Yummy Yarn

I dropped in to the Yarn Barn a couple of days ago. I wanted to see what cellulose fibres they might have. I'm teaching a Procion Dyeing workshop at the Guild next weekend. We'll do most of our samples with cotton, but a bit of variety is always fun. Here's what I came home with: The two balls of yarn at the front of the pic are cellulose--natural coloured cotton on the left and viscose-rayon on the right. As for the rest, well . . .

• 200g of undyed wool tops, because I didn't have any left, which is pretty much as bad as not having any chocolate in the house!
• a cone of wool-acrylic blend, because it was on the clearance shelf and its warm glow was irresistable. I can tell you many ways that I might use it--and probably will--but the truth is that it talked to me and I had to bring it home.

My plan is to dye some cotton samples today. I managed to clear at least half of my big table yesterday. A bit more effort this morning should see it usable. Today and tomorrow my calendar is quite open. Sunday's a busy day, but then there's a bit of space early next week. That should give me enough time to do the tedious rinsing that goes with procion dyeing and still have time to enjoy my colours and put things in order ready for next weekend. As I say, that's the plan. Now to execute it I need to start by sorting out the kitchen.

I Had to Have It

I dropped in at the Yarn Barn on my way to a meeting last week. I wanted to pick up a bit more of the alpaca yarns I'm using in my "bushfire blanket". So, I picked up what I needed and paid for it. Then this caught my eye: It's a slubby linen yarn plied with several strands of blue cotton. I like it. It was on sale. I bought it. Fair enough . . .

. . . but I actually bought this much:

Ummmm . . . that's a lot of yarn. So, I now have one more cone of yarn adorning my shelves. I can't say I'm sorry, because I'm not. It will be great for texture in my weaving. I think I'll also try overdyeing some of it, since the white linen will take up colour differently from the blue cotton. And it looks good just sitting there anyway.