This year I’ve been focused on a self-directed course of learning how to use natural, plant-based dyes. I had the goal of dyeing a full spectrum rainbow with plants that I either grew in my garden or foraged locally. My rainbow blanket project page has more pictures and details about the project.

As I finished each skein I scribbled some notes on a card and just twisted the card up in with the yarn. I clearly needed a better system for keeping my notes for future years, and after a bit of thought and research came up with this notebook.

Each dye plant has a page, and a couple (dyer’s coreopsis, Japanese indigo and pokeberry) have more than one. The yarn samples are wrapped around heavy-duty cardstock that I notched with paper punches I borrowed from a scrapbooking friend. Then I copied my notes onto the pages, or, in the case of the most popular plants, numbered the colors and wrote my notes on the back side of the page. My favorite part about these pages are the botanical drawings next to the colorful yarn samples. It just warms my color and plant-loving heart to see those together.

At the same time as I was wrapping the sample cards I prepared my lightfast test cards. Each yarn that was represented in the sample notebook also got a place on the lightfast cards, wound in the same order as on my pages of notes. Then I taped cardstock around half of the yarn-covered cards and taped them directly up in my sunniest window.

The cards stayed in the kitchen window for a month (and a few extra days for the purple and yellow cards), receiving direct rays from the sun. The back sides still had bright ambient light (the kitchen is the sunniest room in the house), but didn’t experience dramatic fading. The front sides, however, faded as expected.

The pokeberry yarn fared the worst, which also was what I expected. For more details about that, check out my stash page here. The coreopsis and marigold yarns also experienced significant fading. On the other hand, the indigo yarns were barely touched, and the browns (mostly dyed with tannin-rich dyestuffs) were barely affected by the bright sunlight.

I totally love having all my notes and samples in one place, the only remaining problem is where to find a bigger notebook to hold it all! Will I do the sensible thing and buy a (slightly expensive) binder online, or the overly complicated option of sewing my own with sample cloth woven with these naturally dyed yarns?