So the one thing I lack at the studio is the ability to dye. I know - you've all just shook your head in disbelief and mumbled "Wha?!" to yourselves. When searching for a studio I found it to be like searching for an apartment in this city... but worse. Cut throat, exorbitantly expensive and tiring. Long story short: if there is water and a stove available in the space, it would be zoned as residential and not commercial. So I don't have, and wouldn't ever be able to find, the means to dye protein fiber in this city. (There is a slop sink in the hall way at least, so I can still dye cellulose fibers. Yay!)
I have been taking Wednesdays to stay home and do errands, and often split my weekend at the studio. Wednesdays are also my dyeing days. A couple weeks ago I had the kind of day that really made it all worth it: I dyed to exhaustion. What I love about that word is that it not only describes how dyeing often leaves me after standing on my feet for hours on end, but the way I dye - only putting in enough dye to color the fiber to the shade I want thus leaving the dye pot exhausted. The water in the bath will become clear since the dye has been soaked up by the fiber and I feel better about not having to dump a whole bunch of unused dye down the sink and into the water system. Being made up of almost 60% water, I personally think highly of it and would rather not take this precious resource for granted.
Above is a warp I'm testing some resist knots on - it's essentially simple ikat. Below are pieces of felt getting ready to dye for e-readers I'll be sending off to Craftland soon. It doesn't look like much, but it resulted in 4 different dye pots! And of course waiting for water to boil on four different dye pots (and not all at the same time) required a lot of patience.... Stay tuned to see what came of it!
It's hard meeting people in New York, let alone making any sort of connection to them. Over the summer, for some odd reason, I was making a lot of online purchases for the apartment, business and myself. Our UPS guy was coming to the door at least 2 times a week. (I know, it seems ridiculous, apparently I was a good consumer this summer.) He is not one for chitchat, mostly because he has so many damn deliveries and he needs to be quick. But I would do my best to be nice and ask how his day is going as I signed my name. I don't know when it happened exactly, but he started calling me by my first name. And now, whenever I see him, whether it's at my door or outside while he unloads his truck, I make sure to wave and say hi. It's the little things, you know?
