DYING & FOLDING ~ ~ ~

That's what I've been doing these last few days! This color was kind of a fluke ~ but it looks great! It turned out a great fuschia color with lots of mottling! Don't you think it will hook into beautiful flowers? I really want to concentrate on offering more dyed wool ~ the colors are so soft and beautiful and really help to give our rugs an older look ~ dyed wool gives a rug a kind of patina that we just don't get with as-is wool.

These are just a variety that I put in the dye pots this week ~ a nice robin's egg blue, a couple of golds, some nice pumpkiny colors ~ and I dyed fleece with all of them, too. I took these pix in a hurry yesterday so I could post them to the blog before we left home and put them in the save file. Now I'm adding the text from the lake! We came up last night ~ yippee!!

And this is nice pile of neutrals ~ good for dying or light backgrounds or sheep. These are all as-is but I had never cut up the wool when I got my last shipments. So I spent a good while cutting it all into half yard pieces and folding it ~ getting ready for my two upcoming shows! Kind of makes me wish I had done that right after I processed it all! Sometimes I do get the wool snipped into half-yard segments beforehand so all I have to do is the tearing ~ even that little bit done ahead helps! For those who don't work with wool, there really is a lot of preparation before we even set down to hook!

This is a great collection of as-is ~ nice dark antiquey colors! My arms were tired after all that ripping and tearing ~ but the smart thing I did was to do it outside so I didn't have all that wool dust in my hooking room!! I figured out that little trick last year! I set up a card table outside the door and just haul wool in and out and tear away!! And I get a little fresh air and sunshine while I'm at it!! I am always astounded at the amount of wool dust that settles after I've had a class or a group in to hook!

I'm hoping to get a little hooking time in this weekend ~ I fell off the 10 minute hooking challenge for two weeks ~ but I'm back on it now! I've done something that is hooking related everyday this week ~ as well I should, in light of the fact that I have two shows back to back! We have lots of fun planned for the next few days up here ~ it looks like it's going to be great weather so we have to take advantage of it for sure!!

Sonny is cleaning windows so maybe I should do a little vacuuming or something so I look productive! He has a hard time understanding how I can spend so much time putting a blog together ~ he thinks I'm 'playing' on the computer!! Little does he know that this thing can drive me crazy!!!!!!! Some would say it's a short drive!

Have a great Labor Day weekend ~ I'm sure I'll have some stories to tell next week! CONGRATULATIONS to our lake friends, Carol and Bill~ they became grandparents for the second time on Wednesday ~ daughter, Lisa, had a big bouncing boy ~ I don't know his name yet!! All of our friends up here are younger than us (they like hanging out with old people!) so their kids are just now starting their families ~ our grandkids are all in school now as of this year!!

Take care and have as much fun as you can!!
Alice