Summer Natural Dye Round-up

Well it's September and summer will be shifting into fall: knitting season! I've been busy busy all summer with work, but I managed to squeeze in a few days for me!

In May, I made a summer dyeing plan. I bought yarn from Acme. I bought dyestuff from Maiwa. I even scored a big pot at a garage sale. I had BIG plans. And I followed through with spectacular results.

You may remember last year, I managed to get pinky-beige from St.John's wort, peasoup green from goldenrod + iron, and a grayish blue from black beans. These results were less than thrilling to me, and they were not the rich jewel tone colours I enjoy wearing. I almost quit dyeing with natural dyes altogether.

After spending the winter thinking it over though, I decided to try some pre-packaged natural dyes, in the hopes of getting the rich jewel tones I adore.

Here's what I dyed this summer:

 Left to right: Onion skin/coreopsis/cosmos on wool, madder overdyed with goldenrod on bfl, madder on merino silk, cochineal on cashmere/merino. YUM!

In case you are wondering I grew the coreopsis and cosmos last summer, and collected the onion skins and goldenrod. The other stuff is from Maiwa. The yarn was mordanted in Alum and Cream of Tarter based on Jenny Dean's recipes.

Then last weekend I tried my hand at indigo dyeing. I did some pure indigo and some overdyes. Indigo is SO COOL. Here's a video:



and here are my results:

 Top to bottom: Cochineal overdyed with indigo on bfl/silk, indigo on wool, indigo on merino/silk, goldenrod overdyed with indigo and on the side logwood over black bean.

Just awesome. I'm so pleased with my results, especially the indigo!

Now I get to spend winter knitting it all up... where to start?? :) I'm thinking some scarves, like Pogona with the cashmere. And something striped like Daybreak or Light in Shadows with the indigo and madder merino/silk. Maybe socks with the bfl. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the Onion and Indigo on wool.... What do you think?

P.S. I used the dye technique in this video get cool variegation in my overdyes!