Summer Knitting and Natural Dyed Yarn

Every year the Mercer Spinners and Weavers Guild gets together at the end of the summer for a natural dye workshop. It is an exciting day. Everyone brings a pot of some natural dye they have cooked up. Folks bring yarn, roving and loose fibers for spinning. We usually have a variety of pots to choose from. Last year I put rubber bands on skeins of natural undyed wool sock yarn and dipped this yarn into three different pots. The last pot was indigo and that is how I got the blue green spots along with the yellow and orange. The yellow was marigold and the orange jewelweed. If you would like to join us in dyeing this year check out our Guild Newsletter by clicking on the link on the right of this page.

I started another Danish Tie shawl. This is the 4th one. I am using #6 needles and a sock weight yarn that I had dyed at our Natural Dye Workshop August 2008. I really enjoy knitting and wearing these tie shawls. This one will be machine washable and light enough for a summer evening. I will post a picture of it when I finish. I am using a contrasting blue green sock yarn to add narrow stripes. The color matched the blue green indigo spots and I love to use up leftovers so I could not resist using these two yarns together. I don't know how many stripes I will get before I run out of this yarn. I may have to add another yarn to continue the stripes when I run out of this one. I am just going to go with it and see how it turns out.

Below is a picture of booties knit from the sole up. Beginning with tan suede yarn cast on 12 sts and knit a rectangle. Pick up stitches around the rectangle and knit 3 rows switch to the blue bunny hop yarn for the rest of the bootie The baby sweater under the booties was knit from Rowans All Seasons cotton a couple years ago and was used as a sample in my shop. A friend emailed me that her daughter just had a baby boy and I thought this little sweater would make a perfect gift. I made the booties to match. Now I need to locate some buttons before I mail this to Claire in Chicago.