Once upon a time, there was a juggler, who happened to be a writer, a knitter, and a bunch of other things..... This is that juggler.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Mad Scientist, much?

Okay. So this morning, I really wanted to dye some yarn, but the rules of the house are simple. No dyeing inside. Granted, a lot of this would have gone smoothly since I dye yarn all the time inside, but as I sell more, my mother seems to have caught on that I'm dyeing inside.

So, for a while, I've been set on dyeing some yarn. I usually do it in the AM, depending on the process used. So, this morning, I woke up to the beautiful sunny day shown around here.
































The only issue is is that while its wonderful looking...its 27 degrees. I'm soo cold right now. The fact that I'm dyeing makes wearing pants silly, though all my fingers are red. and it looks like I'm bleeding too.
Anyway, I decided screw it, lets go outside and dye. However, there is no dye area out there!
So I made one.
Taking out my big blue bowl of dyeing and my white basket filled with mason jars (Little house on the Prairie? ), I braved the cold in my gym shorts, barefeet and hoodie.
Let the comedy begin.



First off, its windy as hell and the tarps are too big. So, like any sane person (snorts with laughter) I decided to go ahead and lay out the finest materials. I'm not afraid of admitting that I'm a poor broke college kid, and in that, I'm using whatever I have around my house to dye yarn. The dream one day is to have a studio of my own, but for now?
The yard.
Plastic bags.



Anyway, that stuff aside, I did all the prep inside. I mixed the dyes, and prepped the yarn in a salt bath because of the dye. I've still got some more work to do, but I'm on break.
It's windy, it's cold, and I ran out of mason jars and cute baskets. So... I upped my game to include the big blue bowl, and two coffee cups! These worked great for holding dye and for dispensing it. I've found a great use for all of the travel mugs I get but never use. Take that!


From there on, I mainly focused on the fact that it was cold. Really cold. In fact, I wasn't sure what to do. I
had real food cooking inside, a microwave going in the shed outside, and of course, it can only get better with more comic relief characters, intrigued by the four wheeler we have out back. Not only is it not for sale, they asked right when the microwave dinged.
In the shed.


The look on their faces was worth it, but hey, they were the one asking about a four wheeler from a girl, in the middle of her yard, covered in dye that resembled blood. Really think about who the crazy one is.

From then on, the temp raised a whole two degrees, though my time was spent going back and
forth from outside to in, until I discovered something amazing.
My yarn is frozen.
Not a little frozen, this thing is solid.

All in all, its a productive day of freezing my butt off and making more yarn, but I enjoyed it.

I'll post all the finished photos later, after they defrost in the shower.



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