Natural Dyes: A Whole Array of Colors

I was in a natural dye workshop all weekend and it was fabulous. I have to admit I was dreading it a little bit at first. Every weekend in May and June has been booked with activites and I was really wanting a weekend that was all mine. BUT this was much better than anything I could have done left to my own devices.

We dyed madder, logwood grey, fustic, indigo (both Japanese and Guatemalan), and cochineal. From these dyes, we were able to get the entire spectrum of the color wheel.

In the past, I have always been obsessed with indigo. This was before I had ever dyed with cochineal bugs. I am now in love with cochineal. Most of my dyed fiber is sitting in a garbage bag, wet, and ageing for the week. However, I do have three pieces of fiber to show you:

The red: cochineal
The orange: a mixture of madder, cochineal, and fustic
The yellow: madder

In a week of so, after I wash out the rest of my fiber, I will post photos of the rest of my work.

Spun Stitches SAL/KAL

Short recap: I have joined a Spin Along/ Knit Along called Spun Stitches. This is one of my entries:

This weekend I am attending a 3 day indigo dyeing intensive. My dyeing teacher is kind! She said that we can bring some of our handspun to dye in her indigo pot. I thought, perfect, I will use this opportunity to dye my yarn for the KAL. This also means I have alot to accomplish by Friday.

As you might recall from a few posts back, I had a large pile of uncarded Polwarth fleece and didn't know what pattern to knit. Well, I found a pattern to knit. Its the Red Sea Shawl from the Folk Knits book. And, over the past week, I have carded most of the polwarth. I can not believe how much the polwarth grows and fluffs up when carded. Its silky and soft. I just love it. Below you can see the big pile of polwarth rolags.


I happily spun and spun the morning away. I decided I needed some entertainment, so, I watched Keep the RIver on Your Right. It is a docmentary about a native NY who travelled to Peru in 1955 as a Fulbrighter and ended up living with one of the native tribes. The twist in the story occurs when he finds himself alongside his tribe as they mass murder an entire village, and then is involved in cannabalism. Needless to say, this has marked him and has haunted him for his entire life. Whoa... this was pretty intense.

The DVD ended up making my spinning a side note. And after an hour and a half, I ended up with 382 yards. It feels like cotton. It's great and ready to go to the indigo pot.

I still have more polwarth to spin but I am a little afraid that I won't have enough. I think the pattern calls for something like 800-900 yards. I keep saying to myself "Cross that bridge when you come to it". I can not wait to feel this along my fingers as I knit!