By Ashley Walker
Copyright 11th February 2020

Ever since starting to grow our own dye plants I have wanted to create something I could wear, something that had been created from scratch. In the past I have been quite content to use bought materials to create works of art and craft but as I got older this has appealed less and less. I used to be confused by people who wanted to go back to creating the raw materials of their crafts. I thought that the raw materials were just tools to aid creativity and it was easy to buy the best. I never concerned myself about where they came from or how they had been produced. In time something changed and the thought of creating the raw materials myself began to be more important. I do not really understand the reasons why.

Growing our own dye plants was at first a sort of curiosity but one that propelled us into the world of spinning fleece. After all if you are prepared to grow your own dyes then it no longer seems right to use them to dye commercially manufactured textiles. What would be the point of that? So fleeces were obtained and Susan set out on the road of learning how to clean and mordant them. Later came carding, spinning (drop spindle and wheel) and plying into yarn with diversions into weaving and peg loom weaving. But learning all the steps to achieve a finished dyed garment has turned out to be a steep hill to climb.

Once I had learned how to spin I decided to dye sufficient fleece to make a jumper and trusted to my ability to learn how to knit when I had enough yarn.

The first photo I have of the beginning was taken in 2014 and shows some of the madder dyed fleece and yarn. However by the time this was taken I had probably been at it for quite a while. The dyeing process was done very carefully so as not to felt the wool. Chopped root was heated to about 60ºC and the fleece added. The dye pans were then placed in a hay box and left overnight. The next day the fleece would be removed and the chopped root at the bottom of the pan was pounded to help release more alizarin (the chief red dye of madder). The pot was then reheated and fleece reintroduced. This might be repeated 3 or more times before a suitable red was obtained.

Slowly, slowly I built up a good stock of dyed fleece to spin. The shades of red varied so I tried to blend the darkest with the lightest to obtain as even a result as possible. Even so the yarn shows a variation in colour which results in the very pleasing stripes of the finished jumper.
Once I had enough I needed a knitting pattern and I quickly found out that knitting patterns are created for consistently even commercial yarn, not home-spun. But with help from our good friend Brian Bond and a few test squares of my own knitting I ended up with a ‘sort of’ pattern I thought I could work to. This was adapted from a cardigan design in one of Brian’s books that I liked the look of. But that’s where it all came to a bit of a grinding halt. I started on the indigo dyed blue rib of one side of the jumper but after several weeks of trial, with much undoing I had barely got into the red. The level of concentration needed to knit was so great that the slightest distraction caused dropped or added stitches or some other mistake. Even when I thought I was concentrating I would often find myself knitting the wrong stitch and all this before I had got to the point of having to reduce the number of stitches or do any of the fancy edging. It was too much.

The wool and the bit of rib stayed in its bag for months until Susan took pity on me and decided to have a go herself. Susan can knit but has no experience of knitting with irregular yarn. So what did get knitted took a long time and wasn’t remotely the right shape or size. Susan was canny enough to know that sewing the pieces together would have resulted in an unusual jumper to say the least. So back into its bag it went. Then along came Tracey Ballard who said nonchalantly “Oh yes I’ll finish that off for you if you like”. It meant that my dream of doing it all myself was truly out the window but by this time I was a pushover to accept any help.

No doubt after much remedial work (we suspect more than has been admitted to) Tracey turned up with the finished jumper a few months later. It was exactly as I imagined it. It is heavy and warm and it fitted perfectly. It is the first new jumper I have worn since one my mum knitted me many years ago. I failed to do it all myself but the feeling when wearing it… well it’s indescribable. The colour red is bold and bright. Red was my fathers’ favourite colour. He would buy me red shirts for Christmas which I would never wear. Now I have a totally unique red jumper, one that could never be bought in a shop and one that I will be proud to wear and show off for the rest of my life. No doubt my Dad would have approved.

Thanks to Susan and Brian for encouragement and advice. Special thanks to Tracey for finishing it off. It is friends and the small things that make life worth living even if they do take 6 years to complete.