Making warm things.

Natural dyed yarn using Rose Hips and Avocados. 

Stop, breathe, look around and take in the rich and beautiful colors brought to you by Mother Nature.

If you've seen my posts on Facebook & Instagram, you know that I am experimenting with natural yarn dye. I ordered a bunch of different bare yarn bases from KnitPicks.com and am exploring color from various plant materials.

After what seemed like years months of researching via books, websites, word of mouth and YouTube (of course), I took the plunge and purchased some basic supplies to begin playing around on my own. All of the dying materials were found around our home in Maine and at the grocery store.

Fiber dying is similar to cooking. Each encompasses the experimentation of mixing ingredients to obtain a desirable flavor or color, consistency and texture. Just for the record, I have never been a big fan of cooking - cleaning, yes & baking, yes - cooking, not so much.

So far, I am thrilled with all of the colors coaxed onto the fibers. They are rich, tonal and muted colors - some jewel toned and others autumnal in nature.

The knitted hat and the crocheted fingerless gloves were crafted with Knit Picks Swish DK weight yarn (bare base), 246 yards/100 grams in 100% Superwash Merino Wool.

The lighter color was obtained from a dye bath of Rose Hips; the darker color from Avocado skins and pits. (Surprise! The avocado is a beautiful pink/rose instead of green!)

The beginner hat was knitted following this pattern. The rim measures 2 inches and each stripe measures 2 inches.

You can fold the cuff back at your fingers if you need to perform any delicate tasks;
 leave long to keep your phalanges warm.

The fingerless gloves are based on this pattern.

FYI regarding the fingerless glove pattern, I found it difficult, even with photos, to understand the instructions for the thumb hole. Read the pattern and if you become confused, here is how I proceeded: slip stitch the two sides together for 13, slip stitch the next 6 stitches along one side only to create thumb hole, at 7th stitch resume slip stitching both sides together to the end and fasten off.  Pull up a loop anywhere around thumb hole, *chain 2 then half double crochet around thumb hole opening (I had 15 stitches), slip stitch to the beginning chain 2*, repeat from* to *, two more times (total of 3 rows) and fasten off.

Use smaller hook to add half double crochets to wrist and finger edges and for lacy border stitches (following pattern). For the lacy thumb border, pull up a loop between any HDC, chain 4 (counts as sc + 3 ch st), sc - *skip two HDC, sc in next HDC space, ch 3, sc*, repeat * to*, sl stitch to 1st ch of ch 4, fasten off (the thumb edge will match the others).

Don't forget to sew in your tails!

Leave a comment if you have any questions and subscribe to receive future posts on this and other topics.

Start creating!

Kelli