Project 60 Number 16 - Dyeing

I've been wanting to try a new fibre craft for a while now and swithering between spinning, weaving and dyeing.

 

Spinning is one of those things that I feel I will eventually learn to do because it is somehow written in my stars - not that I believe in things being written in the stars to be honest - but it just has a dread sort of inevitability about it. It's not as though I am totally without the opportunity to learn to spin here in Orkney because I'm sure that if I looked hard enough I could find several people who could and would teach me, but I am rather put off by the amount of equipment, the expense, and knowing that in no time at all I would have a collection of fleece and fibre to rival my current wool stash. I am in the process of adding the latter to Ravelry and although it is a useful exercise (who would have thought you could forget about so many beautiful skeins of wool, you have bought or been given) it is also quite depressing in a 'when will I ever have the time to knit this into something useful or lovely or both' kind of way. So I resist spinning as well as I can, even though I know that one day the wall will be breached.

 

Weaving also comes into the 'too much stuff/taking up too much space/ too much expense' category; also I am not convinced I have the patience to do all the setting up properly in order to produce a set of wonky table mats that I wouldn't know what to do with. Again I haven't necessarily written it off for ever, but just now it seems like far too much hassle.

 

So all in all it was fortunate that I saw a notification a while back about dyeing classes being held by the indie dyer known as The Knitting Goddess . So OK they were in Huddersfield which is a long way from Orkney, especially given that they lasted slightly less than four hours, but I would get the chance to try something I've wanted to do for a while, I'd learn something and I might even enjoy it. I booked before I could change my mind.

 

In the event we built a lot of other things round the trip to Huddersfield, of which more over the following days. I was once again led to use the expression 's*dding satnav' as it took us with unerring inaccuracy but excellent timing to the wrong place, some twenty minutes from where I needed to be. I was not amused. I hate being late for things. I'd mostly rather just give up than turn up late. On this occasion however even I could see that not turning up at all rather than turning up twenty minutes late would be childish and self defeating in the extreme so we got back in the car and found where we needed to be.

 

As it turned out I had only missed the boring Health and Safety stuff and so I spent a happy three hours or so painting yarn and watching other people do it too. We had all been asked to take something to inspire us colourwise and it was interesting to see all the different things people had chosen to take.

 

I had worried that I would hate the whole experience and that all it would do would bring back unhappy memories of art lessons at school where my inability to draw even a stick dog made the weekly double period absolute hell. I am so inept at arty stuff, and when people say things like 'just have a little play and see where it leads you', which is a very common thing in crafty circles,  I inevitably find it leads me straight down the road to Brain Freeze Territory.

 

However it turns out that even I can mix colours and then put them on plain undyed yarn with a paintbrush to some effect. As proof of which I offer the following picture of my inspiration, some of the publicity material for the current Scottish Opera production of Carmen whose colours I loved, and the yarn I dyed from it.

 

 

 

 

Given the inspiration I feel I should knit it up into a shawl, so I'm currently looking for the perfect pattern. I'm sure I'll find it one day.