A few weeks ago, I took a hand dyeing class at Mind’s Eye Yarns in Porter Square. Hand dyeing yarn, besides completely awesome, is… involved. At least with washfast acid dyes it is. I’m not really familiar with kool-aid dyeing or jacquered dyes.

They’re dyes so you have to wear gloves, cover every surface that you don’t want Pollocked in newsprint and plastic wrap. They’re toxic so you need to wear a dust mask and have a whole set of different dyeing accoutrement (pots, kettle, tongs, steaming trays) that can’t get mixed up with regular kitchen stuff that you want to eat out of without killing major brain cells.

This hasn’t stopped me from thinking about it obsessively and setting up my own hand dyeing studio in my mind. I took the first step last week by placing an order with Pro Chem & Dye. In addition to the Winter Holiday 6 Dye Sampler (which comes with citric acid crystals and small bottle of Synthrapol), I also ordered a swatch of all the Washfast acid dyes they carry to help get me thinking about color stories for yarn once I get all of the necessary dye stuff together.

I’m a crafty working broad on the move which, unfortunately, results in a purse that looks like this. I reach in for a pen and pull out a DPN instead. I try to pay for a coffee and get tangled up in excess yarn. I pull out my datebook and forty crumpled print-outs of project instructions flutter out along with it.

So when I asked Jen, of the sewing team Piddleloop, to whip up a project bag for the birthday of one of my besties, I also ended up getting one for myself. I can’t wait for them to show up in the mail. The first is for my friend and the second is for myself.