If We Dye, We Dye Together

This is what a day’s worth of dying by a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs (and one real pro) looks like and is yet another reason why I am a part of the bestest knitting group ever.

Because these guys?

Awesome.

One of our members, Bristol, happens to be an all-around fiber pro and locally dyes yarn and fiber for the Fiber Gallery and even made a nifty hand-dyed fiber/yarn calendar for 2011.

As part of one of her bazillion jobs, Bristol also works as Creative Designer and Instructor for SuriPaco farms and she needed a few guinea pigs to test out SuriPaco’s facilities for upcoming dye classes. The Portland Knitters on the Town (PKOTT) were nice enough to oblige.

Aside from the usual group we were joined by Aimee’s husband and the young Maggie (which was a good thing since our regular Maggie was out of town) and the adorable Sadie.

We measured out the base dyes from powder (and safety first- wearing dust masks!)

Prepped the yarn for dying by tying it (loosely) and soaking it.

We kettle-dyed

And hand-painted

(If only you could see how zombie-like my hands were in color here!)

And we pulled out skein after skein of lovely yarn:

And braids of roving:

And admired our hand-iwork.

Here’s my three pieces: