knittingiris's Shop Policies

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Dyeing yarns and fibers naturally takes considerable time, attention, and care. The dyes I use come from plants that are either gathered or grown personally, harvested from the gardens of friends and family, or else are purchased as dried dyestuffs, as in the case of dyes such as madder, indigo, or cochineal (an insect dye) amongst others. The source of each dye can be found in each listing.

Dye materials are gathered and harvested with the utmost care and consideration. In the wild I gather no more than what I need and do so sparsely and selectively, only where a dyeplant is abundant and not endangered, making what I feel to be very little impact. Tree barks are gathered only from already dead and fallen trees. Lichens are gathered only where they are abundant and then only from fallen branches or from our firewood pile. I also like to try to use plants that are considered noxious weeds in our area and hope to do so more in the future.

The yarns are premordanted with alum (potassium aluminate sulfate) which is considered to be the safest mordant to use. (A mordant is something used to help the dye to adhere to or "bite" into the fiber and improves fastness of color.) The dyestuffs are prepared and the dye extracted into a dyebath, through simmering of the dyestuff. Each skein is then individually dyed, simmering for a minimum of one hour, sometimes overdyed in a secondary dyebath to achieve a particular or richer color, and then rinsed repeatedly before washing, drying, labelling, photographing, and listing here.

I know that people often have questions regarding the lightfastness and washfastness of natural dyes and, although I will not sell any yarns that are not reasonably so, I cannot guarantee absolute fastness to light and washing. Nobody in the garment industry does, it seems, as you often will see in the disclaimers attached to clothing these days. Remember these are hand dyed items and thus are likely to have some variations.

I repeatedly rinse the dyed yarns until the water runs clear or nearly so, with a final soak in Eucalan. Still, some yarns are dyed with powdered dyestuff or else directly in the dyepot with the plant material or dyestuff and so may still have minimal amounts of plant or dye material adhered to the yarn which may continue to wash out of the yarn in the first several washings, although this should not affect the overall color of the yarn. If I believe this is the case with a particular yarn, I will indicate so in the listing. I think, though, that I've now found a strainer that should eliminate residues, for the most part, in the future.

Even with superwash yarns I recommend handwashing separately in cool water with a mild cleanser, such as Eucalan or Soak, and drying flat out of the reach of direct sunlight. Most regular laundry detergents today are formulated to remove such things as grass stains. What is a natural plant dye if not, essentially, a "grass stain"? Please use care in choosing the product you use for washing your finished item.

(Although, just to see what happens, I certainly have washed some of my naturally dyed handknit socks in the washing machine with the likes of Tide or Costco brand laundry detergents, without noticable changes in color, I cannot recommend it!)

Skein weights and lengths are approximate. Some were preskeined when I got them but most are weighed and skeined by me and tend to weigh a little more than the listed weight because, for now, I only have the type of kitchen scale with the dial on the front and so have erred on the side of slightly more than the listed weight.

I have made every effort to photograph the yarns as closely as possible to their actual color, but as you know, nearly every website out there has a disclaimer about how color varies from one monitor to the next? Same here.

Although I'd love to be able to, I am unable at this time to take requests for particular yarns, quantities, or colors. I do not have dyepots large enough to dye bigger quantities of yarn in the same dyelot aall at the same time. Remember, each skein is unique and likely irreproducible, so if you see something you like, well, you know...when they're gone, they're gone.

I would, however, love to hear any feedback you may have, about your color preferences, and about what you'd like to see here. I'm hoping to have the opportunity to try working with some new plants and techniques in the coming seasons.

Thank you for taking the time to poke around here and I hope you see or find something that you like.

Payment

Paypal or money orders.

Shipping

Any domestic purchases of three or more skeins will be upgraded to priority mail. Otherwise, shipments will be sent First Class Mail, both domestically and internationally.

Unless announced at the top of my main shop page that I'm out of town or camping or something to that effect, I will ship your item(s) within 48 hours of receipt of your payment, either through Paypal, or upon receipt of payment by money order (not counting weekends). In the event that I am out of town, then I will ship within 48 hours of my return.

Refunds and Exchanges

Please contact me as soon as possible, preferably within a couple of days of receipt, if you are not satisfied with your purchase. I would like you to be happy with your purchase and so will accept returns of items, in the same condition as purchased, within 2 weeks of receipt of your purchase. Purchaser pays return shipping.

Additional Policies and FAQs

By the way, we are a smoke-free but dog and cat friendly home.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions.

For more of my natural dyeing adventures:

http://knittingiris.typepad.com/knitting_iris/natural_dyeing/index.html

Last Updated June 30, 2008

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