#WeekendCoffeeShare: Yarn Dyeing!! And a Readathon!

Weekend Coffee Share is a time for us to take a break out of our lives and enjoy some time catching up with friends (old and new)!

Grab a cup of coffee and share with us!  What’s been going on in your life? What are your weekend plans?  Is there a topic you’ve just been ruminating on that you want to talk about?

All are welcome! Just add your link to the Linky-List, and be sure to visit others and join in their conversations! The link will be open from Friday August 2nd at 7 am (Pacific Time) until Monday August 5th at 7 pm (Pacific Time) to give us a good range of “weekend”!

I finished the Warping Mill last weekend – and put it to use! I’m very excited by how it turned out, though I am already thinking about how I’ll do some of it differently when I build a new one with better materials. Though that will be far down the road – what I have now works quite well enough!

My completed Warping Mill — because of the limited space I have available it will have to be set up on my bed whenever I want to use it, but it does collapse down so I am able to store it under the bed when it’s not in use.

Monster was intrigued by this contraption for a few moments, but he decided it wasn’t worth his energy after a little while. He’s become fairly complacent with most of my weaving endeavors at this point, realizing that the yarn is not for him.

This weekend I’m going to be enjoying some more yarn-related fun. One of the local yarn dyers (Blue Moon Fiber Arts) is hosting a “barn sale” and dyeing event. They have some of their yarn on sale and, if you bought a space, you can dye your own skeins of yarn! Last year was my first attempt at dyeing, and I like how the skeins turned out (and just finished weaving them into a shawl this spring), so I’m looking forward to making some more.

My hand-dyed yarn from last year when it was still on my loom.

I’m not sure what colors I’ll do, though I have some ideas of the technique I want to use this year. What I REALLY don’t know is how much yarn I’ll be able to dye – funds are super-tight right now, and I don’t really have much put aside for this. I paid already for my space and the dyes, but I have to pay for the skeins I’m going to dye still. My original thought had been that I might get some roving (the fibers before it’s spun into yarn) and then spin it myself (since I’ve started to do some spinning, though I’m moving very slowly with that), but we’ll see what they have and what moves me in the moment.

Saturday (well, actually, starting Friday night) is also the Dewey’s Reverse-Readathon. This is a 24-hour long readathon – read what you can, when you can! They hold one in the spring, and one in the fall — but this summer one is a little different. The idea is that all participants worldwide are reading during the same 24-hours, so for the spring and fall one my start time is something like 5 am (8 am ET) on a Saturday. The summer one is “reverse” because it starts at a different time – 8 pm ET on Friday – and still runs for 24 hours. So, around the dyeing event, I plan to do some reading, starting as soon as I get off of work on Friday! Or, as the case may be, some listening – as I do have a bunch of cleaning and organizing to still do and that’s much easier to accomplish if I’m listening to something!

Dewey’s events have a good community around them, and participants are encouraged on a variety of social-media platforms. There are also various mini-challenges and prizes throughout. I highly recommend checking them out – even if you can just read for a little bit during any of the readathon, it’s pretty spectacular to be part of a community of readers!

So, that’s what I’m going to be up to this weekend – how about you? Any plans?