80 more bales of hay in the barn,

80 more bales of hay,

We picked them up and tossed them in,

80 more bales of hay in the barn!

Here are the skeins I painted in Seattle amongst all the other work we were doing! Handpainting was new to me as an artform and the concept crept in slowly, but surely! Of course there are many ways to paint a skein and tastes vary greatly. The 1st skein I painted to the last run left to right. The 2nd and 4th skeins are overdyed with indigo, their partners are the 1st and 3rd. The 6th skein is what not to do for good color blending, at least in my mind! The 5th and 7th flow nicely. Skeins 1-4 are cotton/rayon, 5 is silk, 6 and 7 are wool. As important as understanding color and blending is the actual technique for the painting as well as the project that the yarn will be knitted for.

It’s been a big week both here and at the farm. In Seattle painted skeins, color theory, blending, mordanting options and friendships were made and renewed. On the farm new water lines were dug for 24/7 frost free sheep water at the barn, new windows in the cottage and baby bluebirds grew and flew the nest to carry forth another family for next spring. I look forward to coming home to Jack, the dogs, cat and sheep. And I will miss the intensity this week held for me in the dye studio as well. Here is our dye group in Seattle left to right: Karen,Pamela, Donna, me, Ramona, Roberta and Coby. Also me and Donna modeling our dye stained hands. There is some fabulous talent amoung these women and not withstanding all have a great sense of humor. I’ll miss you till we meet again!

Today and Thursday we are all handpainting yarns; 9 skeins of rayon/cotton, silk and wool. Each of us has chosen our own palatte of colors, I make it sound so simple but the lead-in to today was quite a project! We began painting and steaming and overdyeing with indigo around 11AM and by 5PM I still had 6 skeins to paint on Thursday! There are many considerations when painting color on yarns from correct blend of colors to an even flow of the color changes and how to overdye areas of the skein with one dye without affecting another dye that should be left alone. Once again too busy to take pictures but here I have Roberta painting and the brick wall outside the studio. It is a study in texture and color and natural blending! And maybe I “hit” the wall tonight! I’ll bounce back to my dye work in the morning, ready to strike out once again along the trail of color.

I am brighter today, still stuck between EST and PST, too late to bed, up at dawn! Here is a picture of my hue cards that I made yesterday. The top of the circle begins with red and there are 5 major hues and 5 minor hues around the chart.

Today we begin to apply the theories to natural dyeing.

Today was another cranial day for me in the natural dye world. I am sorry not to have any pictures in the studio, too busy! We spent the entire day working with color palettes; and I specifically spent most of the afternoon creating my Munsell Student Color Set. What’s that, you ask? It is a set of cards that build a hue value/chroma chart. I had to set out color chips for 10 hues on cards using the Munsell chart. There is only one correct value/chroma placement on each hue card, each card having between 18-30 value/chromas. This really fined tuned my eye to the values of color, excellent exercise.

When we ended the studies today at 5PM, with Karen as our guide , three of us took to the Ballard streets and found our way to the Lockspot Cafe where the captains and crew of The Deadliest Catch are sometimes known to visit. Jack and I are fans of the Discovery Channel series which chronicles the on deck experiences of king and opilio crab fishing on the Bering Sea. During the winter season the ships work out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska but during the summer months many of the captains, crew members and the ships return to Seattle, Ballard specifically. We didn’t find any captains, but had a good sea fare dinner, bought some tee shirts and yes, I did the love-being-a-tourist picture!

Top to bottom: Karen; The Lockspot Cafe; silly me; view of Puget Sound