Heat Advisory

We have very few company policies.  The most important one during the summer is "Never have a dye day when there is a heat advisory."  Of course, we came to this decision after spending a day in the dye shed under a heat advisory and barely making it out alive. Fortunately, neither of us had heat stroke or even a certified case of heat exhaustion but we were well and truly exhausted.  Dyeing is hot work at best but when it's really hot it is just not much fun at all.

With this in mind I have NOT been out in the dye shed this weekend.  It was 99 degrees on Friday, 99 on Saturday and it's supposed to hit 101 today.  I'm not aware of what the official temperature is for today but suffice it to say... It's HOT!

I have just finished warping up a loom with hemp for a run of face cloths.  Unlike linen which comes in many weights and many colors, hemp comes in few weights and few colors.  I have warped the loom with stripes of bleached hemp and natural hemp.  This seems to be a happy place for me since my Louet loom is warped with exactly the same colors of linen for bath towels.

I have wound off several skeins of the hemp yarn with the intention of dyeing it.  I have three mud dyes which should work really well on the white hemp.  The natural hemp I'll dye with indigo.  All those colors will look great in the face cloths and will work well together.

But I'm not in the dye shed today.  I'll start weaving the hemp with what I have - white and natural, black and purple - and get the other colors when it cools down a bit.