Beyond Knitting
Dyeing with Kristine Vejar
It’s a rare thing to get to hang out with one of the world’s dyeing luminaries. I got wind of Kristine Vejar coming to Nashville on pretty short notice (isn’t part of a workshop the months of anticipation?), so it was with about two seconds’ planning that I signed up for a two-day workshop. Kristine is the proprietor of the legendary shop A Verb for Keeping Warm in Oakland, California, and author of pretty much the Bible of natural dyeing, The Modern Natural Dyer.
Stop, drop, and dye. Classmates had come from Durham, Chicago, Asheville, Seattle, and the wilds of Brentwood, Tennessee to be a part of this. I can’t believe I live 10 minutes from a place like Craft South.
Up top is a gallery to click through and gaze upon the natural dyeing that gripped us like the fever of a bunch of bachelorettes chasing the last pedal tavern. (Nashville is the nation’s top destination for bachelorette parties these days, in case you’re wondering. And the 12 South neighborhood is somehow the epicenter of what they do when they’re here. We watched them troop past Craft South, herds of them, sometimes poking their heads in the door of Craft South with puzzlement.)
Marigold versus madder.
Kristine and dyeing wizard Adrienne create colorful yarns that all go together. All natural dyes. The brown above is actually the gentlest green you’ll ever see. Kristine mentioned how hard it is to photograph green; here’s the proof.
Dyehards caught in the act.
An indigo mother gathering steam. Iridescent circle? Check. Yellow-green color? Get ready.
Everybody brought yarn and fabric to throw in the indigo pot. I brought my beloved Nesting Wrap, that beloved Bristol Ivy pattern, made in beloved Jade Sapphire cashmere. I truly love the colorway—Pebble Beach and Stonehenge—but I truly do not love the way it enhances my pallor. There is only so much pallor one can inflict on the world.
Into the presoak it went.
After three indigo dips and three squeeze-outs, it looked like the saddest pile of semi-felted goat hair you ever saw. My classmate Kelley Dew tried to be encouraging. “Aw Ann, it’ll be great. Stuff always looks like that when it’s wet.”
You mean, like this?
I think Kelley would say this to somebody with a bad haircut, you know. She wants to be helpful.
At workshop’s end, we all swore to stay sweet and have a wonderful summer, and I put my semi-felted-looking goat hair into a ziploc per Kristine’s stern instruction Do Not Let The Alkaline Stuff Dry On The Yarn.
At home, I soaked it in a vinegar bath—so much soaking comes with all the dyeing—then rinsed and rinsed and rinsed.
And, lo and behold, Kelley was right, and Kristine was right.
I love my souvenir of a memorable hangout with great women, a beautiful shop, and a patient teacher.
If you ever have the chance to take one of Kristine’s dyeing workshops, or to hang out at A Verb for Keeping Warm, you will be amazed at how quickly you get the dyeing bug. Not to be an enabler or anything, but she’s headed to Japan in November for a workshop hosted by Amirisu, everybody’s favorite Japanese/English knitting magazine.
Curious what workshops you’ve attended that you’ve enjoyed.
Ooooh! You Nesting Wrap came out a wonderful color! Soft and warm, it will be especially lovely on you. Happy outcome.
I learned to spin on a drop spindle at a workshop by the lovely Merike Saarniit at Knit Nation 2011, then a few years later took another spindle spinning class from the awesome Abby Franquemont at Fibre East. Both workshops were empowering and enabling and gave me so much more by the personal attention than I would ever get from watching YouTube videos, or even Craftsy, however good the latter one is. All hail to teachers who go around the world with love and passion to enable others to make stuff.
The “it’s this weekend, and there is space” type schedule can be the best. While there is less anticipation, there is instant gratification. This put me into the the workshop I learned the most at, and enjoyed the most. Gale Zucker on Photographing Your Knits, at Kay’s house on Long Island. With an amazing group of women (and one small dog) I learned more about how to look at things, and how to document them, than I knew existed. I can’t begin to count the times I’ve said, “Pixels are free” or “What are you taking a picture of, the person or the thing?”
I absolutely love that color!! I gave away a vest of similar pallor inducing color – now I wish I had it to dye.
I love attending all kinds of workshops — general or specific knitting, dyeing, color theory. Right now, I am especially excited about a 3-day Alabama Chanin sewing workshop in November that I signed up for within 5 minutes of the announcement. 😉
I took a Natural Dyeing workshop from Jackie Ottino Graff (Forage Color, formerly of Swans Island) and it was like magic! I felt like an alchemist. I didn’t even care about about the yarn at the end. Let’s throw some more plants/bugs/lichen in that pot and see what happens!
I applaud your guts and abandon to toss that gorgeous wrap in a dyepot – inside I cringed and screamed “NOOOO!!!” just reading about it! And I have to chastise myself that the end result is even more beautiful than what you started with. Soooo, moral of the story is: take more chances? Don’t be so attached to the sanctity of the FO? F^ck the cashmere and just go for it? 😉
Well done! Can’t say I have the dying bug, but I can appreciate others’ good work. I’ve attended two Ann Weaver workshops at String Theory Yarn Company in Glen Ellyn, IL. One was on color and the other on steeking. Both were great, because, well, Ann Weaver. Also attended a vogue Live workshop by Patty Lyons on gauge that was outstanding. She keeps the session moving and has so much energy and humor.
I have been at 2 Ann Weaver workshops at String Theory as well. The first was color work and an Albers Cowl. The second was more color play and a wonderful shawl called Traffic Furniture. This weekend I am going back on Saturday evening to learn more about color and choosing a project for that one(!) skein of hand dyed yarn marinating in stash land .
Such a fun and magical weekend! And your wrap is perfection! I want to dye all the things!
Lucky duck, Ann! That sounds like an exceptional opportunity. I am SO GLAD your beautiful wrap recovered from the experience and came back even better – and what a gorgeous color!
Someday I hope to attend a dyeing workshop using indigo – I love reading about indigo, and poring over pictures. I enjoyed reading about Kay’s indigo dyepot experience in France last year, too – also great. I’ve been dabbling (paddling might be a better word) in botanical dyeing for a few years and plan to do quite a bit this winter – that’s when adding steam to the house is a Good Thing.
Looking forward to reading comments from other folks who have been to great workshops!
Love how your Nesting Wrap turned out. I think I need to sign up for Craft South’s newsletter. This class looks and sounds amazing. Thank you for your wonderful report.
I’ve been to two workshops on natural dyes at Oil and Cotton, a creative space in Dallas that inspires me to create as soon as I walk in the door. In the first class, we learned how to use cutch, cochineal and pomegranate dyes on fabric – mostly cotton handkerchiefs from secondhand stores – from Sarita Westrup, a textile artist who lives in Denton where the University of North Texas has an extensive program in fiber arts.
The second one, a two-day workshop, was about dyeing different kinds of yarn. Casey Galloway who teaches at Southwest School of Art in San Antonio and also has a business called Hand Eye Textiles, taught us to dye wool, cotton, silk and hemp using cochineal, osage orange, madder, marigold and indigo. We learned how the different dyes work and how the different fibers take them. I came home with 17 little skeins in all sorts of gorgeous colors! I also came home with a bag of slightly used cochineal bugs (now in my freezer) and a kit for making an indigo pot when I am ready to dye some more.
The challenge after these motivating workshops is figuring out what to do with the results. I embroidered on one of the handkerchiefs, quilting it for a wall hanging, and have some ideas for doing things with the other two, possibly involving beads.
The five balls of cotton yarn are being knit into log cabin squares, although I’ll have to wait and see what happens after that. I plan to retire at the end of the fall semester, so I will have more time to play with all these things.I also borrowed Kristine Vejar’s book from the library for more inspiration. Maybe she’ll come to Texas one of these days.
Great decision on your part to fix what wasn’t working. If you are anything like me, you probably wouldn’t wear the wrap in the original colors (lovely though it was) because you didn’t Feel beautiful in it. I’ll bet you’ll wear it all the time when the weather finally cools off – when you’re not wearing an Easel, of course.
Remember that wrap I made that time in a free gift Rowan kit in the color of Ladies’ Underpants? That would have been great in the indigo vat. I love love lurve your new blue Nesting Wrap. If it goes missing I feel like I will be Unjustly Accused.
I’m loving everyone’s reports on amazing workshops, and I’m also looking forward to checking our Google analytics to see how many people get to MDK by searching “slightly used cochineal bugs.”
You made me do the snorty-laugh 🙂
Favorite workshop was Alabama Vhanin in Beacon. It was so much fun. Another was Decorative painting with Ina B Marx in the eighties. Changed my life! I began to paint on everything! There was a machine quilting Workshop at my quilting guild with Sue Nichols. I am old. I have done a lot of workshops! These days they are mostly on line. I am grateful for those! Currently I am a fan of creativebug where wyou can pay a small monthly fee and have access to a lot of content. I have done calligraphy and pattern making! Currently taking book making. The internet is wonderous.
There’s nothing I enjoy more than dyeing stuff, but I don’t seem to actually do it often enough. Went to a really fun indigo workshop at South Street Seaport once with an outfit from California called “French” something (sorry, proper nouns no longer reside in my brain) and came home with two huge vats that are still hanging out under my stoop. I often wonder what miracle it would take to revive them after a few NYC winter/summer weather cycles. Last fall the Verb ladies gave a demonstration (with some participation) here, and I try to take natural dyeing classes at Knitting Live. I save avocado pits and weeds with red stems.
” click through and gaze upon the natural dyeing that gripped us like the fever of a bunch of bachelorettes chasing the last pedal tavern.” My new favorite phrase in the English language! Love every bit of this story! Will now spend endless hours on line looking for a similar experience.