8 a teaspoon) several times.  These students really listened and did an excellent job of minimizing oxygen into the indigo pot.  We only had to mix indigo 3 times and have a lot of yarn you don't see in these photos. 

I LOVE dyeing and it was exciting to see my student's beautifully colored natural dyed yarns--I count them as grandbaby yarns.  Linda

Swedish Weave
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Weaving

Here is the baby blanket almost finished.  As you can see, I worked the same kind of stitches back the other way.  I still have to add binding around the edges:

Diana

 

 

Home and so much to tell

Since May 13, I have attended and taught at 3 different fiber art conferences.  I feel fiber overload and am glad to have a few days to start to assimiliate all I learned.  I think my knitting is changed forever from a class with Lucy Neatby--more about that later.

Yesterday I was honored to be named volunteer of the year at the Yellowstone Art Museum.  I joined the board a couple of years ago and about this time last year, they had their accountant quit and I knew how much chaos living without a controller for a few weeks can cause.  So I volunteered to find her replacement and that took longer than expected so I played bookkeeper for a couple of months until we could get the new finance director hired, up and operational.  I'm really glad the new accountant is wonderful and I won't spend the end of this summer at the museum. 

Next weekend, however, several are us are running a two day silk scarf and hanky dye event at the annual craft fair Summerfair July 12-13 http://yellowstone.artmuseum.org/ Participants will learn quick dyeing and also raise money for the museum.  I'm also lining up demonstrators for that even to demonstrate the fiber arts including spinning, weaving, knitting as well as other artists.  Since I haven't been home, I'm running from behind to find more demonstrators.  So if  you want to help with silk dyeing or demonstrate, let me know at lindas5252@yahoo.com

More about my many fiber art adventures the last few weeks later.  Happy 4th of July.  Linda