How the owner of Lucky Ewe, a New Braunfels yarn shop, discovered her passion for natural yarn dyes using Texas Hill Country wildflowers and trees.
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Story by Jenny Jurica
If you wander into Linda Thomas’ yarn shop, Lucky Ewe, located in a quaint, old house in downtown New Braunfels, you’ll immediately notice a pile of eye-catching, natural, pastel-colored skeins of yarn that take up a corner of the shop.
What you might not know though isthat the shop owner dyes this yarn by hand, using only Texas wildflowers and trees native to our area. For those who gravitate toward understated color palettes with an obvious nod to nature, Thomas’ Wool Tree Yarn collection of naturally dyed yarns will please the eye of even the most novice yarn shop visitor (myself included).
Linda Thomas’ interest in dyeing her own yarn started years ago, as she began searching for sources of all-natural dyes for yarns. In doing her research, she stumbled upon historical references about what early American’s used to dye fabrics in New England, but found that not much had been written about which Texas plants were best suited for use in dyeing.
So, Thomas started researching Texas-specific plants used for dyeing and found some documents from the 1930s, where Native American women were interviewed about what plants they used for fabric dyeing. This ignited an interest in experimenting with Texas plants and trees and seeing what would happen.
Thomas was surprised by what she found when she started dabbling in using wildflower and tree bark dyes.
“The funny thing is, you can’t tell by looking at a plant what color it will give you. It’s a lot of trial and error and it will fool you every time!”
For instance, Thomas gets a beautiful green color from Brown-Eyed Susan flowers; the color purple comes from sawdust; and rosemary can yield a yellow color. To put even more of a spin on this process, Thomas explains that the climate can impact the color that each plant yields, so year after year, you might end up with a whole range of colors, derived from the same type of plant.
Another interesting, naturally derived source for Thomas’ dye is a bug that you’ve probably noticed on the prickly pear cacti that dot the Texas Hill Country landscape. Have you ever seen the little, white fuzzy balls on the prickly pear? Those are actually insects called cochineals. Once rendered down, the cochineal creates a vivid red color that indigenous people used for dyeing their fabrics. In many of the Native American tribes who lived in Texas, the highest-ranking people wore clothing with the most beautiful colors, so the red dye from the cochineal was very important and used often. Oh, and the cochineal insect is also a source for red food coloring, so you’ve likely eaten the little critters, too. Gulp.
While Thomas has spent years researching and experimenting with her dyed yarns, she really got an education on the subject when she was asked to travel to Rwanda to help a mission that was trying to support itself selling dyed yarn. The people working with this mission were purchasing expensive dyes and, consequently, not making much of a profit on the endeavour.
Enter Linda Thomas who taught them how to dye their own yarn, using plants and trees native to their homeland, and the mission’s yarn business took off.
“I had to take a crash-course in the plants of Rwanda and take this project on 100% in order to help.”
Since Thomas helped the Rwandan mission to embark on their own natural dyeing process, they have been able to greatly expand their selection and successfully support their village.
These days, Thomas dyes her yarn on her ranch, outside of New Braunfels, and even has an apprentice who is learning the ropes under her guidance. Alyson Basehore works with Thomas in the yarn shop and enjoys dabbling in yarn dyeing in her spare time.
“It’s a continuing exploration to see what colors we can get,” said Basehore.
Basehore explained that the naturally dyed yarns are selling well at Lucky Ewe because visitors come in and want something that is specific to the area and new.
Basehore is also trying her hand at “echo printing,” which uses leaves and flowers to “stamp” knitted pieces.
“There are not many people doing the natural dyeing or the echo printing commercially. It takes a lot of work. We call it ‘slow fashion’ because it takes awhile to create our pieces,” added Basehore.
And, it’s not just the dyes that are native to Texas in Thomas’ Wool Tree Farm yarn collection. The wool used for the yarn comes from a 7th generation Texas sheep farm. This allows the yarns to be designated as 100% from Texas, thus they’re one of the first yarns to get the esteemed “GO TEXAN” label.
Using wool from Texas sheep, coupled with the natural, Texas plant dyes, plus a local clothing designer who creates beautiful, wearable items from this yarn that are available at Lucky Ewe, equals a hyper-local product.
As Thomas adds, “Can you GET any more local than that?”
Probably not.
Explore More
To learn more about the wild-dyed yarn or the craft in general, visit the Lucky Ewe website or see it all in person at 647 S. Seguin Ave, New Braunfels, Texas.
(Be sure to tell them TheTexasWildflower.com sent ya!)
