While teaching us to dye, Kristen was quite adventurous with us, and had all sorts of things going on. We had acid dyes in the back porch - handpaint Saran wrap packets which were later steamed, kettle dyeing on the stove, in the oven and in crockpots.
We had a two burner Coleman camp stove and a big turkey cooker sort of propane burner going in the front yard with plant dyes. We harvested jewelweed, goldenrod and Blackeyed Susan from Kristen's land. Lisa of knitnzu brought us mushrooms and helped Kristen find some turkey feather lichens suitable for dyeing. And there was the magical Indigo dye pot. I LOVE the magic of Indigo. White fiber goes in ever so slowly to not introduce bubbles
(oxygen) into the vat, stays for a few seconds, and comes out again ever so slowly to not drip or introduce bubbles. Leave the dipped fiber exposed to air for 20 minutes or so and watch it transform that previously white fiber into green then turn blue with oxidation. Amazing! And overdyeing the yellows we got from plant dyes with Indigo made the most amazing greens! (more on that in a near future post).
Over the next few days, I'll be blogging in a bit more detail of each of these so I can work in some more of the pictures I took. Kristen put up two people in her house, four of us stayed in my tent and two more stayed at a wonderful neighbor's down the road who were willing to put people up for the weekend. They even provided banjo playing in the form of their son...
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