Dandelion Yarn

I love how this time of year just keeps throwing up seasonal treasures week after week. Often these treasures are fleeting like the bluebells and others last a little longer like the cow parsley that is flooding the verges at the moment.

About two weeks ago the fields, lawns, verges and country lanes were awash with yellow dandelions. I just love this wildflower although my husband can’t stand them as they pop up in the lawn faster than he can cut it. There’s a myriad of things that you can do with dandelions, I’ve made dandelion jam and bread before. I want to try making a dandelion salve next year but this year I decided to extract dye from the flowers to dye up some yarn.

I walked down the little dirt lane that runs alongside our home (that’s our house across the fields in the above picture) to go and harvest some of the dandelion flowers that seemed to have happily taken over this field.

Standing before this sea of waving blooms was just a delight. How can you not love dandelions, they just sing with joy and are abuzz with insects busily feeding off them, they are vital food for our early insects!

I set my basket amid natures gift and slowly gathered a mass of flower heads, pausing to breath in the fresh country air and rest in the suns early spring warmth. In the distance, I watched a train cut through the fields carrying its passengers to where ever it is they were going. As a child, I had pictured the English countryside just like this, except the train was a steam engine with billows of smoke trailing behind. These were the visions conjured up in my mind as my mother read The Railway Children to me and my sisters.

How much to gather? I wasn’t sure so I just kept picking until the bottom quarter of my basket was full.

Reluctantly, I left behind the dandelion field and walked back up along the lane pondering on the process of extracting the dye from the flower heads and mordant my last three skeins of yarn. I have wanted to dye with natural dye forever. My original vision was to spin my own yarn from the sheep that we would have on our little smallholding and dye the yarn with plants gathered from the countryside. It was a dream. When I realised that it may take way longer than expected to achieve our little dream I searched to see if I could just buy the yarn in…and I could. The rest is history as they say.

I’ve been dyeing yarn since 2016 and it is only now that I am turning to the hedgerows for dye material. I feel like I am a novice dyer again, and for the most part, I am. There is a whole lot to learn about natural dyes and it’s a journey I’m excited to be on. 

I popped the flowers into the crockpot and set it on low. I left it to gently bubble away overnight, then I switched it off and let it cool down. This is a slow process and that is part of what I love about it. Working with acid dyes is fairly quick by comparison. 

Once I drained off the dye, I put the mordant yarn back into the crockpot with the dandelion dye and brought it back up to temperature overnight then let it cool all morning. A quick wash, then out to dry and voila!

Isn’t it just so pretty? I have listed them in my shop although I have to say I’m very tempted to keep one. The only thing holding me back is that my yarn stash really needs to be actually knitted up! I have so many projects on the go that I really need to work through to some sort of conclusion.

There are 2 skeins of sock yarn and 1 DK skein. Tomorrow I plan on making a whole lot of project bags for the shop. I found some wonderful fabric this week and I can’t wait to sew it all up.

I have all this time to indulge in my little shop right now because I handed in my final law assignment on Monday – Yay! I’ve absolutely loved the first year of my law degree but am so ready for a break. I’m sure I shall be looking forward to hitting the books come September. But until then I shall be wild dyeing, sewing and creating right here Under An English Sky.

Blessings to you all today.