Moving

I hope you are all having a great Memorial Day weekend. Anyone traveling? Having cookouts? That sure sounds fun. Instead of doing any of that, I am moving. And because my studio is in my home that means I have to move my entire studio, too! So this weekend I packed up as much as I could into my car and hit the road. Here is a picture of the car full of equipment. I forgot to take pictures of the car full of yarn-- it looked like it was going to explode with white fluff. Two car loads later I found myself staring at an apartment bathroom and bedroom and wondering how to turn it into a dyeing studio.

Let me backtrack for a minute. A year ago my fiance started medical school at the University of Chapel Hill, in Chapel Hill, NC. Previously we had both been living in Winston-Salem where we had gone to undergraduate school at Wake Forest and where I had started The Unique Sheep. I had a beautiful, large, messy studio in Winston that was perfect for all of my dyeing needs except that it was an hour and a half away from my fiance. I stayed in Winston for a year as I finished up some graduate school classes in business and entrepreneurship, but that year ended a few weeks ago. I missed seeing my boy more than a few times a month, plus soon we will be married, so the move is a good thing. But who likes moving? I mean the actual process. Yuck! And leaving my studio where everything was just the way I liked it was tough. But our apartment in Chapel Hill is a 2bed/2bath, meaning that we have an 'extra' bedroom and bathroom to set the studio up in.

Some of my stuff is still in Winston waiting to be moved, but its mainly just big storage boxes full of yarn. Here is what I have in the new studio so far:

In the bathroom I have my steam trays (where I do all the handpainting and initial heatsetting) set up on the counter, the dyes on an above-the-toilet shelf, the microwave on the toilet seat and all my soaking buckets in the bathtub. Ignore the shampoo bottles and bath towels-the bathtub will definitely not be used for bathing anymore! I haven't tried dyeing in here yet but I think it should work out ok. I covered everything in waterproof fabric so hopefully I wont stain the floor or counters. Now I just need to figure out where to put my speakers so I can listen to podcasts while I dye...

In the bedroom I have all the storage, packing supplies and equipment for winding. There is a lot of winding involved in hand dyeing yarn. The yarn arrives on big cones, so we have to preskein it into skeins in order to dye it. Then after its dyed it often looks kind of messy from being squished around, draped over a rope to dry and handled so much, so it has to be reskeined. All this winding takes longer than the actual dyeing, so I'll be spending a lot of time in this room. Once I get everything organized there should be plenty of room, right now its just a mess because I'm still trying to find places for everything. The best part about this room is its WALK IN CLOSET where I can store all of the undyed yarn. Just look at that. Is that a beautiful sight or what?

Now I just need to get the rest of my storage bins, desk and organizational "stuff", and my favorite rolly chair to sit in while I wind, and I'll be in business!!