Sunday, July 19, 2009

Final notes on August 9th dyeing class.









































































I hope by now you have been thinking about what you want to use for the upcoming class. I talked with one student who wants to dye cloth for rug hooking. It will be great to have a variety of fibers to be able to compare our results.


I talked about the need to wind the 48 skeins, and put 3 ties on each to keep them from tangling. In this post I will show you how to tie and label each skein for dyeing.


There are innumerable ways to wind the skeins. Since the skeins must be about 15 yards each, (don't fret about a yard or two) understand that you need to measure the circumference of the selected objects and divide by 36 inches to get the yards. In other words, placing my two chair backs near each other, and wrapping the yarn around the two is about 60 inches. So, to get about 15 yards I need to have 9 revolutions. (15 yards x 36 inches =540 inches: divided by 60 is 9 revolutions) Do the math for your objects.


I have a niddy noddy (funny name) which I use. Here is a photo of one.


Often students use a large piece of cardboard to wrap the yarn, or the hands of a friend.


Once wound, the ties need to be placed to keep it from tangling. Here is a photo.


Next step is marking them in a way they will tolerate the wet dye bath and survive with the writing intact. This is where I use the tyvex envelope and tie them in this manner.






















Please use a waterproof marker, or a pencil to number them. You will need one set numbered from 1-36 and another from 1-12. That's just about all you need to do before the class. if you have any questions, please email or call me. I look forward to the 9th! Best, Gail

2 comments:

Jan L said...

Phew...I'm ready. Got a good system down after about 30 little skeins.
I'm so glad we aren't using up class time to perform this task.
Looking forward to Aug. 9th.

Sara said...
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