Promised Photos

Here are some photos from the Judith MacKenzie workshop.

This is the cochineal pot:
Cochineal is ground up dried bugs that is used to dye reds. I have a skein of yarn that came out of this pot that is a pretty pink with spots of peach. The peach spots came from limes. Judith cut up some limes in the pot and all the fiber close to them turned peach.

This is the indigo pot:

You all know indigo, it is what makes your jeans blue. When the pot got up to teperature it had this layer of scum on the surface. Judith put one drop of dish soap on it to create the hole where our yarn and fabric would be lowered into the pot through.

The indigo pot was really neat. We put white silk scarves in; when they first came out they were a pale greenish color, but the longer they were exposed to oxygen the darker blue they got. You controlled the darkness of the blue by leaving it in the pot longer. The items that were dipped in for just a couple of minutes ended up a faded blue jean color.

This is Judith after dropping in and taking out several items from the indigo pot:

When she realized that she didn't have any gloves with her she just went right in bare handed and said, "Well, it can't be helped." Her hands were a dark navy blue by the end of the day. She thought it would take about three or four days to wear off.

This is the room we were spinning in:

Pretty much the whole floor was covered with fiber and yarn, it was great fun.

Here is some of what I brought home:
The skein on the far left is one I painted. The pink one below came out of the cochineal pot. The two skeins that look black are actually navy blue from the indigo pot, as well as the scarf. The scarf was tied first and the diamonds were formed by tying garbanzo beans in it. It was all so much fun, I hope I can take the workshop again next year.

News alert:

Rocky is fishing this evening and just called to let me know that Chad just called to say that Aliya is at the hospital having the baby.