There has been a bunch of dyeing going on at home.   Lulu called the other night and ask me what I was up to and I said dyeing and she laughed and said, oh, dyeing  in the kitchen and we had a good laugh.

I love the transformation that happens when you first dunk the yarn or wool into a color bath of dye.  You can almost imagine what the final product is going to be, but you gotta wait until all the dye has been transferred and then see where and how the yarn took it.

When the kids were little I started a small textile studio in Greensboro and was hopeful that I would have my own yarn line. I had been selling other people’s yarn, spinning and knitting a bunch of my own, but basically, I had a vision of having my own studio.  To that end I bought a couple of hundred pounds of local wool from a sheep farm up the road and had it spun up into yarn.  Then I set about dyeing it in small batches .  By small, I mean one and  sometimes 1.5 lbs at a time.  Most yarn skeins come in 4 ounce, so either 4 or 6 skeins at a time.

The most important thing about getting the dye to set evenly on the wool is to have the wool warm and wet prior, to open the fiber up.

 The individual fibers of wool are covered with scales that open when warmed and close when cold. They can catch and tangle on each other, producing a felted product.  So in dyeing, you want the fibers opened before you put them in the dye pot and you try to keep the fiber open to the end of the process and let it cool down naturally.

The other really important thing is that 90% of the dye is taken up by the wool, absorbed into the fiber in the first 2 minutes of the process.  So if you want the wool skeins to take the dye evenly, then you got to stir the pot without ceasing for the first couple of minutes.

So when the phone rang back in 1999 and Lulu was 7, she answered the phone.  From the stove side of kitchen I heard, “hello, no she can’t come to the phone, she is dyeing in the kitchen.”  Thankfully she was talking to my buddy Jenny who was a shepherd and knew exactly what I was up to.

Now, with Black Ram Designs  up and slowly running, I am back at it.  7 of 8 boxes of wool arrived from the mill on Monday and this run is 195 pounds of delicious DK weight New England wool milled in Maine.  Bioregional, the way I like it.  This run, plus the last run of sport weight and 2 ply from the Vermont Wool Pool has me up to my elbows in yarn and dyeing when ever I get a chance.

Transformation.  Which is a great balance to being a palliative and hospice chaplain where dying and transformation from this world to the next is a much heavier process.  I tell folks that I am working with children now and have transitioned from “regular” hospice to pediatric work and the response is “how sad” and “how can you do that work?”   I can do it because I do it per diem, leaving me to have time to grow my business and my yarn line, Sacred Knits.

I am writing again too, not just here, but actually sending stuff to my Editor,Chelsey Clammer, who just happens to knit. Ha and double Ha!  I have a monthly goal for a chapter and a knitting pattern. The goal is to write down my stories and my knitting recipes with my thoughts about life, love, loss and joy.  Lots of joy.  Lots of humor.  I figure it will be like Brene Brown and Eat, Love, Pray  smashes into Brooklyn Tweeds.

So this transformation is like that of the Cicada, dormant for a while, but rising out and back up with a distinctive style.   Like putting wool in the dye pot, you never really know what it will look like until the process is over.