Check out Janna’s cat Simon in his brand new bib!

On Saturday, Deb of Wound Too Tight invited Jeanne and I out to the far western suburbs to dye a lot of yarn, drink wine, chat, and eat yummy food. Jeanne has created the official photographic record, since I only remembered to pull my camera out once… Yes, she even got a few pictures of me – in one of which, I swear you can see down my shirt to my belly button (I’m an innie, thanks for asking). 🙂 Neither of us managed to get a picture of Deb’s daughter, Kathryn, who kept us on track by alerting us when the yarn in the microwave was done.

Here are the Country Classics dyes, ready to go and with color card at the ready. (Please note that the fountain was not part of the dyeing process.)

The load of stuff that Jeanne and I brought to fill up Deb’s sunporch.

Jeanne hangs out with Holly, who at the time had not displayed her fondness for licking hot dyed wool.

Deb niddy noddies up a storm, getting her yarn ready to dye.

Here’s the yarn I dyed, drying on my drying rack. From left, Ashford Tekapo dyed with Lialc and diluted Raven, KnitPicks Dye Your Own sock yarn dyed with Very Hot Pink and Raven, some ancient Lion Brand worsted wool dyed with Cornflower, a ball of ancient Bear Brand worsted wool dyed with Spring Violet and Cornflower (dyed by sticking the ball into a cup of leftover dye, then flipping it over and sticking it into another cup of leftover dye), and another ball of the Bear Brand dyed the same way but with leftover Very Hot Pink.

Here are the same yarns (excluding the skein of Tekapo Lilac and Raven, which is still drying) in roughly the opposite order as above after they’ve been reskeined. Much nicer!

Deb surprised us with gift bags!

“I’m not sure I’ve had this color of tissue paper before. I will have to do a taste comparison.”

She gifted me with two stunning skeins of Alchemy Haiku (silk and mohair), two skeins of yummy Regia Silk, and a kit for making felted catnip mice! Thank you so much, Deb!

*sniff sniff* “This is very, very interesting indeed. You’d better get knitting, Mom!”

You might become confused while reading this post and think that we’ve skipped right over June Blue to July Purple in Project Spectrum. Do not be alarmed. Do not adjust your calendar. June still awaits.

When I posted about our weekend dyeing adventures, everyone was most interested in seeing the shocking purple yarn. Of course, I managed to not take any pictures of the ultraviolet before I started overdyeing it with black, but Jeanne will affirm that it was too purple. Neither of us believed such a thing was possible, either – until we saw the yarn.

Anyway! Here’s the first skein – it was a cream-colored fingering weight 80% wool/20% cashmere blend, courtesy of the thrift store. I think I have enough yardage for a lacy winter scarf. Dyed with Country Classics Spring Violet, overdyed with Raven.

This skein was dyed with Spring Violet and a dash of Raven and came out the exact shade I wanted – no overdyeing was necessary. The yarn was cream-colored laceweight Zephyr, 50% merino/50% silk. Um, yardage is a lot. I have to weigh it later and figure out how much I actually have. It will become a shawl someday, but probably not for the Amazing Lace. I need to start this shawl business slow, with a smaller first project!

This tangle was two skeins of cream-colored Silky Wool (65% wool/35% silk), wound on a warping board to stripe. I’m planning to make a pair of cushy house socks for next winter from this (assuming I get it untangled sometime this year). The purple was Spring Violet, later overdyed with Raven. The grey was Blueberry and Raven, later overdyed with Raven. I’ll probably try overdyeing the grey with Raven one more time, to see if I can get it to be a more true and less blue grey.

Saturday evening Jeanne and I did a bit more dyeing. Here’s our setup in Jeanne’s backyard:

Of course wine is critical to the process! Make sure to keep your wine out of the active dyeing area to minimize accidents (putting dye in wine, dyeing yarn with wine, etc).

Here I’m dyeing some yarn that will turn out to be shockingly purple – so shocking that I overdyed it with black Sunday night to tone it down a little! I have to remember to draft out color ideas before sitting down to dye yarn, because if I don’t – I can only remember that I like purple and black.

Yarn pictures later this week, after drying and detangling.

But the very best thing about the evening? Jeanne surprised me with a Stumbling Over Chaos word cloud t-shirt! I cannot even tell you how excited I was. I might even have bounced a bit (ok, ok, maybe more than a bit). Thank you, Jeanne – that was so sweet and unexpected!

Reading this is like reading really fun fridge magnet poetry. Some favorites include “thought time tongue totally tuna,” “SRM story stumbling text think,” “chaotic chris claws color,” and “favorite flamingos free fun.” I could go on – but I’ll spare you!