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Greener Shades

Posted 2/12/2009 5:14am by Eugene Wyatt.
Last October while ambling through the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck, we came upon a vendor, Greener Shades, selling dyes for wool yarn that were "Formulated without the use of hazardous metals, these dyes provide superior light and wash fastness without relying on metal compounds to achieve bright and beautiful colors."

For some time now, we've wanted greater diversity in our yarn colors. Greener Shades seemed to be a perfect fit for us; their colors were bright but still complementary to what we were showing, their dyes would respect the environment as do the Earthues natural dyes we now use, and their prices were reasonable: we could economically expand our color offering. 

Gregg & Deirdre, the proprietors of Greener Shades, have a farm in Connecticut, with sheep, and a mill where they spin fiber; they are small & local, accessible & informative, and they believe in what they do—we like these attributes—plus they offer a wonderful sample book showing the colors, dyed on wool,  in tertiary blends of the primary and secondary dyes they sell; many of these color suggestions (or our variations of them) looked like they would display well in the stand, and on the site too, complementing the natural colors we already show.

This week we finally began using the new dyes—training wheel (color) time—a learning curve is upon us. I plan to chronicle our colorful adventures, or misadventures as they may be, in a dye workshop; and soon I should establish a display/ecommerce page in the Yarn Store where you can buy yarn dyed with Greener Shades dyes, expanding  the selection as we dye new colors. 

New yarn styles & weights from Green Mountain, new colors from Greener Shades...I'm excited.