Sea foam

I know things have been quiet around here for the last few weeks. I had been taking a break from most social media over the holidays to spend time with family and friends. My trip to NYC for Christmas was fabulous. Usually when we return home from a trip to ny, after visiting with lots of family members, we are happy, but tired from running around, and stuffed full of food. This past trip was a nice balance of running around and spending time with family, but also spending a fair bit of time relaxing, which was, as it should be.

My mom and I spent a fair bit of time making art together, which is a treat in itself, because we usually spend the day chatting while we make stuff. In an effort to travel a little lighter, I left my camera at home in Canada, because I often spend more time without it than with it. I know many of my family took photos, and I’m just waiting on some, since we made our own ugly Christmas sweaters, went to see the tree and rink in Rockefeller Center, and also got to see my Oma, which was really special since it had been a long time since I had seen her, and she was originally planning on spending the holidays in Germany, but came home to the us, instead.

On Christmas, hubby had the sickies, so we spent the day at home. He and my dad spent most of the day on the couch watching b horror movies. My mom and I spent most of the day in the kitchen, dyeing yarn and fabric.

The photo here is of the color way I dyed my yarn, a teal/turquoise/green/blue combination reminiscent of the ocean. At home, I am equipped to dye with food-safe acid dyes, which makes dyeing protein fibers a breeze when I catch a whim. My mom is equipped to dye with Fiber-reactive dyes, which are not food safe and require a lot of extra time to set up so that there isn’t cross contamination with food.

While working at a local yarn store, I had the pleasure of working with a few women in the shop with lots of experience in dyeing, who taught me loads about the technical side of it, and this married well with my existing knowledge of color.

In the dye pots, the colours were a lot more vibrant, but they faded a bit as the cotton dried. I think this is attributed to old soda ash, since the dyes were only about a year old. Anyhow, I am pleased with the results, as there are also little pockets of white yarn, which remind me of the foam on the crashing waves.

I can’t remember the last time I have been to the ocean. Five or six years? Far too long for the girl who everyone jokes is part fish, and grew up in a coastal city. It must happen the next time I go “back home”