Indigo Dye Experiments
It's been over two months now since we had to temporarily shut down the dye studio to wait out COVID-19. We've been able to have limited access to the studio again for the past few weeks, and I'm happy to be back! But last month when I still didn't have access I was itching to play with colour again, and realized that in amongst all the yarn and other products that I'd hauled home back in March, I had some indigo dye kits. I didn't have any of my other dyeing equipment with me, but indigo doesn't require heat or mordanting to set, so it was the perfect solution for me to scratch that dyeing itch!
How to Naturally Dye Easter Eggs
As hand-dyers who love playing with colour, it's only natural that we would love dyeing eggs as well as yarn. I've been exploring using natural dyes for Easter eggs for several years and after much trial and error, I've put together some instructions and tips for you.
Community Dye Studio!
Big news! We’re teaming up with Helios Makerspace to offer dye studio access for members who want to work on dyeing projects without investing in all their own tools and equipment. That means that during studio hours, members can come use our space to dye yarn, fibre, fabric, or anything else you can think of really! More details on membership pricing and studio hours are available here.
Accomplishments of the Week - June 17, 2018
One of the things I'm most excited about getting done this week is setting up a new bee hive. We've had hives in our backyard for the past few summers, but I haven't been really involved in taking care of them too much (it's been more my boyfriend and his brother's project). Unfortunately this year none of them made it through the winter, so we decided to do a bit of a re-set, with my boyfriend and I taking on more of the responsibility for them, and moving the hive up onto the roof of our building so we'd be less likely to get stung while gardening.
Developing Gradient Sets - Part 1
I've been spending some time this spring working on developing new gradient sets in our Crescendo yarn for a couple of different projects, and I thought it would be fun (and hopefully interesting!) to document the process here.
Dye Experiments: New Arietta Colours
I've had the idea in the back of my mind for a while now that we really need a few more colours in our Arietta lace-weight yarn. It's a gorgeous wool and silk blend that knits up beautifully, but with only seven colour options sometimes customers just don't find the right one for their project. I finally got a few spare moments in the dye studio to work on this project recently, and I thought it would be fun to share a bit about my process for colour development.
Setting up the Sweet Paprika studio
As some of you know, Debbie and I had to move studios rather unexpectedly last August. Although it was very stressful at the time, Debbie managed to find us another studio within a week, and the new space is wonderful!
