I have long been fascinated with the colors that one can achieve using the dyes that nature provides. There is an endless experimentation that can be tried, and to chronicle my many experiments, I’ve decided to start writing about it here. That will also allow myself to keep track!

Over the summer and fall of 2014, I went on MANY walks, collected MANY plants, mushrooms, and lichens, and dyed MANY 10 g test skeins. A peak inside my secret basket:

I wanted to try knitting with my test skeins, to test how the yarn behaves – to check that my mordanting didn’t make it brittle or that I had felted it by overheating. So I made this Fair Isle hat, and my yarn was very enjoyable to knit with:

FACTS: OXO HAT

Pattern King Harald Hats by Ann Feitelson, The Art of Fair Isle Knitting

Yarn Supersoft 100 % wool, 575 m / 100 g

Needle 2.5 mm

Colors Madder (bought) Cochineal (bought) Mugwort (collected from the roadside, summer) Boletes (collected from the forest, fall) Dahlias (grown in our garden, collected in fall)

Conclusion The hat is a bit big but the colors really match each other well