Friday, May 30, 2008

Dyeing Yarn Naturally with Herbs!

I've been taking a 4 month long class all about herbs! Its been amazing and this week we had to present our final project. Of course, i had to incorporate fiber, so i experimented with dyeing yarn naturally with herbs. The results were soo cute! Lots of luscious natural colors - all on wool yarn. I used dandelions, eucalyptus, elderberries, comfrey, nettles, hawthorn berries and madder. The dandelions and nettles were used fresh - the rest were dried, only the madder was a dye extract (you can see the difference!) It took a lot of herbs and time to achieve color - the dandelion one was done 3 times!! All of the yarns were mordanted with alum - the safest and least toxic mordant. These special skeins will be available at Fancy Tiger for a limited time. Enjoy!!


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