Dyeing in the Churchyard

At the August Guild meeting, we always have Dyeing in the Churchyard. Goodness only knows what we will call it if we ever stop using church halls for our meetings. Anyway, in all the years, I have been with Kennet Valley, we have managed to avoid serious rain. Oh the occasional little shower but yesterday! Fortunately Yvonne Withers (thank you, Yvonne) brought two Gazebos which were placed side by side just by the back door so it was two steps to the back door. The rain was so heavy that you got drenched in that distance. And every now and then one of the gazebos would chuck out its holding of rain and there would be squeaks from some poor unfortunate dyer but no rainwater was allowed into the dyepots!. There was a great deal of laughter and some wonderful dyeing, all natural and including cochineal.

There was quite a lot of indigo around. Note the nice space dyed skeins in yellow, green and blue. Mostly I minded the indigo vat but I did overdye a scarf of mine.

This is much better than the original which had a spaced dyed warp but a white weft.

I spent the first 30 minutes this morning washing all the bowls, basins et cetera from yesterday and then set about acid dyeing some more weft yarn for the small Newbury Coat. It is 0900 hours and I am halfway through my second bath. I only have one shuttle full of weft yarn left and I will get through that in 30 minutes of weaving so more dyeing is urgently needed. I aim to do another two lots this morning. Each 'lot' is 200 gms. I desperately want to get this piece of weaving finished. I cannot do anything else in the studio because of piled up bags of yarn for it.

 All those plastic bags are full of yarn and there is another bagfull in the sittingroom where I am turning balls into skeins ready for dyeing. I want to make a shirt before I set off for France which means finishing the weaving by next Saturday. I can wind a warp meantime but I may do what I have done before in good weather - retire to the patio with it. I will weave to the end of the yarn I have dyed and then do the sums for the next warp.

I have been thinking about journals, as a result of receiving a present from my sister which consists of a book on journals by Gwen Diehn and a shoulder bag all neatly fitted with paper pads and pencils and - - -. The question is, 'Does keeping a blog mean you don't keep a journal?' I think not. A blog is a record (for me at least) of what I have been up to. But only occasionally is there an entry about what I might do or have discarded thinking about and why. In other words, for me, a journal is a working record. I used to keep one but I think I might  go back to keep one, if only because I have three things I intend to do shortly and I think I might get them all onto one warp.