I'm dyeing here!

Of all the fiber-y things I do, I may like dyeing the best. There is a challenge to get the colors and combinations that I want and a fine line between safe and boring and mud colored. Hand dying requires that you know what your dyes will do, but still allow the serendipity to happen. I have recently gotten a couple of requests for special orders of hand dyed colors. Some colors (Bronze Green; Autumn Gold; Beach Glass) are semi-repeatable. I use the same dyes in roughly the same proportion, but they are only fraternal twins, not identical. If I wanted to go into production that was totally repeatable, I could. For sock yarns, I do. But for my roving I have chosen to keep as much magic as possible in my dye process.

I've also been calling dances all around the area. Last weekend I called a teen dance at a retreat that was lots of fun, but the real kicker was a Sunday afternoon Old Fashioned Barn Dance at a real barn. This was part of the fall festival at a Kingsport, TN organization called Pathfinders, a beautiful farm property that is being run as a camp for youth as well as a site for corporate retreats and team building exercises. There were lots of people there - truly an inter-generational dance. I called circles, squares, longways set dances, even a contradance (but it was a variant of Jefferson and Liberty, so don't get too excited).

This weekend I have 2 gigs again. The first is a contradance at Virginia Intermont College in Bristol, VA. Mark Mueller and friends will be playing. On Saturday night, I'll be calling the regular Jonesborough dance with a new band, the Contra Cowboys. Both dances sound like fun and I'll be house sitting for David ( the energy center for contradance in East Tennessee) so I'm taking knitting, reading, papers to grade, fiber to weigh and photograph, even business paperwork to get entered in to the spreadsheet. Grading papers and knitting hats should be highest on the agenda, as well as dog walking!