Last weekend was a feral knitter's dream: a 3-day workshop in natural dyeing at Deep Color Studio. Claudia Hoffberg, artist and owner of the studio, teaches these weekend intensives every so often. Each one is different!
We focussed on wool, both regular and superwash, cotton tape yarns, ramie, and silk fabric. We worked with madder--regular mordants in regular water versus no cream of tartar in hard water--and lac and indigo (setting up wool and cotton pots) and mixtures of other natural dye extracts. We can dyed and immersion dyed and rainbow painted and steamed. We worked hard all weekend! We spun and knit on the patio to relax. The days were punctuated by potluck lunches amid the dye garden plants--an idylic spot.
Here are some enticing photos:
Isn't that lac on silk absolutely gorgeous?
My favorite thing? Seeing the incredibly intense colors on cotton! Who knew?
Thank you everyone for your anniversary wishes! I'm a fortunate woman, all right--and now I'm out the door for Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp. I'll miss my family, but I'm looking forward to this break... See you next week!
That looks like SOOO much fun! The colors are wonderful and enviable, too! Enjoy your trip you lucky grrl!
Posted by: margene | July 13, 2005 at 10:09 AM
Great posting about the dye workshop. It was fun. I've been spreading the word about the spit splicing and have several people quite excited. Thanks again for the suggestions about cuff/bottom edge problems. Hope the workshop is great.
Posted by: Betsy | July 13, 2005 at 10:13 AM
have a blast!
Posted by: vanessa | July 13, 2005 at 02:35 PM
those colors are amazing - they look to dye for! I love seeing how they look all together on the line like that, it really shows the range of possibilities and combinations.
I hope you're having a great time at Camp! I'm going to see if I can fit a session in sometime in the next few years; hopefully sooner rather then later! :)
Posted by: Kristen | July 14, 2005 at 11:49 AM