My next projects will be two more wedding shawls. One with the working title "Something Blue" and the other will be "Blushing Bride."

The loom is warped, the white shawl is done, and it's time to dye the yarn for the weft. My dye process starts with my computer - also a cup of tea.

My first exposure to the story of Noah and the flood was in first grade Sunday School. I don’t recall the exact details, but I’m fairly sure it included flannel animals going two by two into a flannel-graph ark. What I do remember clearly is the end of the story. The teacher told us how God put a rainbow in the sky as a promise that He would never again destroy the earth with a flood.

So, Moses is up on the mountain with God. He’s been there for forty days. This is when he gets the stone tablets with the ten commandments. But in addition, God gives Moses some very specific instructions on the construction of a place of worship - the Tabernacle.

This is where the story gets truly exciting - if you’re a weaver.

Once upon a time, not that long ago as the ages are reckoned, I was more than a little intimidated by color. Not being trained as an artist, I knew very little of color theory beyond "mix blue and yellow, get green." The concepts of value and hue, tints and shades, meant nothing to me.

When working with my technical dyes, I try to treat them with respect. I like the the consistency of the results, but I am well aware that they contain potentially dangerous chemicals and certain procedures need to be followed.

Did you ever pick out paint, and the color looked great on that little swatch card in the hardware store, but when you put it on a whole wall it was all too much "more"? That same thing happens with yarn.

This morning I mixed up the dye solutions for the projects I'll be working on this week. With the solutions already mixed, dyeing the yarn will be much simpler…

Taking breaks from weaving the white stole, I’ve been dyeing the yarn for the red and purple stoles. I admit it, I am no great shakes as a dyer. In fact the red warp started out as a failed dye experiment.