Playing in the Dye Pots

So we're not long back from a lovely week in Shropshire. The reason for going was a dyeing workshop/craft retreat at Lay Family Yarn who are based in Ironbridge. I've though about going on one of these several times, last year I decided to go but wasn't quick enough to book, so this year I was sitting poised over a hot screen ready to stab at it the moment the retreats appeared on the website. 

I'm not sure really why I was so keen. I'm generally not good in large groups of people, particularly when I don;t know any of them, I have had a bad experience with a previous knitting retreat ( I cane home early!) and generally I've tried out knitting groups both in person and on-line and then given up. Whatever the reason I did want to go to this and so I booked it. At the time we didn't know whether we would be travelling from Orkney or the Central Belt but either way it was a long way to go for a weekend and so that was why we booked a self catering place nearby for a week. 

Despite being a bit stressed by the prospect I have to say that I had a lovely time ( apart form missing the first morning because I was ill). Here's a photo of some of the participants

Everybody gets to dye some yarn in the colours they want and at the end you take  away 100g of your 'own' yarn and a 10g mini of each of them. There were 16 people there on this occasion so that's 260 g of yarn, plus of course there is plenty of time to browse the Lay Family Yarn Shop. And yes, the wool stats for this month are going to be a bit of a sorry tale, but that's for another day! 

Meanwhile here's  my yarn in the dye pan

and here's the finished skein together with the inspiration picture ( Waterhouse's Destiny )

It cam out paler than I would have liked ideally, but I still loved it. There's not much of the blue on show but that's mainly to do with how it was skeined. 

Anyway I must have really enjoyed it because I have booked to go again next year!