wet white wool

wow! there's a wicked-ass storm brewing outside right now.(gee those hopi rain sticks seem to be working) the wind is blowing the rain horizontally-the chickens are hiding. i hear it may turn to snow tonight??? quite the contrast from yesterday's gorgeous day.

yesterday, the foothillfiber guild had yet another amazing dye workshop with sara(dye goddess and weaver extraordinaire) at the beautiful home of sue f. We enjoyed a warm day full of fiber, colors, dogs, laughter and food to "dye" for!

can you guess which important small object of technology i managed to forget? yes, my camera(actually it is little son's camera.)damn! not only for all the fabulous color creations but i saw blooming wildflowers on my drive to sue's-lupines, california poppies and the redbud trees!

this workshop was one of my more successful ones. i finally got colors and results i was actually trying to achieve. in past workshops my stuff never came out as i desired. it was always a surprise or a gasp! not that they were bad- just completely not what i expected.

My high school chemistry teacher gave me "D." so maybe all this mixing of colors and formulas was intimidating at first. I guess i'm a slow learner and things finally sunk in! mixing your own colors is awesome-better than straight from the jar hues!

you'll have to wait a few days for me to post my pictures from this workshop as they are busy drying. i rinsed them this morning and yes, sara-you win! I tried your soaking method as opposed to gentle under the faucet rinsing-your way was better- not quicker but better.-softer roving! i guess i will just have to learn to be a bit more patient and just have a cup o tea! i even let them cool "completely" before rinsing-something that was real real hard in the past. if anyone wants to view pics of our fabulous dye day here's two other blogs that already have them posted.birdsong- http://burrobird.typepad.com/ and sharon's blog-www.sagecreekfarm.blogspot.com

okay, now for some details on the st. patty's "dye" for beer day at nettie's. this dye day was not as successful. but we had a blast! this is as far as we got when it came to dyeing:

then this occurred: check out nettie's cute tee. sorry no pic of my shamrock socks!

and this:

so then we decided to go downtown and party more-luckily nettie lives in walking distance so we hoofed it. past the old classic car, thru the old cemetery and thru a bit of woods.

we end up at the back entry of an old brewery-one beer and some nice but sleepy celtic music(no jigging happening at that point!)we head for some sushi and "lucky" sake-the kind with the gold in it that you drink out of a box for good luck and abundance-nettie assured me it was good-i kept having wine in a box visions-gag! but it was wonderful-check these pics out:GOLD! see waitress putting the gold in.

after fun at the sushi house we head out for some dancing-most places were pretty lame or charging cover(i refuse unless it's something really good) so we end up at" the crazy horse" a place we never go to-but boy oh boy-that's where the fun was-a 70's cover band, no cover and crazy folks-this group of gals was having way too much fun!

nettie and i must have been having way too much fun too as there were many pictures like this on my camera:

well, we made it back to nettie's and i spent the night-the next morning i headed home with wet white wool.