Saturday, September 11, 2010

So this is how it begins....








OK, Jenn (my sister - the one with the baby) and I are going to keep a Blog on our experiences as "fiber artists". How we do stuff, why we do stuff and what happens when stuff goes wrong.....which happens more that I would like to admit. Luckily ususally my screw ups can be fixed or a least salvaged by Jenn. You know, the overall ups and downs of our new venture.

A history would help anyone reading this to undertand how I started - more like was dragged - into the world of fiber dyeing, so I'll start there. This is us, Jenn is in the red and I'm in the brown and thats our little sister Lori in the middle. Jenn is attempting to teach us how to knit. I am a very poor student. Ok back to history.... When I turned 13 my parents decided to become Gentleman and Lady Farmer and purchased 52 beautiful acres in Orange County, New York. They started small with ducks and chickens, add a few horses then a few cows, then the sheep came. 150 sheep exactly. They were everywhere, white fluffy tufts sprinkled all over the fields. My mom would be out in the barn at all hours during the lambing season, the baby monitor bleating pitifully in the kitchen as the ewes attempted to become mothers. I wanted none of it! I ws a teenager, I wanted to party, to date to SHOP!!! It was oonly much later, as luck would have it, that I realized what a gold mine I could have had my blue hands on. Hundreds of pounds of fleece went off that farm and now I think back and cry. Now I have to get online and purchase what I could have had for free, and dream of what could have ben. I could have been happily dyeing my head off. Jenn could have spun enough yarn to circle the world, a few times! Ah hindsight.......

This is the Barn now, years later, its so quiet now.

That being said, I love what I do, the gorgeous colors, the baby soft fiber and the sometimes suprising results of mixing the two. Each weekend (and on Tuesday when I don't work at my "day job" for the Doc)I cover the counter tops with plastic, drag down the box of dye stocks and boxes of fiber and begin to work. I have to drag out the implements of my personal torture each time I dye because at the moment I do not have a "work space" set aside for this activity. My poor family.....the kitchen becomes off limits when I dye. Food and acid dyes are a dangerous mixture...I wouldn't want to kill anyone. At least not yet....(creepy laugh here). So everything must be cleaned and set up then put away and cleaned again. The tie dye affect on the countertop is beginning to wear thin tho. The up-side is that the kitchen must stay very clean. The last thing anyone wants is to purchase a beautiful roving and find a bit of carrot in it. Yuch!! Oopps gotta run this will have to be finished tomorrow (?) its time to go make dinner. Hope you enjoyed reading so far and I'll be back soon.....

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