Dye Inspiration! Books, projects and beautiful ideas…

We are so excited to spend this month exploring the colorful world of hand-dyed yarn! Whether you’re interested in the alchemy of natural dyeing or the straightforward vibrancy of synthetic hues, we’ve got the stuff to get you started. But the biggest part of dyeing, in my opinion, is the spark of inspiration that eventually turns into a beautiful colorway (solid or variegated!). This inspiration can come from anywhere, and it’s unique to each person. Take the yarn shown above: do you just see white yarn? What about a blank canvas? Some folks might even get color ideas based on the twist of the ply, the weight of the yarn, its texture… the list goes on.

The topic of inspiration has come up a lot in preparation for this month’s dye-stravaganza. I’ve started taking pictures of the sunsets I get to see from my porch (see above), because I think those colors would go together beautifully on yarn. A quick internet search will show you that lots of people use photographs as templates for yarn colorways. Sometimes just the cover of a book (such as Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece or The Modern Natural Dyer ) is enough to get you brainstorming, to say nothing of the bounty of interesting, useful information contained inside.

Speaking of books, we’ve got a ton of them. For natural dyeing, I am always intrigued by the plants you can use, where you can find them, and the sometimes surprising colors they produce. The color of the plant and the color it produces are not always the same! A Weaver's Garden: Growing Plants for Natural Dyes and Fibers is all about growing these plants yourself – dye gardens are so cool! If you’re a city dweller like me, you might find Harvesting Color: How to Find Plants and Make Natural Dyes more useful. I actually have this book at home, and I found it fascinating to read about the plants I could find in my area and how to use them for dyeing. Then there’s [Sorry, item discontinued or temporarily out of stock] , which has a strong focus on dyeing things the Earth-friendly way. In this book you can read about using natural dyes for a number of different techniques, and it only uses ecologically sustainable plant-dye methods and renewable resources.

While we’re on the subject of natural dyes, I couldn’t possibly forget to mention indigo! [Sorry, item discontinued or temporarily out of stock] tells you just about everything you need to know about this age-old dye – from beautiful photos to materials, fiber prep and techniques. This book also includes detailed step by step photos and projects you can actually do. We’ve got two indigo kits for your convenience: the Earthues: Indigo Starter Natural Dye Kit and the Indigo Tie Dye Kit.

Just to see what it would look like, I tie-dyed some yarn with Country Classic Dyes for protein fibers COC39 Magenta . Here’s how it came out:

Another experiment I tried was hand-winding a loose, kind of small amount of super-textured Polar Bear Wool Yarn into a ball. Then I immersed it in a dye bath, gently pressing on it with a chopstick every now and then to encourage the dye to soak further into the ball. I was going for a gradient, with solid color softly fading to white. Here it is on my cobbled together DIY niddy noddy:

Success! All these experiments with different techniques remind me of [Sorry, item discontinued or temporarily out of stock] , which is kind of a comprehensive look at what’s out there, how to use it, and how to do some less traditional techniques. And then there’s the helpful [Sorry, item discontinued or temporarily out of stock] , which is great for folks looking to get started at home. Be careful, though – once you get started, it’s almost impossible to stop! The last thing I’ll show you is some kettle-dyed yarns in progress: