dye studio progress

I got some really thrilling news this week! For next year's Puget Sound yarn shop tour, one of my yarn lines will be the featured yarn for Apple Yarns. It's going to be fantastic business exposure for me, and to say that I'm excited is a huge understatement.

I'm now in the process of looking for a one-skein pattern that will work with my yarn for the store to hand out. I'm talking with a few designers now, plus I also have a fingerless mitt pattern of my own that might possibly work. When I meet with the store owner, I'd like to offer her a few options to choose from. The rest may become kits, which is an idea I've been wanting to explore for a while.

All this makes converting the garage into a dye studio even more important. Last weekend, we put in a utility sink, which was probably the most labor intensive portion of the conversion. To make the pipes as short as possible, we hooked it up right next to the washer. I used it for the first time today, and noticed immediately that I'll need some sort of adjacent work surface to put dye bottles and such. I like the idea of a cabinet on casters that I can use for storing my bottles and jars of powdered dye.

I'm still working on getting a burner of some sort out there. I was all set to get a portable induction cooktop--I like its smooth heating surface, energy efficiency, quick heating, and the lack of open flame. But then I read that it only works on pots that magnets will stick to. I tested my dye pots, and a magnet will only stick to one. So it's either get new pots or look for something else.