Dyer Interview: Tricia Hunt of Spinning Wheel Studio

I met Tricia Hunt of Spinning Wheel Studio last September at Maker Faire NYC, where I had a booth at the BUST Craftacular. Meeting Tricia was the very best thing that happened to me that day! She gave me terrific tips on marketing my Etsy shop, and she was so friendly and encouraging, and it was just great for me to make friends with another indie dyer. (It's easy to feel alone when one is all by oneself in a basement studio space, not knowing a single other dyer.) So I was thrilled when Tricia agreed to be interviewed for Baba's Fiber Dyeing Workshop!

What made you want to start dyeing yarn/fiber?
First, to be honest, I was spending an awful lot of money on other indie dyers' hand dyed/ painted fibers and, although I LOVE supporting other people like me, I also kept thinking that I could be getting a lot more "bang for my buck" if I dyed my own. I still see fibers dyed by other folks that I just "must have" so I still do support indie dyers, but I have to say that dyeing for myself has been a huge boost to my business.

Second, there is such creative possibility in dyeing. I could describe a colorway I have in mind to another dyer, but there's NOTHING like doing it yourself, getting exactly what you have in mind. There's also nothing like just letting yourself go - a little of this, a little of that. I love being creative in my dyeing, picturing the different yarns that could result from this or that wool. I love that I can plan exactly what I want or I can wing it and see what I get!

"Autumn Winds" - 4 1/4 oz hand dyed BFL wool top,
roving fiber for spinning and felting

Do you have a favorite book or learning resource? Are you a member of any guilds or groups in your area that you learn from?
I'm not a member of any guilds or groups. I'm busy at home homeschooling two teenagers (and in the car driving them hither and yon!). I do imagine a day when my circumstances will change and look forward to becoming part of a fiber community at that point!!

But, books - YES! I have a growing library of books and magazines. Spin Off magazine is really fun. I pore over it and make a list of websites to check out. I get ideas for colorways, fibers, new sources for wool/dye/etc. Such an inspiration! I also love the book Color In Spinning by Deb Menz. She covers using a hackle, a drum carder, dyeing... you name it. Great illustrations, too. I think my favorite book is The Twisted Sisters Sock Book. The author, Lynn Vogel, is one of my Facebook friends which gives me some serious warm fuzzies! :) I love her photos and ideas. Her book, more than any of the others on my shelves, inspired me to dye for myself. I would love to meet and learn from her some day!

How would you describe your method - hand painted? Kettle dyed? Jackson Pollack? :) How has it changed since you started dyeing?
I have evolved into two main ways of dyeing, which I'll describe below. Both result in space dyed combed top. I tend to like really saturated colors, but not overly wild combinations. I use what I know about the color wheel to make what I think will be pleasing colorways. I am also always noticing new 'colorways' in the world around me - the sunset, the woods, my daughter's dance class, a a snow storm... you name it - then 'copying' them in fiber. I THINK in colorways! I imagine most of us dyers do!

If you hand-paint it, how do you apply heat to your product - microwave? steam bath? How many pots do you have? Anything else about your setup that you think is interesting and don't mind sharing with other dyers?
I dye in crockpots. I have three of them devoted to dyes. They are in a little row on TV trays on an extension cord. Although I do experiment and try different things, I generally dye one of two ways.

ONE: The easiest, neatest, most easily repeatable way that I dye is sort of a combination of kettle dyeing and dip dyeing: First I soak a length of 4-6 ounces of fiber in room temperature water for a bit (at least ten or fifteen minutes, sometimes as long as overnight). I put a little water in the bottom of the crock pot and place four wide mouth pint size canning jars in the crock pot. In each of the jars I squirt a little dye from dye stock which I keep mixed up (I have quite an assortment - more on this below). Sometimes I measure in ml using syringes, other times I just eyeball, depending on what I'm going for (something one of a kind, an exact replica of a previous colorway, something that will match something else, etc). I put a glug of white vinegar in each of the canning jars w/ the dye stock, then pour room temperature water into the canning jars to about 2/3rds full. So, I have four jars with dye/vinegar/water in a little square in the crock pot - they fit just right. Then I wring most of the water out of a piece of soaking fiber and place one end of it in one of the canning jars, mushing it down with a plastic spoon. I decide how much of each color I want along the space dyed fiber and, accordingly, place fiber from one jar to another around the crock pot. If I want white in the final roving I wring the water out extra well and leave white fiber sticking out between jars (propped up by the edge of the jars).

If I want the colors to blend together I add extra water to the jars once the fiber is distributed between them and 'moosh' a little extra. Sometimes I will use small amounts of accent colors squirted on white fiber propped up above the tops of the jars. I then mist the whole thing with white vinegar in a spray bottle and turn the crock pot on low for 2 to 3 hours. Once the water runs clear and the crock pot has become very steamy, I turn it off, uncover and let it cool before rinsing it well and hanging on a drying rack to dry. This is a very NEAT way to dye. I do wear rubber gloves and an apron, but very rarely do I come in any serious contact with the dye stock/dye. It is also a very easy way to do predictable, repeatable colorways.

"It Matters" - Handspun yarn, 272 yards worsted weight,
hand dyed superwash corriedale wool top

TWO: The other way I tend to dye is a la The Twisted Sister Sock Book. I use Lynn Vogel's 'cold pour' method. I rarely keep a record of how I dye fibers in this way... I just consider these fibers 'one of a kind' and let myself go nuts and have fun. For this method I soak the fibers in water with white vinegar for a couple of hours. Then I spread a couple pieces of saran wrap out on a folding table, wring out the fiber pretty well (again, 4-6 oz at a time) and snake it back and forth along the saran wrap. Then I make little plastic cups with a bit of dye stock, a glug of white vinegar and a glug of water. Then I just pour either straight from the plastic cups or from a plastic spoon into whatever pattern the spirit moves me to create. With plastic gloves on, I smoosh the fiber around after each color is poured to be sure the fiber is quite saturated with color, then mop up with a rag so there's no excess water/dye on the saran wrap.

I do this down the length of the fiber, spray the whole thing with white vinegar, then fold in the ends of the saran wrap, roll it up the long way and wrap the whole thing up like a snail. This saran wrapped snail goes into the crock pot on a steaming rack with about half an inch of water underneath. Again, it steams for a couple hours, then cools and gets well rinsed before heading to the drying rack. I love how these come out, but the process is more time consuming and messy by far than the 'four canning jar' method!

Do you use acid dyes, "natural" dyestuffs, or for that matter Kool-Aid? How did you decide what you wanted to use?
I use Jacquard dyes. They are protein dyes (which works for me because I mostly work with wool and wool blends) and the only acid they require is white vinegar. Kool-Aid -- Yes, I've played around with it with my kids, but when folks tell me they are thinking of starting with Kool-Aid because 'acid dyes' make them nervous, I tell them to skip the Kool-Aid (unpredictable results, expensive, few colors, weird sticky smell and nasty powder in the air/lungs) and use Wilton gels (like folks use to color cake frosting). Wilton gels come in tons of colors and you can get pretty reliable dyeing results using them with white vinegar in the same ways I describe above). HOWEVER, these dyes will 'break'. Some of the Wilton dyes are made from other colors - black, for instance, will become black with purple and pink edges... If you don't have something specific in mind, though, or if you experiment and figure out the breaks, you can have a lot of fun with Wilton cake dyes without having to deal with 'professional' dyes. A fun way to get your feet wet.

That said... I LOVE the Jacquard dyes. I currently have 33 Jacquard dye stocks mixed up in my studio. That means an absolutely ENDLESS number of possible colors as they are wonderful to mix to create new colors. They are a little intimidating to mix up, but once you've done it, you've got a jug of dye stock that will last for ages! I mix my dye stocks over a bathtub wearing a face mask, gloves and an apron and have never had a problem. I mix one little tub of Jacquard powder to 32 oz of hot water in plastic GatorAde bottles. All my dyeing liquid is made from these stocks.

So that I can reproduce colorways I have a recipe file box. Each colorway that is reproducible (not one of a kind) has a card with the colorway's name, the method used for making it and then the actual recipe (i.e. 'four jar method'; jar 1: 20 ml spruce with 5 ml gold ochre, etc.). When I think of it, I wrap a piece of yarn made in that colorway around the recipe card and label the type of fiber used for that particular yarn.

Do you buy your fiber/yarn from local farms or online? What fibers do you like working with the best?
BOTH! We live near Canterbury Shaker Village which has a 'wool day' each spring. We also live less than an hour from the grounds of the NH Sheep and Wool Festival which takes place Mother's Day weekend each year. GREAT sources of local fibers at good prices! I love putting a face/farm with a fiber when I work with it! I also order online from both online fiber shops and from indie sellers on Etsy. Beyond buying wool, wool also just 'finds' me... I grew up raising sheep and, although I no longer have sheep myself, my brother's family does. And from my former 'sheep girl days', I know lots of 'sheep people' and it's amazing how many people have bags of wool in their barn that are looking for a happy home.

My very favorite fiber for both spinning and dyeing is Blue Faced Leicester. I don't know anyone w/ BFL sheep, so I tend to buy my BFL from The Spunky Eclectic in Maine. LOVE IT! It takes dye beautifully and is very soft, fluffy and crimpy. Makes a gorgeous 2 ply yarn, which is my favorite thing to spin. :)

Where do you work? Do you have a special studio or do you use the kitchen?

I'm SO lucky. We have a finished basement, half of which is carpeted with a futon/tv/etc for the family. The other half is laminate flooring and is MINE, all mine! A nice big studio work space with windows and everything! I have a wall of shelves to hold all my fibers - dyed and to-be dyed, an area for drying racks (and a big fan for humid days), a table for winding, carding, etc., a big bulletin board for posting new ideas and color samples, and an area for packing, photographing and running my business. It is heaven! Sometimes I just stand and look at it... so colorful and such a dream come true! There's a full bathroom just off the studio which I use for dyeing. The sink and bathtub will never be the same. :) In the bathroom there are TV trays w/ my crock pots on them, a set of shelves with all the dye stocks, a cupboard with rubber gloves, rags, saran wrap, plastic cups, syringes, white vinegar... all the necessities. A small hallway connecting the studio to the bathroom is just the right amount of space for a folding table where I paint fibers (using the second method described above). At first I did that in the bathtub, but it is no fun at all to lean over a bathtub for any length of time! There are some photos of my studio - I think - on my Facebook page.

What part of dyeing is the most satisfying to you?
The creativity of it! It really makes you look at the world in a different way. There are colorways everywhere!

What part of dyeing freaks you out a little or irritates you, and why?

The mess. Really... my bathroom will never be the same. I am very fortunate to have an extra bathroom I could destroy. :)

The smell. My studio (and therefore my family's tv room) smells like hot wool soaked in vinegar. :)

And that there is not enough time in a day. So many possible colorways... so little time... so much to do that does NOT involve fiber... :)

And lastly ... if you could read (or hear) an interview with another dyer, who would it be?
Definitely would like to hear more from Lynn Vogel. She is amazing to me. I love the colors she chooses. She's teaching a class at Harrisville Designs in NH in August that I would LOVE to take - all about color/dyeing for spinning. If I can save enough money before it fills I'm going to take it, but I really doubt that will happen. I don't have anything in particular I'd ask her, I just have a feeling she is something special when it comes to dyeing and would be quite an inspiration!

* * * * *
Thank you again, Tricia, for taking the time to answer my questions and clearly devoting so much thought to your answers. I'm so glad you are in my crafting circle of friends!

Please don't miss Spinning Wheel Studio on Etsy (also check out Spinning Wheel Studio's Facebook page)!

Dyeing yarn vs dyeing unspun fiber

I recently found my way to Becoming Art's colorways page via a designer whose blog I occasionally peruse. I found myself charmed and engaged by the page of colorways, mostly sampled in yarns. The color blocks shown on the page of her hand dyed colorways were mostly solids, mostly saturated and mostly all of a close range of variation in a band of color - for example, a whole slew of variations on a theme of warm, orangish browns, or cool greenish blues. Which I liked.

When I clicked through to the Fibers page, I was a bit disappointed. The spinning fibers were mostly heterogeneously painted, with wide swings in a single braid among a bunch of disparate colors, kind of disunited blobs of hues, some warm, some cold. I was expecting the same array of dyed options, but the two sets were wildly different in style. It was like Helen Frankenthaler did the yarns and Jackson Pollock did the fiber bumps. I didn't get it. Why would somebody want to do the latter when they can do the former so prettily?

I don't want to give a negative review of Becoming Art - based on the colorways page I have to say I love the hues displayed. I just was moved to comment on the trend that this brings to mind.

I know this is definitely not true of all dyers, but I do get the impression some think they should use color differently on yarn vs unspun fiber. It's possible the slight difference in the medium might result in a difference in how the artist puts color onto it. But I suspect many dyers feel like they are supposed to use a whole bunch of different colors in the same bump when working with unspun fiber. I see this a lot on Etsy. I think there are very few artists who can pull this off (Pigeonroof Studios being one of the rare artisans capable of it).

While I'm on this topic I'll just say, I think the best way of perusing a dyer's wares would be for them to have a colorway page (a la Becoming Art's) except in all the same fiber or all the same yarn. Then, they should have a fibers or yarns page with all the different options shown, each dyed some neutral but not too light hue to best show the texture and hand of the fiber and spin. Finally, you could simply order whatever fiber or yarn in whatever colorway, or even get different fibers and yarns all in the same colorway! I think if I ever came across a dyer's site organized like that, I'd never stop talking about it.

Once I get some colors I want to stick with and make repeatable, I'll do it myself.

* * * * *
Per my musings last time, I did go ahead and mix up four bottles of concentrated liquid dye, using the new colors I received from Dharma. They are much nicer red and blue, but I'm not so convinced about the brown - it's too cold (and the other is too warm).

It's so scary to mix up concentrate! When I use a little dry dye in the pot, I don't feel like I need to worry about it too much - I just measure it out and put it in and that's that. But it's super quick & dirty. But when mixing concentrate, I feel like I do need to observe all the safety rules: I put a mask over my nose & mouth, I wear gloves, and I wear an apron. My hands don't shake, but I do feel nervous and uptight. It's not like working with hydrochloric acid or anything, but it feels intense. Especially the notion that exposure is cumulative, meaning a little at a time adds up to it eventually having an effect on one. (In fact ... I probably shouldn't be lax about safety even when just measuring out tiny amounts into the pot.) But I did it, and I now have concentrate that I can for a while now. Let's see how long it lasts me.

Anyway, I already used the red and the yellow to augment a pot of pink and really liked the effect, which was like peonies. Very pretty!

I'll post a shot of it once my camera battery recharges ... grrr.
 

Some issues with methodology

When I was making sculpture I had a method for getting the effects I wanted, but I was working with oil paint on plaster. TOTALLY DIFFERENT than working with dye on fiber. So now I am trying different things, but so far I don't feel anything like a comfort level and I don't feel like I can get the effects I am envisioning. I have a picture in my head and I just can't get the fiber to come out like my mental picture.

I don't know if I have a setup that is conducive to really Getting Things Done in the dyeing department. I have:
* one large pot
* a really good hot plate (I read all the reviews on Amazon on a whole bunch of them until I found the one about which people had only positive things to say)
* a large folding table, covered with a clear plastic shower curtain
* five colors of Jacquard acid dyes, in cherry red, brilliant blue, sun yellow, chestnut brown, and black. Recently I decided I don't like this red and brown so I ordered crimson and regular brown, and sapphire blue as well to shake things up. Sun yellow seems to be the only primary-ish yellow they have in Jacquard. I don't know whether it's a good idea to mix dyes from different manufacturers, and I'm guessing not, so I'm going to stick with these for the time being
* beakers and squeeze bottles and sponge paint brushes and little eye droppers (none of which I currently use)
* a scale calibrated in grams and ounces. It doesn't measure the tiny quantities I'd prefer to measure, and it turns out that the scales I have used in organic chemistry lab, which are calibrated to much smaller measures, cost A LOT MORE.

When I mix colors, I currently measure out dry dye and mix it in hot water. Lately I have been using tiny amounts of dry dye in a pot of hot water on the hot plate. I began with acid dyes from the start (rather than, say, Kool-Aid) because I wanted deep intense colors, but lately I've been going for pastels. (Of course, when I say pastels, I mean washed out hues, but not baby blue and pink and Easter lavender and yellow and green.)

One thing I've heard from several dyers is they mix a bunch of dry dye into big jars of concentrate, which they then use to mix the colors. One of the members of my spinning guild told me to do it this way, so I went home and mixed up a jar of each of the dye colors I have ... and then I didn't dye anything for over a year, because I was so intimidated by the jars! By the end of that time, by the time I worked my nerve back up to venture into the studio, the dye had gone moldy in one of the containers, and solidified in the bottom of two others. I was able to use up the other two, but it was a failed experiment. So I decided to go back to my tried and true method.

Lately I've been feeling like I should try again with the liquid concentrate, but maybe I'll use a much less saturated concentrate than I did last time. Since the guideline I've been going by for saturated colors is to use a teaspoon of dye for a pound of fiber, and since I only dye 8 oz of fiber at a time, I try to keep the total amount of dye I use to a half-teaspoon per batch. I was thinking lately that I could try dissolving a teaspoon of dye in 32 oz of water (one for each color) and then use those concentrates to mix colors with. So if I want an unsaturated pale green, for example, I could mix a half-cup (4 oz, or 1/8 teaspoon of dye) of yellow and a half-cup of blue (and then mix in a little red or a little black to make it less of a pure color, as is my wont).

This would also allow me to begin to create reproducible dye recipes. So far I have just been eyeballing, and my record keeping is terrible anyway, but even if I kept meticulous records I would never be able to reproduce a previous color. And ultimately it would be desirable, I think, to be able to have a set of recipes for colors that I can make again and again.
 

How I came to fiber dyeing

As I've described, I studied art in college and then kept trying to work as a "fine artist" after I graduated. I wasn't dedicated enough, and I was too easily discouraged, and I was busy being self-destructive for most of that time as well, and eventually I just stopped making art. But then I got obsessed with knitting. I knitted a million sweaters and hats and coats and things, many of my own design, and it sort of scratched the art-making itch, and sort of didn't. For one thing, it felt kind of like it didn't really cut it as an artistic outlet.

And then we went to Rhinebeck, my boyfriend and I. Now we are married and he feels no need to join me on my fiber expeditions, but at the time he was courting me and he drove me up to the fiber fair and walked all around the grounds with me. As we ate fried pickles and funnel cakes we strolled around the stalls until we came to a woman who was spinning yarn. This was my first time ever seeing a woman spin yarn; Adam was actually accustomed to it as he'd previously dated a girl whose mother used to spin (and weave as well), and he was fond of watching someone spin. So we stopped and talked with her, and she showed me how she was doing it, and we were completely and utterly transfixed.

Eventually we walked on, and Adam said to me, "I'm going to have to buy you a spinning wheel for Christmas, aren't I?" I honestly had never considered trying to spin before that. My friend Debbie had let me try out a spindle quite a few years before, and I had failed at it and hated it and handed it back to her disgustedly after less than a minute of trying. But this, the wheel, it looked friendly, and accessible, and I thought, I could maybe do that! And with some encouragement from Adam over the next couple months, I accepted the extraordinarily generous gift of a Louet S75 from him for Christmas.

Here's the video my husband took of me learning to spin.

As soon as I got the hang of it (which was surprisingly quickly, especially considering the spindle debacle) I started buying spinning fiber. And buying it, and buying it, and buying it. And I read blogs about spinning. And pretty quickly I discovered the gorgeous hand painted bumps from wonderful sellers on Etsy. One of my early favorites was Sock Pron, whose author had a feature on Fridays about various amazing finds she'd made on Etsy, and she pointed readers to several amazing fiber dyers. And the more I looked at them, the more the ones I really found myself drawn to reminded me of the painterly effects I was fond of making when I was making sculpture. And gradually I began to think maybe I could make art this way too!

I'm definitely not at the point where I feel like I have any facility with the medium. It's frustrating to me, quite a lot. Downstairs in my basement studio I have a picture of some lovely roving that one of my favorite dyers had for sale online; I saved the image and printed it out as an inspiration. More than once I have tried to imitate this roving, and have completely failed. In the process I've discovered ways I like to work, and the fact that overdyeing with brown will save a vomitous mass quite nicely. I wonder if I will ever feel like I really know what I am doing.