So the one thing I lack at the studio is the ability to dye. I know - you've all just shook your head in disbelief and mumbled "Wha?!" to yourselves. When searching for a studio I found it to be like searching for an apartment in this city... but worse. Cut throat, exorbitantly expensive and tiring. Long story short: if there is water and a stove available in the space, it would be zoned as residential and not commercial. So I don't have, and wouldn't ever be able to find, the means to dye protein fiber in this city. (There is a slop sink in the hall way at least, so I can still dye cellulose fibers. Yay!)
I have been taking Wednesdays to stay home and do errands, and often split my weekend at the studio. Wednesdays are also my dyeing days. A couple weeks ago I had the kind of day that really made it all worth it: I dyed to exhaustion. What I love about that word is that it not only describes how dyeing often leaves me after standing on my feet for hours on end, but the way I dye - only putting in enough dye to color the fiber to the shade I want thus leaving the dye pot exhausted. The water in the bath will become clear since the dye has been soaked up by the fiber and I feel better about not having to dump a whole bunch of unused dye down the sink and into the water system. Being made up of almost 60% water, I personally think highly of it and would rather not take this precious resource for granted.
Above is a warp I'm testing some resist knots on - it's essentially simple ikat. Below are pieces of felt getting ready to dye for e-readers I'll be sending off to Craftland soon. It doesn't look like much, but it resulted in 4 different dye pots! And of course waiting for water to boil on four different dye pots (and not all at the same time) required a lot of patience.... Stay tuned to see what came of it!
