Dyeing for yarn, part deux

Wet yarn is freaking heavy. And Claudia had 10 14-gallon pots going at once today.

We dyed 23 pots of assorted yarns (kid mohair, merino fingering, silk fingering, merino worsted) today. I can't remember how many hanks that came out to. A lot. I'm really excited that she's "letting" me help dye the yarn even though I'm brand new there.

The pots are very heavy, too. After all the hot (as in almost boiling hot) yarn is fished out and lugged across the room and hung up to drip on the floor till it cools, we have to dump the leftover water out (onto the floor; there's a wall-to-wall drain across the room), wash the pots with bleach, rinse them and painfully (at least for me) lift them back onto the burners, which are huge and thankfully only about 18" off the floor. Refill with water, dye, acid, and dish detergent, add yarn (the only slow part of the process, except for waiting two hours till the yarn is done), relight the burners, and go on to the next one.

This is heavy physical labor, something I'm not at all accustomed to. Either I'll end up in really good shape or in traction. I hurt all over.

I figured that, with my "employee's discount", I can make enough money to buy enough yarn for 5 pairs of socks a day. That same yarn in a yarn shop is $24 per pair. Or maybe I can finally buy linen or silk to make a nice top or sweater. I might actually be able to afford it now.

We're dyeing more yarn tomorrow. But only about 5 pots. She usually only dyes two days a week, but demand has gotten so high that she's having to go to three days a week, with maybe 15-20 pots a day. That's good for her, but my back is protesting. Until two weeks ago she was the only one who did the dyeing; then one of her very young employees started working in the dyeing room. This girl was in one of my study halls two years ago. Now she's tell me what to do.

I've got to go to bed. I don't know when I've been this tired, but it sure is a good tired.

P.S. Claudia said today that she hired me because I brought in the socks I was knitting with her yarn. Finally knitting has paid off!