Thank You! Dyeing Classes! New Products!

Wow, what a summer! It's been super busy. Thank you to everyone who has visited me at the Fiber Festival at Castle Farms and Michigan Fiber Festival. I really appreciate your enthusiasm and patronage! It's been wonderful to meet you all and talk fiber! Let's spread around more thanks to the organizers of the Fiber Arts Festival at Castle Farms and Michigan Fiber Fest for hosting such amazing fiber events.

Thank you as well to everyone who participated in my dyeing classes this summer at City Knitting! I had a great time working with you all. Friday's advanced dyeing day was inspirational, and hopefully you all learned a lot! I was very inspired by everyone's color ideas. The beginner's class on Saturday was great, too. Thank you to Gail, Lori, and Deb for participating and letting me teach you. I hope you've been able to continue to explore color!

If you are interested in dyeing and don't want to make a mess at your house, look no further for a venue. City Knitting has scheduled two dyeing days with a total of three classes on Friday, November 21 and Saturday, November 22. Friday's class is Beginning Dyeing, all day (will update the precise times later...) in which you will learn about safety, mixing dye powder into stock solution, application, etc. Then on Saturday, there will be two sessions of Dyeing Fun, in which people with previous dyeing experience can come and use my dyes and equipment to experiment with dye on a variety of materials of their choice - sock blanks anyone???

These classes are fabulous opportunities to learn about dyeing, color mixing and theory, and most importantly to stretch your creative wings and fly out of the class with gorgeous fibers that you have colored with your own hands! Materials requirements and times will be posted on the City Knitting website soon!

The sock knitting bug is still going strong, and I can't wait to attend the Cookie A. class next month. If you are looking for a new and different put-up of sock yarn, look no further than City Knitting. I just dropped off 35 dyed sock flats in a variety of colors. These 4-ounce, 434 yard flats are a combination of Merino Superwash, Bamboo, and Nylon. They are soft, lofty, and have lots of yardage for even the most intricate of patterns. They are knitted together with two strands so you can knit two sock together or knit from the flat and wind up the second strand for the second sock. I will be working on some guidelines with pictures to post soon. And pictures. I will eventually take some pictures.

Upcoming Shows
September 26-27 - Northern Michigan Lamb and Wool, Ogemaw County Faigrounds, near West Branch, MI. This is the most beautiful fairgrounds, ever, and super friendly people organizing and attending. Come and enjoy the color changes and shop for gorgeous fiber. Remember, wool is insulating and it's going to be a cold, long winter.

Saturday, October 4, YarnCon - Pulaski Park Fieldhouse, Chicago, IL. Wow, am I excited to be in this show!

October 25th and 26th - Fiber Expo at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds in Saline, MI. This festival has a great list of classes and a tremendous variety of vendors! There's something for everyone! Hope to see you there!

Coming soon, information on new fibers and new locations for purchasing Yarn Hollow yarn, kits, and fibers!

Thanks for reading everyone! XO,
Rita

Updates on Classes! More yarn at City Knitting!

Hi there Readers!
I am teaching two dyeing classes at City Knitting in June 2008 - you will not want to miss them!
The first class - Advanced Dyeing - is on Friday, June 13th from 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. The goals of the class are to do more color analysis and see what primaries you would use to develop your own colors! This is a hands-on class with the goal or dyeing two skeins (or more, if you have time) of yarn in the colors you develop by mixing primaries. Bring lots of color ideas and a spirit of adventure! More information on both classes can be found here.

The second class is the Beginning Dye workshop on Saturday, June 14th from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., which focuses more on safety, measuring, dyeing techniques, pH, different classes of dye and fiber choice. There is loads of fun and learning in this class and you will be working hard!

Both classes are excellent opportunities to explore your creativity, work with color and fiber, and do some dyeing without making a mess at your home. I hope to see you there! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me about the content of the class, or contact City Knitting with questions about purchasing fiber! Thanks!

I am also teaching a class at Michigan Fiber Festival in August at the Allegan County Fairgrounds. The class is called "Silks and Dyeing" and it is being held on Thursday, August 14th from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. It will focus on dyeing (safety, color mixing, etc.) and then the hands-on portion will be to use various methods to dye silk scarves - low-water immersion, tie-dye, embedding objects, resists, etc. More information about the class can be found here. The workshop registration form can be found here. I hope to see you there!


Here are some pictures of yarns recently delivered to City Knitting last week...

Artichoke in "Texas" yarn - this has 245 yards in a 4-ounce skein









This is Ganesha in Texas:

Black Sheep For Evah!

Wow, the weekend of April 26th is one that will be remembered for a long time. I was the lucky guest of the Black Sheep Knitters Guild, based in Berkley, MI, for their annual retreat. They had contacted me at the beginning of 2008 to ask me to teach a dyeing class for their retreat being held at the Hankerd Inn in Pleasant Lake, MI, and I accepted.

What an awesome group! There were 13 class participants, all so willing to try new techniques, new colors, to help set-up and clean up, and to provide enthusiasm! I thought it was one of those cliches that teachers use about "learning as much from the students as they learn from me..." Well, it's true. I can't thank everyone enough for sharing their thoughts, feedback, and ideas for this class, as well as information that will help me develop other classes as well. And a true, heart-felt thank you to the Black Sheep Knitter's Guild for their friendship, most especially.

Highlight include, but are not limited to:
The colors... Harriet made the reddest red ever - and I am sure this will look gorgeous on her.

















Kim came up with a marvelous color, which was named "Black Sheep For Evah!" Its a combination of eggplant, teal, and lime, and it really suits the concept of a Black Sheep - definitely a color developed "outside of the box!"

LindaLuFiber - well, she dyed and dyed and dyed. Check out her blog, she's written about the retreat three times.

Kate made some great skeins of yarn inspired by her cottage and its moss and lichens. Her inspirations were amazing and her results were spot-on. Well done Kate!

Cheryl was inspired to make watermelon striping socks, combining some great bright greens and a light magenta that she dotted with black. Her color choices were quite amazing.



















Here are more pictures, in no particular order

Stacy, Rhys, and Linda D getting started.













Gorgeous drying in the sun.

Thank you so much to Tanya, Kate, Kim, Cheryl, Stacy, Barb, Judith, Linda D., Linda L., Rhys, Harriet, Suzanne, and Joan for being such excellent students and for providing feedback! I really appreciate your willingness to learn and your inspiration for future classes!

On Yarn and Dyeing

Saturday was an amazing day. I taught my first hand dyeing class at City Knitting in Grand Rapids, and it was awesome. Why, you ask? Well, first the people who were in the class were pretty amazing in many respects. All were fearless in their exploration of color, intense in their desire to play, and uninhibited in their enthusiasm for fiber arts. So, what better group to have as students in teaching my first class. I am misty...

We were eight on the day, nine with me, and with many more shop customers coming in to peek. I can't thank Kat, Lisa, Geri, Jo, Joan, Sam, Jenna, and Lauren enough for their time and energy in being such amazing students for a first class. Their color ideas were very adventurous and sophisticated, and they had definite ideas about how they wanted to proceed. They also had great taste in fiber, choosing some terrific yarns and loose fibers to work with.

A big thanks as well to Lorilee and her great staff at City Knitting. I can't wait to do it again. Thanks for promoting the class, and many, many thanks for your support over the past three years, and for your enthusiasm about Yarn Hollow.

Enough talk, onto the gorgeousness:




The class from back left: Sam, Jo, Lauren, Geri, me, Kat, Jenna, Lisa, and Joan in front.

























Kat's alpaca twist, overdyed with turkey red, golden yellow, and other fiery colors.
















Kat, Sam, Jo, and Lauren dyeing!
















Lisa and Jenna working hard.
















Geri and Kat.