My Latest Obsession
I mentioned yesterday I would post about my lastest obsession on here. As I already said in an earlier post, the knitting bug bit me again several weeks back. Well, it wasn’t just the knitting bug that bit. I also started feeling the urge to try dyeing my own yarn again. I toyed with just that about a year or so ago but never really got too far with it. I went the kool-aid route and had some fairly decent results and then I left it alone. For some reason though I got the urge to try it again. This time around I used food coloring. Wilton icing paste to be exact. I did some kettle dyeing and some in the dip dye method using the food coloring. I was pretty happy with the results. And that is what led me to where I am at now.
I’ve always wanted to try dyeing yarn with plant material. Herbs in particular. But I’ve always been rather intimidated by it for some reason or another. This month something clicked and I decided to just go for it (kinda like starting this blog!). I’ve had this book called Wild Color by Jenny Dean for a while now and would eye it and think “some day” but never really tried it out until now! I decided to start with some pretty simple and inexpensive yarn so if the results were awful I wouldn’t be too sad. So, for my first attempts I have used Patons Classic Wool. My first skein was dyed using an herb called yellow dock. (It is actually an herb even though some may consider it a weed). It didn’t turn out exactly as I had envisioned but I am still very pleased with the results. It is quite a long process using plant material as dye. To dye the first skein took me two days. I was so impressed with the results though that I immediatley got started on my next two skeins. My second skein was dyed with tansy. It produced a really nice bronzy-gold color. My last (but it will certainly not be my least!) skein that I dyed this month was dyed with an herb called comfrey. That one got me really excited because it came out of my garden. It produced a nice soft sage green color. So, I’m on a roll now and I can not wait to get my next bit of yarn dyed. I’m thinking of using acorns or blackberry leaves and canes next. Or maybe even some cherry bark. I plan on knitting the 3 skeins I just dyed into a hat for my hubby.
This has just got me so excited because I can combine 3 of my passions into one. Gardening, herbs, and knitting. To me, it doesn’t get much better than that!
Filed under: Comfrey, Dyeing, Dyeing with Herbs, Herbs, Knitting, Recommended Books, Tansy, Yellow Dock on September 15th, 2007
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