Have spent the past two days dyeing non-stop. Seventy plus hanks of yarn dyed. Yes, seventy. Seven-zero, 70. If you count the past four days, the total is just over 90.
Really and truly, that is a lot of yarn. And a lot of work. And a lot of dye.
Exhaustion aside, I’ve loved every minute of it. In some strange little way, I even liked being completely worn out at the end of the day. It let me know I was working hard, which is a good feeling in and of itself.
Not to say that the art itself was not rewarding… some of the yarns that came out of this week are simply stunning. I’m tempted to keep all three hanks of one particular dye lot for myself.
The photo does not do it justice. The colors are so much more subtly complex, with pewters and silvered sea greens. That is one of the 100% bamboo yarns. It’s going to be hard to sell any of those, especially that batch.
The best part of this week, surprisingly, was proving to myself that I was capable of true blue production dyeing. That I had the focus, drive, motivation, skills and endurance to do it. This week I gave it a go, and this week I did it… and I know that with practice, enough blank yarn and enough dye, I could take 90 hanks and get that number up higher.
Right now, I am actually out of most of my dyes, and have only a very small amount of blank yarn left. (Bulky and worsteds, just a few pounds of each remaining. I ran out of buckets, bowls and tupperware.) So I could in theory still be dyeing more yarn, if I still had blanks and dye. Well, that and if we weren’t moving again Monday.
Yep, moving. Again. We knew this one was coming, which is why it’s not that big of a deal. It’s also the reason behind the Hell’s Bells dyeing this week. None of my dyed yarn is getting packed up - it’s all coming with me, as we make the trek cross-country to the next place the Air Force is sending us. So is the niddy noddy, the swift, the ball winder and the scale. That way if we end up in temporary quarters for more than a week or two, I’ll still be able to wind, photograph, list and ship yarns. Yay for planning ahead!
As things stand, I’ve spent from this past Monday through to tomorrow working on dyeing. Saturday and Sunday will be printing tags and locating necessarily supplies for shipping while on the road. Monday watching our things being packed up, and Tuesday and Wednesday cleaning the now-empty house. We’ll begin driving on Thursday and arrive somewhere on the East Coast Satuday or Sunday. With a kindergartender, preschooler and an almost 3 year old.
You know what? After reading all of that, I think I just may keep a hank or two of that bamboo. After this move is done, I’ll have earned it! LOL!
