The Dye Contest: Day Three

Pics were made today of all the yarns and rovings that I have dyed thus far. Some will need to be overdyed to get the colors the way the designer submitted them. Before I do that, though, I will send the designer a pic for her/him to consider. Happy accidents happen with dyeing every day. I don't want to take that experience away from people who have been so eager to join this adventure with me.

The Dye Contest has put me way behind where I need to be for the conference that I will be attending in California this week. But, the fact is that I am having so much fun that it is difficult to worry. The colors combinations are truly spectacular. Working with colors that were selected by other people has done what I hoped it would do; I have broken away from the idea that blues are best. Not everyone wants blue, or purple, or green. Some people will want orange. Other people are moved by yellow. The point is that my rigid, inflexible attraction for certain colors has been rattled by a rather large earthquake of my own design. Here are of some of the submissions.

My bathtub sure does come in handy when I want to pre-soak the roving and the skeins. A lot of dirt comes out of these fibers when they get washed. I'm surprized by the sand and grit that comes out of them, but I kind of like the reminder that animals are an important part of this process. I try to make sure that no animals are harmed in the process and I also focus on not letting even the smallest scrap of the fleece goes to waste. I nearly cried the first day that I scoured a fleece and the agitation of the washing machine partially felted some of the wool rendering it useless for my purposes. It is a reminder that being conscious has benefits!

The Dye Contest: Day One

Today began for me like any other day. Awaken, take meds, pet the spinning wheel as I walk past it to start the bathtub water running steaming hot water, head to my daughter's room to see whether any new Etsy orders have been placed, check email, post a contest on Ravelry. What!?!!? Wait, I said "post a contest on Ravelry." Did I actually do that? Yes, and I was 15 minutes late for work because I kept posting it to different forums (people were kind enough to tell me afterwards that I wasn't supposed to post it to so many groups...live and learn. I'm a pretty quick learner especially when I'm knocked in the side of the head with a couple of "don't do that again emails.")

So, below I have included the contest that was innocently posted around 7:50a Central Time. Seems clear to me. I'm thinking that I will get about 5 - 10 good ideas for colorways to dye in advance of tomorrow's trip to the Mt. Laurel Craft and Farmer's Market. Yep, I did. I got 5 - 10 great ideas PLUS 60 - 65 other equally wonderful ideas. OMG - I'm overwhelmed with the response. People are hungry for color! In fact, people are starving for color. And they want control over color!!! I'm having an absolute blast learning about their passion for color, color, color. Each colorway comes with a story - with some I laughed and some I cried. I am going to have to make it into a book. Someone suggested that I blog about the Dye Contest. So here we go. The Dye Contest. Day One

One Day Only Contest!!!! www.whorlingtides.etsy.com
WIN A SKEIN OF YARN OR FIBER (ROVING/BATT/LOCKS)
Just for today!!!
Tonight I will be dyeing again using acid dyes! Yay!!! I’m taking requests for HANDPAINTED colorways for the following items:
Sock or lace weight yarn Superwash sock yarn Worsted weight yarn
and
Merino roving Alpaca batts Overdyed silver Romney fleece
Rules:
1) Submit your colorway to me including the approximate percentage you would like to see for each color (for example: Sock yarn: 20% salmon, 40% lilac, 30% rose red, 10% white). Be as specific as possible with the color description.
2) Please provide a name for your colorway. Any appropriate name provided will be used. What a great FREE way to advertise yourself and your work! So if you are Jen at Hanks In The Hood - you might call your yarn “Hanks In the Hood Summer Sock Yarn” (Just an example)
3) I will dye all of the most beautiful sounding colorways tonight.
4) When everything dries, I will select one YARN WINNER and one FIBER winner.
5) Each winner will WIN the item that s/he designed!!!
Doesn’t this sound like fun??!!!? NOTE —I cannot check Ravelry from work so if you have questions, PLEASE email me at whorlingtides@aol.com.
If you PM or post a question, I will answer it as soon as I get home from work - so 5p Central Time.

The firewall at work doesn't allow me to check Ravelry so all the responses I knew about were the ones people sent to the WhorlingTides AOL account. I didn't know about the full force of the contest until I got home and could log on to Ravelry. It took me almost 3 hours to transcribe all of the colorways to cards so that I would have something to guide me at the dyepot! Some of the colorways are simple - two or three colors. Some have 6 - 8 colors. I don't yet have the kind of control over painting fibers that I wish I had for the more complex colorways. But I will be learning more with each dyebath. It is a good thing that I'm reading Deb Menz's book on color and spinning.

Life with My DD

Look at her. She is 17 and getting ready to take on the world. I love watching her grow into an amazing young woman. Most of the time she just shines her beautiful light upon life. But this is the face that I have known the most over recent years. This is the face that says "Mom, I'm still learning how to be me, and it isn't easy." I hope she learns well how to be herself. I love her, my dearest daughter.