Snow is in the air and has been falling down on Long Island much more this winter than in the past couple of years. Last weekend we got a good foot of snow for the first time this winter and the potential for even more snow this coming weekend is high! While most prepare for a snowstorm by stocking up on food and necessities, I prepare my yarn for a good snow dyeing session!

Pokeberries, an invasive plant on Long Island and throughout the United States, produce incredible shades of colors ranging from a lighter bubblegum pink to deeper berry shades and even bright magenta and fuschia! The process of dyeing with pokeberries is unique from other natural dyes and the range of color that can be achieved varies pending the ripeness of the berries at time of collection.

This past summer I planted and grew my first dye flower - coreopsis! Actually, this is the first time I’ve attempted to grow anything and what a phenomenal success it has been! In fact, it’s been four months now since I first planted the seeds and there are still fresh coreopsis blooms popping up almost daily!

Over Labor Day weekend, my family and I decided to celebrate my 45th birthday with a trip to Fire Island. We are currently living in Sayville, which is where the ferry departs from Long Island to Sailor’s Haven, so it’s an easy day trip for us that we hadn’t yet taken. Unlike most of the typical Fire Island tourists, we weren’t headed to lounge on the beach - I was much more interested in walking through Sunken Forest, which did not disappoint!

It was the summer of 2021 when I first learned that mushrooms could be used as a color source to dye yarn - and my mind was instantly blown! At this point, I had been playing with natural dyes on and off for a couple of years and my obsession with extracting color from nature was quickly growing - but mushrooms? I had never paid them any attention before and this was a whole new world to explore.