Ready to Dye!

After 25 years I finally have a made-to-order dye kitchen. I started out this dye thing in our kitchen while the boys were at school. I would make a mess coloring yarn and spend an hour scrubbing everything down with bleach and Comet.

But then we patched together a dye space in a corner of our basement. We recycled kitchen cabinets from our local fire department who were updating their kitchen. I got an old stove from someone who was getting rid of it, bought two hot plates and called it my 'lab'.  

The before pics look like a crime scene! 

Gutting the old kitchen

Alberto and Gerardo are two of the nicest guys you'd ever want to hire. They worked for us while we were away this summer and just did an amazing job on everything. In this project I worked side by side with them so I was sure get it just the way I wanted.

Making progress!

These counters and tables are the bees knees! I had them make two large tables, each measuring 4 1/2 feet by 4 feet, put on locking casters so I can move them around easily for felting. 

I can now make a huge felted garment.

Moved in and ready to go.

Crafters….just look at that jewel of a surface!!! 

Nine feet of emptiness to fill up with your craft of choice. 

I made four nuno felt shawls yesterday as it was so easy to spread out and everything was at hand. 

Before my dyes were mixed in a variety of jars and containers. I bought 16 of these plastic gallon jars and 16 1/2 gallon jars. What a difference! Can't believe it took me this long to do this.

There's a large shelf under the rolling tables for all my fiber that I dye.

Bins from Target

First dye job

Loving how easy it is to move the very heavy, very hot yarn to the washing machine for its spin cycle.

All my dyes are within easy access.

And look at all those lights! Too many lights is just enough.

Now I just need to get to all this yarn. It's not going to dye itself!