I’m back from my trip to Albuquerque and Judith MacKenzie McCuin’s dye class. Unfortunately the camera was non-operative for the entire trip! So a picture-less report it will have to be.

Let me first say that Judith ROCKS!! I have never met anyone so thoroughly versed in the subject matter she is teaching. I went to this class as a novice dyer, and one who really didn’t have a good sense of color on top of that. I left with a much better sense of color and ways to develop my eye for color too. I learned about acid dyes and that red, yellow and blue are NOT PRIMARY COLORS FOR DYES. This concept totally blew my socks off. But it goes a long way to explaining my problem with mixing dye colors using red/yellow/blue colors and only getting muddy browns. Primary colors for dyeing are electric yellow, wild magenta and cyan.

With only those three colors we proceeded to dye a rainbow of colors. Each of the students was given a huge number of sample skeins and we were then let loose to dye each skein to a color “that spoke to us.” Much fun was had by all. Amazingly enough, all of us ended up with a range of colors that were complementary to each other. It was an excellent project.

The second day was all about natural dyes - indigo, lichens, cochineal bugs, etc. I had no experience whatsoever with these dyes and again I learned so much! I do wonder who ever thought up using the bugs in the first place though… will have to ask Judith next time.

So the class and the trip were absolute successes! I will sign up for a class by Judith at any opportunity that presents itself to me. She’s the best!

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