Dye Day at my house!

Saturday, I hosted my Knit Group's first ever Dye Day. Here's what I learned:

10 things I learned on Dye Day

1. No food until 10:30 am, helping dyers, makes Christy something something.

Oddly enough, I was up at 6a on Saturday, made muffins, washed, peeled and cut kiwi, and washed & halved strawberries. I didn't have any coffee. I didn't have anything to eat until after we had started dyeing. Bad idea. Low blood sugar makes me FUN to be around. ie, "I love my sofa. It's such a a good sofa." Not so much fun to BE at the time. I definitely need a good breakfast before embarking on that kind of thing next time.

2. My crock pot doesn't hold enough chili for 11 people.

10 yes, 11 no. I was told there were 10 of us, and dished out chili for 10. When there was one bowl, and 2 knitters left... I was, well, less than fully gruntled with myself. ;)
More food next time.

3. 6 screaming women WILL FIT in the downstairs bathroom (dye studio).

Yes, we had 6 screaming women in my downstairs bathroom. It was during the time when they were unwrapping and rinsing skeins.

4. Ben doesn't mind being the only man in a sea of estrogen.

My husband is a saint. 'Nuff said. Ok, no, not 'nuff said. He enjoyed himself as much as any man in a sea of women does. He even helped un-knot some of the knitpicks skeins. He helped entertain the crazies while I was attempting to teach "blogless MJ" to dye.

5. A visit to the "stock room" where we keep all of our stuff to sell makes
people oooh and aah.

Especially the silk. The flannel got ooh's and aah's when I pointed out that it was the same yardage as the regular cotton (and is 2x as thick). Anne decided she needed the cocobolo spindle. I took one down from its resting place and spun with it the rest of the day. They spin like a DREAM. this one spins FOR-EVER.

6. 16 oz of Kona Superwash will eat dye, and take much more than you ever
expected.

Anne brought TWO 8-oz skeins of Kona Superwash. It took 3 8-oz bottles of dye. And then some. She had to flip and RE-apply dye to the back of her skeins.

7. Christy's guest room sleeps 2. We can't adopt everyone.

When we were done, there was a lot of "You're going to adopt me, right?" (Heck, while we were WORKING, there was a lot of "You're going to adopt me, right?!")

8. Knitpicks skeins are all kinds of messed up.

Chery had a skein that reversed directions all the time. Kathy had a skein that tied itself into a knot. Ben cut it in 3 places, and we ended up giving Kathy the last tangled piece to
do with as she pleased.

9. Sometimes, a "bloody mess" turns out to be a "happy accident".

Ellen's dyeing took a LOT of dye (half of which got cleaned up before it even hit the dye pot), and felted a little, but it ended up being beautiful, nonetheless.

10. It takes at least a day to recover from having that many people yelling your name.

Every time I sat down, "Christy!" was heard from the downstairs dyers. Usually needing pink dye mixed.

Lisa took pictures, before she ran off to her spinning class. Linda seemed to have the most fun watching everyone and giggling. Leisel spent most of her morning wrapping and re-skeining yarn, which gave her a result that was pretty, but rather time-consuming.

Next time, it's been suggested that we do a swap, so that people can branch out a bit from their color comfort zones. Sock yarn, dyed to swap. Mmmm... sock yarn.

I'll definitely have more food next time, and mix up much more dye. Gallons of pink.
Maybe have people come over earlier than 8:30am, even. More dye stations, definitely.

It'll be a month or three before then, though. I'll just keep plugging along until then, dyeing mostly on Fridays (Friday is Dye-day! are my usual posts to the group), inviting whoever wants to come over and play with color.