Saturday
Sep062008
The Yarnista Answers Your Questions. Edition Six.
Saturday, September 6, 2008 at 2:17PM
We haven't answered any questions in a while, so the time has come.
Mary asks,
If you care for a longer answer, keep reading.
Bonus points for you, Mary. Good question. How many skeins I dye in a day is very very variable. Do I have childcare? Do I have adequate supplies of caffeine? What are the snacks like? Is the music upbeat? How much sleep have I had? All of these things matter.
Childcare = if my husband is home, I can get a lot more done. If I have to keep an eye on babies/referee fights/change diapers/keep fingers out of light sockets, it slows things down considerably.
Caffeine = don't even talk to me unless I've had at least 1-1/2 cups of coffee. And then make me a glass of iced tea while you're at it.
Snacks = gotta keep the energy up. And carrot sticks are not my thing.
Music = slow music is too restful. Athletes do not train to ballads. My goal is to become the Michael Phelps of yarn dyeing. I've been known to listen to songs that I don't even like that much in an effort to keep my energy up. I have entire yarn dyeing play lists on my iPod. I am sick of my yarn dyeing playlists at the present, actually. There's only so many times you can listen to the song "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" before you want to hurl. Anyone got any ideas?
Sleep = nine hours is ideal. Six is workable. Four is hard.
Part of what takes time is the colorway set up. It's complicated, but each colorway requires a whole variety of steps, including cleaning your equipment between colorways. If I have to crank out a whole bunch of the same colorway, that takes less time than doing two skeins of this, and one skein of that, and three skeins of this, and four skeins of that and two of this and one of that and five of this and three of that and on and on.
Sometimes you can't dye the same colorway on different yarn bases. They have to be done separately. That adds time. If everything is on the same base, I can go faster.
So, Mary, the answer to your question is: twelve.
And sometimes the answer is: 60. Sixty is a hard day. But it's been done before. And when I want to stop for the day, I can ask myself, "Would Michael stop now? Would Michael power through one more rotation of this playlist?" He is, after all, pretty fly for a white guy.
Mary asks,
How many skeins do you dye a day?
And the answer is:
If you care for a longer answer, keep reading.
Bonus points for you, Mary. Good question. How many skeins I dye in a day is very very variable. Do I have childcare? Do I have adequate supplies of caffeine? What are the snacks like? Is the music upbeat? How much sleep have I had? All of these things matter.
Childcare = if my husband is home, I can get a lot more done. If I have to keep an eye on babies/referee fights/change diapers/keep fingers out of light sockets, it slows things down considerably.
Caffeine = don't even talk to me unless I've had at least 1-1/2 cups of coffee. And then make me a glass of iced tea while you're at it.
Snacks = gotta keep the energy up. And carrot sticks are not my thing.
Music = slow music is too restful. Athletes do not train to ballads. My goal is to become the Michael Phelps of yarn dyeing. I've been known to listen to songs that I don't even like that much in an effort to keep my energy up. I have entire yarn dyeing play lists on my iPod. I am sick of my yarn dyeing playlists at the present, actually. There's only so many times you can listen to the song "Pretty Fly for a White Guy" before you want to hurl. Anyone got any ideas?
Sleep = nine hours is ideal. Six is workable. Four is hard.
Part of what takes time is the colorway set up. It's complicated, but each colorway requires a whole variety of steps, including cleaning your equipment between colorways. If I have to crank out a whole bunch of the same colorway, that takes less time than doing two skeins of this, and one skein of that, and three skeins of this, and four skeins of that and two of this and one of that and five of this and three of that and on and on.
Sometimes you can't dye the same colorway on different yarn bases. They have to be done separately. That adds time. If everything is on the same base, I can go faster.
So, Mary, the answer to your question is: twelve.
And sometimes the answer is: 60. Sixty is a hard day. But it's been done before. And when I want to stop for the day, I can ask myself, "Would Michael stop now? Would Michael power through one more rotation of this playlist?" He is, after all, pretty fly for a white guy.
Reader Comments (7)
If you would live closer than 1000 miles away, then Grandma could help with keeping those little mouths fed and those fingers out of light sockets. :)
And she would probably have you listening to different music while you work - The Lonely Goatherd, The Lawrence Welk Theme, and possibly Rosemary Clooney tunes might up your productivity.
Music comment suggestion:
Play fast classical - its helping me increase my knitting speed, so maybe the concept will work for yarn dying to. I try to knit the stitches to the beat. I'm not there yet, but its helping. Contemporary music would be too distracting because I would be singing along rather than concentrating. . .
I have to say, this post brightened my day. You are very witty, and I love your sense of humor!
As for music, I'm not much help....I'm an 80's girl and that's what I listen to while I drive/clean/knit/pretty much anytime. Definitely get you an 80's hair band playlist....upbeat and most everyone knows the words.
hey! thanks for answering my question!
You're going to think this is weird, but I think you'd get a LOT of yarn done if you'd listen to Queen's Greatest Hits. I mean, 'Another one Bites The Dust'? 'We Will Rock You'? 'Fat Bottomed Girls'? It doesn't get any more motivational than that.
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