A Summer of Knitting Naturally
This weekend while visiting Sophie’s Yarns I had a really good discussion with the owner of the store about what is happening to make knitting a more environmentally friendly pursuit. After all, it was Earth Day and it seemed like a timely discussion. As soon as we got talking I had the feeling that this was one of those moments where you suddenly find yourself walking into a conversation that you are not entirely sure you want to be having, because you somehow know that the result will be thought provoking and will require change. You can see about a hundred miles away that it is going to give you something to think about, something that on some subconcious level you may have been avoiding, but that, no matter what, after this you will never be able to ignore again. And it all started with the most innocent of comments, “Oh, what a gorgeous yarn. What is it?”
The yarn, it turns out, is from Hand Jive Knits — a California based company that is committed to using only natural and plant dyes to produce gorgeous, subtly variegated yarns (and some rovings too, I see from her website). I have been interested in plant dyes since I started spinning, but I just haven’t gotten around to playing with dyes yet. Kool-aid dying grosses me out — I just can’t handle the fake and overpowering fruity smells. I have certainly admired the results others have achieved, but it is not for me. I am a little too freaked out by the toxic dyes to muck about with them in my kitchen, plus, I know when it came time to pour the used solution down the sink I would feel guilty. Yeah, I know, the height of hypocrisy. It isn’t as if I have cried over all the synthetically dyed yarns and clothing and any number of other items I have in my house. Sometimes, despite my best attempts to be a responsible person, I fall into the kind of thinking that seems to say — as long as I don’t have to deal with it, I don’t have to worry about it. It isn’t a concious choice, it is a default one.
I mean, let’s face it, our impact on this earth is insane and if we really wanted to change our lives so that this impact was severely reduced, it wouldn’t much resemble our current lives at all. In fact, I’m sure that for most of us the impact of that kind of change would seem pretty miserable — like the stuff apocalypses are made of. Because responsibility toward the environment that sustains us would mean a severe reduction in the consumer culture, which, at this point, would basically equal a collapse of our whole economic structure. We have created an economy where growth is dependant on wanting more and more and more. This in turn requires more resources to produce it. This in turn puts greater strain on the earth. Then corners are cut and processes “streamlined” so people get what they want faster and cheaper and the cycle goes on and on and on.
I am not trying to sound so bleak here and I don’t want to ignore the positive things that are happening out there (like the rise in organic farming and available produce, local food movements, environmentally responsible corporations, charitable organizations like Heifer International, etc.), but sometimes I just want to cry. And a lot of times, I just have to push this stuff out of my head so I can get up every morning and keep going. Saturday’s post talked about the one-step-at-a-time method of change. As you can see, thinking too much beyond each of those individual steps results in paralysis and despair. Neither of which is very useful. All we can do is one thing at a time and hope they all add up to make enough of a difference.
One of the things I think I have been pretty subconciously blind to (especially when overcome with a love for a certain colorway) is the process that takes a few fibers that have been twisted together and transforms them into something remarkably (breathtakingly, even) colorful. Dyes — especially the bright and vibrant ones that I tend to fall so hard for — are not exactly kind to the earth. Something has to happen to those toxic materials when they are done turning wool, cotton or any other fiber into the colors we love. The sad truth of the matter is that, like everything else, they return to the earth and contaminate the soil, our ground water and so forth and so on.
A couple of months ago I was reading through the book America Knits and in it was a profile of Sally Fox. She is the vision and the brains behind Foxfibre, an organically grown cotton that she slowly and methodically has cultivated over the years to naturally produce various shades of green and brown. They require no toxic dyes and information about purchasing yarn and fibers (and even fabric for you sewers out there) can all be found directly on her website. More companies are starting to carry lines of organic wool, cotton and silk, including Blue Sky Alpaca, among others. Smaller companies like Hand Jive are basing their entire line of products on using plant dyes and suppliers that are committed to teaching natural dying techniques and selling dyes that can all be found in nature (like Aurora Silk) are also out there. These are the kinds of things that excite me and give me hope. But the thing is, without my support and the support of other knitters, they won’t make it.
So, I have been thinking about how I can contribute to the success of companies like these and I have come up with a plan. While I realize that it is not realistic to think that a bunch of knitters are going to suddenly give up on a whole world of yarn dyed and produced traditionally, I thought I might be able to motivate enough people to participate in an extended experiment that would expose us to more organically grown and naturally dyed yarns and fibers. And what better time than the summer to familiarize ourselves with some of that organic cotton and hemp and to experiment with some of the natural dyes that can be found right in our backyards. Thus the seed of an idea was planted and it has grown rather quickly.
So, without further ado, I invite you to join me in a Summer of Knitting Naturally. I realize, of course, that Maryland is coming up in just a couple of weeks and I felt it wouldn’t make any sense to start this until after the event. So, my thought is that it will be a three month committment taking us through June, July and August. The guidelines are simple — you set your own goals. Everyone is at a different space in their lives about what they can do, so you decide what is manageable for you. Do you want to focus on knitting or spinning with more organic fibers? Do you want to learn how to dye yarn using plants? Never tried hemp before, but always wanted to? Now is the time. Knitting Naturally can take many forms, and what will work best for you is completely up to you and your imagination.
Every week I will be posting information on fiber-related companies that are doing great things for the earth and where their products can be purchased. I will also be experimenting with some spinning of new fibers, including *gasp* some of that FoxFibre cotton and maybe a little hemp while we are at it. I will also be doing some dying with plants in my kitchen and I promise to document the entire process and let you know what I’ve learned.
For those who are interested, please leave a comment (with a valid e-mail address in the e-mail field). Remember, this is all about baby steps. Make a realistic, manageable goal that you know you can stick with, but also make one that takes you just outside your comfort zones and exposes you to new things in the world of knitting. My sweetie is going to be working up a button for the venture, which I will hopefully be able to post in a couple of days. I look forward to hearing from you!
April 26th, 2006 at 8:49 am
Will you very kindly stop writing things that make me stop and think and inspire me to do this or that or the other thing? You’re making it very hard to sit comfortably in my rut.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Ditto to what Franklin said. I already have a boatload of guilt that I feel I’m always dealing with. It would be so much easier to just ignore everything you just wrote and go on my merry little way with all my synthetically dyed yarn (Koigu being some of it), but as someone who believes in trying to not deliberately harm others and the planet, I feel I should join in. I have tried a little stovetop dyeing using spices (turmeric works well) and also (unsuccessfully) herbs - rosemary leaves - I ended up overdying it with food coloring and thus gave up on my little entrepeneurial dream of putting together a skein of naturally dyed fingering yarn along with an accompanying scarf pattern for each color packaged in a pretty little undyed paper bag. Like you, I can’t stand Kool-aid dyed yarn. My one experience with the (still unknit) yarn left my microwave and entire kitchen smelling for days. I’m definately going to join in but need to think about how much time I have to devote. Right now I’m caught up with end of the school year kind of stuff with 3 teens, one graduating, but after that I should be able to invest myself. Now I plan to re-read the Sally Fox profile in America Knits. What a great book.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:16 am
I had been planning on reducing my yarn intake for the summer anyway, just using what I have already, but I think this is such a good idea. I’ve been feeling bad lately about my knitting’s effect on the environment, what with yarn labels, tiny gadgets that come in huge packaging, etc etc. I had honestly never thought about dyes being bad for the environment. I guess I never really thought about the leftovers that the factories end up pouring down their drains. Wow. More to think about. Thank you.
April 26th, 2006 at 10:54 am
Count me in, sweetie! I firmly reject any sense of guilt over the gleaming reds-n-pinks-n-purples in my stash, but I embrace the opportunity to seek out new fibers and new civilizations, to boldly knit where no Kai has knit bef–SHATNER!! Get out of my head!!!
Mabel’s is carrying a bamboo fiber now. And my mom saw a pattern for a purse made out of flax that she reely, reeeeeely wants, so…Summer of Knitting Naturally, ahoy!
As long as I don’t have to be exclusive. I’ve got that Stormy Skies Stole to start, and I’m pretty sure mohair doesn’t come in those shades naturally.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:33 am
That is such a wonderful idea. I would love to participate! I think I even know what I’d like to do. Gabe’s mom knows someone who raises sheep. She’s willing to contact her and order a fleece for me (that’s right an entire fleece). When I spun some of what she had (which still had the lanolin in it) I was hooked. Hopefully Gabe won’t mind me spending some of my summer in front of my spinning wheel!
April 26th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
I think that’s a great idea! I’ve been spinning and dying for 28 years now and although I mostly use a packaged dye which is supposed to be quite low in toxicity, I have also done a lot of dyeing with plants. I just want to warn everyone that just because a plant material is natural, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s non-toxic, be careful. Also be careful of what you use as a mordant. Some common mordants, like copper, are also bad for the environment. Have fun and don’t forget the natural colors fibres come in. Wool, mohair, angora and especially alpaca all come in beautiful shades and Sally Fox’s cottons are a delight.
April 26th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
That’s an interesting idea, and I applaud you for it, but I’m not up for such an undertaking this summer. (I do, however, want to try to find some naturally dyed fiber at Maryland.)
April 27th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Given the amount of knitting people do and the amount of laundry they do, you might have a bigger affect on the environment by getting people to switch to non-petroluem based laundry soap. The summer of laundering natrually?
April 27th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
Interesting post. I’m not altogether sure that it’s the synthetic dyes which are the real nasties, though. Most dyeing requires a mordant, and many mordants are seriously nasty (chromium, tin, etc). Plant dyes often require them too….
If a synthetic dye is used well, there will be very little left in the way of left-over chemicals, I would have thought, as part of the beauty of synthetic dyes is that they actually bind to the fibre by means of a chemical reaction.
I’ll be very interested to hear your findings on this - are you going to fuss about the yarn equivalent of food miles in terms of the environmental cost of transport etc?
April 27th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
The world is so interconnected nowadays, and there are so many implications of what we do on the environment, that it’s difficult for me to get my head around this. For example, as some of the other commenters point out, if dye soaks completely into the fiber, you are expelling minimal, if any, amounts in the rinse. Bad because the dye isn’t “natural”? Or good because it isn’t expelled in the rinse? Many dyes — including some derived from natural substances like plants — do require the use of mordants to make the color fast, and mordants like soda ash, tin and zinc, are highly toxic and detrimental to dispose of. There are dyes extracted from bugs like cochineal: is killing bugs to harvest dye a good thing or a bad? Ditto for silk production that involves killing the worms. Is a yarn good if it’s dyed with natural dyes, even if the cotton is grown with pesticides? What about wool grown by sheep who are fed non-organic feed? What if the cotton is genetically modified? What if the organic farmer goes home and drives a fuel-hogging SUV? How can you know?
Don’t get me wrong; I am highly concerned with the environment and take real-world steps every day to minimize my impact on it. I just think things aren’t that simple to categorize. Of course, since I’m trying to start a handdyed yarn enterprise, I also have very real concerns about a well-meaning boycott that puts me out of business. If I have a home-based business dyeing yarn, and expel some minimal amt of dye into the environment, but the trade-off is I don’t have to commute to the job I’d otherwise have to take, thereby saving gas and eliminating fuel emissions and the byproducts of dry cleaning my business clothes, is that a net good or bad?
April 28th, 2006 at 11:42 am
I share the concern that what seems “natural” isn’t always best. If anybody has research on the actual impact of synthetic dyes I’d even go read it. But I’d much rather take action on stuff that I know is significantly bad for the environment.
The polystyrene-vs-cardboard food containers are an example. All things considered, even though paper is fairly “natural”, perhaps paper isn’t the best environmental choice for serving a coffee or burger, and there’s no clear evidence it’s even any better than polystyrene (http://www.grist.org/advice/ask/2003/02/06/umbra-styrofoam/).
So I think personally, I’ll just try to carpool to my local yarnstore rather than worry about what kind of yarn I buy!
May 1st, 2006 at 6:59 am
Another thing I am thinking about these days, in terms of the environmental impact of knitting, is the “non-local” aspect of knitting. Why is my yarn coming from Peru and places like that? I am trying to “eat local”, so shouldn’t I also try to “knit local”?
May 8th, 2006 at 4:51 pm
[...] Speaking of alongs, I thought some of y’all might be interested in The Summer of Knitting Naturally (more info to be found here). I’d probably join in myself but with enough knitting and crochet projects on my plate one of the ways I can reduce my impact is by not buying more than I need to. I am fascinated by those links, though. I may chat more about them when I get through Knitting in America which references one of the yarn sources she talks about. [...]
May 16th, 2006 at 6:02 am
I’m in–although I reserve the right to knit commercial-yarn socks and the like just to get me through the tough times! So my goals: card, spin, naturally dye, and knit with bamboo needles.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:40 am
Ok, so I’m like a year late to this discussion, but what the hey. I’m going to be thinking a lot about this subject for the next week or so; a book I’m doing with Larissa of Stitch Marker (http://larissmix.typepad.com) is going to have a section about yarn and the environment. Also, I used to be a professional ecologist, so I’m sort of qualified to talk about this.
It occurs to me this subject is like a lot of other ones that have to do with environmental lifestyle choices. When you’re trying to lower your impact on the environment, you’d pretty much better specify WHICH impact otherwise it can get pretty meaningless.
It seems to me the main concern on this thread has been with the use of potentially toxic dye. However, there are a lot of other possible effects of yarn consumption. Most of the yarns used by today’s hand knitters are agricultural products (wool, cotton, silk) so when you buy yarn, you’re contributing to the the effects of those agricultural processes. Which can be considerable. Cotton is famous for requiring huge amounts of irrigated water, and sheep in all their cuteness are great at turning any landscape into a pretty barren heath. (A fair amount of England used to be forest, you know). To me those are the big effects. To address them I guess one could buy organic cotton or wool.
However, there’s an even better way to deal with all this: frog frog frog rip rip rip. If you rip and reuse something, there’s absolutely no environmental cost in terms of the production of the materials (or issues in terms of animal rights, if that’s your main concern). Whatever harm there was has already been done.
Actually one of the ways I really respect knitters is in their ability to rip their own work, even when they’ve put countless hours in to it. Normally they’re doing it because they hate the object or crave some of that yarn for another project, I know. But if it helps them to know they’re doing something good for the environment, more power to them.
thanks for letting me rant.
Martin
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