Hi everyone and happy Friday! If you're looking for the FO Friday post, please scroll down as it was posted earlier.
This will be my last My Week post, but I will be continuing the Life as an Indie Dyer series once a week, instead of daily. Please be sure to check out the upcoming posts in the future. :)
Friday: Fridays vary SO much, depending on how much I got done the rest of the week, if I plan to work on the weekend and if there are a ton of orders that need to be sent. I only go to the post office Monday-Friday, so if I have outstanding orders that are already dyed, I do try and get them out before the end of Friday.
Last Friday I dyed a bunch (I can't remember the exact number to be honest), but didn't re-skein any at my house because I knew I had to rest my arm for later that evening. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, my knitting group and I were going to have a re-skeining party. This is the second one we've done in the past few weeks, as I'm normally working all by myself, but with the amount being dyed right now, I don't have time to re-skein them all myself. My amazing group offered to help me and how could I turn them down!
The last time we re-skeined, we got a bit done, but this time we needed to make a MUCH bigger dent to the box of skeins that were just waiting for us. Instead of meeting at 6 and working until 11:45 pm (serious dedication, right?), we decided to meet around 4. Before going over to my friend Robin's house, I had to run errands (I couldn't show up without a dessert and flowers!), go to the post office (again!) and get gas in the car.
I got to Robin's house around 4:30. We sat and talked until about 5, when Christi got there. Then we set up and got to work! Christi and I were re-skeining while Robin hanked and tagged each skein. Then later in the evening Miki and Rebecca showed up (with dinner..YAY!) and we took a break to eat. After dinner, we split off into teams of two, where one of us would get one skein ready while the other would re-wind the ones on the swifts, and finally Robin would then hank and tag them. It worked brilliantly and before we knew it, we had re-skeined 45! Amazing, right? We ended the night around 11pm, so a little earlier than last time but not much! I got home around 11:30, leaving everything in the car to be unpacked the next day as I was exhausted.
As for Saturday and Sunday, I had planned to work, but unfortunately, I hurt my back on Saturday afternoon. I was out of commission for the weekend, spending most of the time on the couch with a heating pad, book and my knitting. Despite my back, I was back at it this week, hitting the dye pots hard (I dyed everything left in the house by Wednesday and just waited for my next shipment to come Thursday afternoon!), and re-skeined a TON. As I write this Thursday evening, I only have about 45 skeins left to re-skein that are dyed, not counting the 60 skeins that need to be dyed, dried and re-skeined next week! It never ends!
I wanted to thank everyone for the super kind comments here, on Twitter and the Candy Skein Ravelry group about these posts. I can't wait to start the series weekly for you. :)
Really enjoyed this series Tami. I've always wanted to know how a dyeing business works, so thank you for the wonderful insight.
ReplyDeleteAnd lets hope you get these 45 skeins done and dusted, maybe then you can have a day off? x
Thank you and you're very welcome!
DeleteThank you so much for this series! I was half-joking when I said I thought your job involved alchemy, but now I'd like to add bending time and space to that! My partner keeps hinting that she thinks dyeing might be a fun side business for the house-- I'm pointing her in the direction of your posts so she'll understand the magnitude of the undertaking :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, thank you for the link to the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival-- I didn't know about this one, and now I'm contemplating a road trip!
Thank you for your kind words! I'm so glad it's helping you get a little insight into the business, or at least how things go for me. I work alone, so it's a lot of work for one (and probably even two) people.
DeleteI do hope that you can come to the fiber festival! If you do, please stop by and introduce yourself. The Candy Skein booth will be in Marketplace 2.