Brazilwood and goldenrod samples |
Some day we'll finish the cards! |
Dye days go like this: We meet in the morning and get things set up and in the pots dyeing - outside over a fire if possible. We try to do two dyes at a time. While the fibers dye, we have a pot luck lunch [the food is fabulous!] and catch up on the latest news, projects, patterns, books and plans that we are working on. We always have show and tell and let me tell you, these women are master spinners and weavers and fiber artists. Their projects are amazing. As we talk, we put sample cards together or prep for the next dye day. We play until people drag themselves home again at the end of the day.
We're in the planning stages for indigo, but there are many ways to do an indigo vat and we're not sure which we want to try. We'll likely try a thiox vat and we've found recipes for a yeast vat and a urine vat. No one is really excited about the urine vat, though I confess that many years ago when we had sheep, I did manage a weak indigo vat with urine by using the skirtings off our fleeces. It worked and the colors were very fast. It also smelled to high heaven. Definitely an outside project.
After indigo, we've got two more dyes to do and then we've been tossing around the idea of doing an overdye day where we can play with dyeing things in one color in the morning, and then overdyeing them in another dye in the afternoon. We'll keep you posted.