Preparing for August 9 Dyeing Class.

In this post, I am going to give you options for selecting yarns, ways of winding the skeins, and ways of marking them so you will know just what formulas you used to dye the yarn. Preparing fiber for the August 9 class at Webs.

Thank you to my students for checking in here on the blog to get ready for the class next month. In this post, I am going to give you options for selecting yarns, ways of winding the skeins, and ways of marking them to record the formulas you will use to dye the yarn.

A couple of housekeeping issues: The materials need to be purchased ahead of time and not from the instructor as originally stated. I thought I could search for some exotic and new materials for the class and have you purchase them from me, but since the preparation is key to a successful day, you should select from the choices I will list, and get the yarns ahead of time. During the afternoon session, there will be an opportunity to purchase yarns at the store for specific projects you may select. But for the morning session we will all be working on a 36 color wheel and a 12 color gray scale.


In the past when I taught this dyeing class I showed the students how to prepare the yarn during class time. At the last class, one of my students, Harriet, mentioned that Cat Bordhi makes videos ahead of time to show the students how to prepare for the class. In lieu of a video, I will photograph and post helpful pictures for you to use to guide you. This will save time for more learning and playing the day of the class, instead of doing the monotonous time consuming winding of 48 small skeins of yarn to make the color wheel and gray scale.

Here are some examples of yarns used successfully by past students.
Valley Yarns Northampton/ball
Valley Yarns Superwash/ball
Plymouth Encore/ball
Cascade 220/in a 220 yard skein
Brown Sheep worsted/ball
Harrisville Design Shetland and Highland/on cones 2 different yardages with the Shetland weight finer than the Highland

Whatever yarn you select, you will need to calculate the number of skein/balls/cones you need according to the following calculations. If you look at yarn.com you will be able to get the statistics for the yarn you select.

Your total of skeins is 48. The yardage should be about 15 yards per skein.
48 x 15= 720 yards total. You can fool around a yard or so from the total of 15 if that is necessary to not require you to purchase an extra skein, but just make certain that each skein is the same yardage.

Enough for right now. Please see the following post for winding the skeins. Thanks, Gail

http://gailthekangaroodyer.blogspot.com/