Fall 2019 • Spin Off 75
Working with Buckthorn-Dyed Yarns
Sweater
I knitted this sweater a couple of years ago to illustrate the range
of colors you can achieve from buckthorn. From top to bottom, the
stripes are dyed from buckthorn bark (pink), buckthorn berry skins
(blue), buckthorn berries (green), and buckthorn leaves (yellow). I
used handspun Polled Dorset singles on a flatbed knitting machine.
The sweater is machine-knitted from hem to armholes and then
handknitted in the round from the armholes to the neck.Hat
The hat is knitted from two shades of buckthorn-berry green, two
shades of buckthorn-bark red, and white undyed wool. As with many
natural dyes, buckthorn dyes and shades are difficult to repeat exactly.
Berries in particular can give greens that range from olive green all
the way to blue-greens and everything in between. The colors from
buckthorn dyes lend themselves well to Fair Isle patterns. The hat
was made using handspun Polled Dorset singles on a flatbed knitting
machine to the decreases and then finished by hand.Scarf
My daughter wove this piece during a textile class. The warp is Polled
Dorset singles in a series of colors from buckthorn: two shades of red
from bark, two shades of yellow from leaves, and three or four shades
of green from berries. The weft is the same yarn, but undyed. Some of
the greens in this piece have faded.a yellow color, I theorized that it was the skins of the
buckthorn berries that must be providing the blue,
which mixed with the yellow-producing guts and seeds
of the berries to give green.
I experimented by squeezing out the insides of
the berries and using just the skins for dyeing; I
got blue on my first try. As I tried to scale up the
experiment and increase the volume of berry skins
and fiber, I lost the blue and ended up with green.
After many tests, I found that there were a couple
of variables that seemed to affect the intensity of
blue dye. First of all, higher temperatures correlated
to greener results. However, some level of heat is
required. The second variable seems to be timing of
berry collection. My best blues were achieved from
berries collected early in the season.I’ve enjoyed exploring different methods of
extracting color from buckthorn. These invasive plants
hold a rainbow of color for us to explore. Collecting
buckthorn allows us to create vibrant local color and
benefit our landscape at the same time. ●Resources
Vajanto, Krista. “Textile standards in experimental
archaeology.” Monographs of the Archaeological
Society of Finland 3, (2014), 62–75. http://www.sarks.fi
Craft, Cindy. “A Sweater from My Backyard.” Spin Off,
Winter 2017, 86–88.Cindy Craft is a spinner, knitter, knitting-pattern designer,
felter, cranker, and dyer among other things. Cindy and
her daughters are the team behind Subito Farm. You can
find them at http://www.subitofarm.com and at fiber shows
throughout the East Coast states.