My favorite shop in the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community of Gatlinburg, TN is the Cliff Dwellers Gallery . It was my favorite shop when i was a child in the 60’s when the building was located on the main parkway of Gatlinburg. In the 1990’s, the historic building was moved to the new location, and artisans began working and demonstrating there. Last Spring, during the Wildflower Pilgrimage, a beautiful lady in her 80’s was dying yarn there with natural dyes of the area. My blanket will be 12” squares made from this 100% spun wool in the natural dyes from barks, roots, nuts and flowers. It is a challenge sometimes because the yarn varies from a light worsted to aran and I have various amounts of each.
(http://www.cliffdwellersgallery.com/history.html)

(Natural Dyes on Natural Fibers from “The Mustard Seed”, the studio workshop of Bette Raymond.
100% wool
Tag label: “Economics forced the early mountain settlers to use materials gathered in the fields to dye the wool before weaving the cloth for their needs. These yarns have been dyed with barks, roots, nuts and flowers gathered as our forefathers did before synthetic dyes were invented.”)

02/07/13 I just finished my 12th square and I am so excited. I love the beautiful colors. I have a little bit more of the yarn - I am going to see if I can squeeze out a few more squares.
02/15/13 15 squares completed, yarn all gone but bits and pieces, ends tied. I am ready to join!
02/16/13 I got the corners marked, sides counted, and the equalizer math done. On my way to get the equalizer and joining yarn.
02/18/13 2 rows of sc, 3 in each corner, to equalize the stitch counts, bringing each block to 48 stitches per side. Next weekend, I can join. All blocks are made with the Appalachian Colors yarn, equalizer yarn is VC Toffee, joining yarn is VC Wheat.
03/01/13 Everything is joined and the border complete. It took 2 1/2 skeins of equalizer color and 3 /12 skeins of the joining color to finish.
Yipppee. All done :) I love it

Black walnut hulls 2 oz
Catechu wood cutch 2.5 oz
Indigo over goldenrod blossoms 1 5/8 oz
Logwood chips 4 1/8 oz
Black oak bark 2 1/4 oz
Redwood sawdust 2 5/8 oz
Indigo over Osage orange wood 3 7/8 oz
Cochineal insect 2 7/8 oz
Madder root 4 oz
Indigo over Osage orange wood second dye lot 3 1/8 oz
Marigold blossoms 2 1/4 oz