Blue to Dye For



Kathi stirring the indigo pot to mix the ingredients

 The natural dyeing workshop is an annual meeting in May with the Las Vegas Fiber Arts Guild. Originally they held it up on Mt. Charleston, just outside the city where it was nice and cool. But it was a pain carting everything up there and then setting up and then bringing it all back down the mountain. So for the last several years Nancy has hosted the extravaganza in her front yard. Her set up is unbelieveable and gets better every year. It’s getting to be a burden for her as she nears 80 and requires help from others in the guild to keep it operating, but what a tradition it’s been.

A row of about 10 propane stoves with 2 pots each for dyeing. Two outdoor craft sinks for rinsing and a drying rack. Crock pots have been added for Kool Aid dyeing and this past year they added a tent with indigo dyeing. Plus Nancy serves tacos for lunch, and has tents set up while we wait for the pots to do their thing. People sit around and spin, knit and talk up a storm.

Bev and I were so taken with the indigo dyeing that she is going to try it in her dyeing efforts in Cedar City on Saturday, October 15. Some of the complexity of the indigo dyeing has been taken out with kits. We were able to pick some up on clearance at JoAnne’s and also found some at Dharma’s on the Internet.



Skimming the waste materials off the surface



The yarn has to stay submerged in the solution, not agitated.

Then when it is brought to the surface it is green.

A person quickly lets it drip out as you don’t want oxygen to get into the solution. As oxygen gets to the yarn it oxides the solution on the yarn turning it blue. It’s amazing to watch.

First dip = light blue

If you let the yarn dry a bit then you can redip it to get a darker shade of blue. The blue is the color that was originally used in blue jeans. If you don’t work with plastic gloves it does a great job of dyeing your hands blue too!

Second dip = darker blue

The Fall Guild Schedule Has Started

Our guild, The Weavers and Spinners of Southern Nevada, AKA Las Vegas Fiber Arts Guild, started our fall schedule with the September meeting on Saturday the 13th at the Blind Center on the corner of Bruce and Washington Streets in Las Vegas.

The meeting was pretty well attended, as everyone was ready to tell what they had done over the summer. Several members had gone to the Black Sheep Gathering in Oregon in June. A couple of members had taken a workshop in Flagstaff, and I had attended my first Convergence in June in Tampa. But I couldn’t attend the first guild meeting to talk about it as my husband and I were babysitting two of our grandchildren in Salt Lake City.

I heard I also missed a terrific weaving sale offered by a retired guild member. But there is hope. Not everything was sold and the remnants will be at this month’s meeting on October 11 for a second chance for a sale to -- people like me who couldn’t attend the first meeting. How thoughtful.

Since the meeting is coming up soon I have to gather up the door prizes, my monthly chore for the guild. This photo gives you a preview of what this month’s door prizes will be, mostly cones of yarn and some books. Tough competition with the yarn sale still going on.

The guild has a new website, which you have to check out. Go to my fiber related links, or click on the LV Fiber Arts Guild. The creator did a very nice job with the new website. You can locate directions (and a map) to our guild meetings and a calendar of events, plus photos and links to good weaving websites. For example, this Saturday the 4th, we’ll have guild members demonstrating weaving and spinning at “Something Scottish” at the Rainbow Public Library at Cheyenne and Buffalo in the north end of the LV valley. At the same time other members will be out west of the valley at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park for Pioneer Days doing the same thing in pioneer costumes.