Amelia Evans-Brown from Highland Mountain Farm in Milton, NH, is very passionate about her family’s business, especially when it comes to her 27 Suffolk sheep. Not only does Amelia enjoy shearing, washing and dyeing her own sheep’s wool, she enjoys teaching others to do the same. She teaches wool classes for free at her farm as she believes “everybody should know how to do things with wool.”
After shearing her sheep, Amelia washes the wool and lays it out for two and a half weeks to dry completely. In terms of dyeing the wool, there are multiple methods you could use, but Amelia prefers soaking or overnight soaking.
With these two methods, she boils the water to get it to the perfect temperature, dunks the wool in to completely soak it, and then adds an ingredient to give her the desired color. It’s important to dunk the wool before adding the coloring ingredient so the pores in the wool open to let the dye in.
Amelia enjoys using natural dyes to color her wool, such as grass, beets, avocado, turmeric, copper pennies and more! Avocados, believe or not, can be used to make the wool pink, and blueberries can make the wool a dark purple.
There are a few colors that are really hard to get naturally, such as vibrant greens and blues. Elderberry can make yellow, rosemary can make a yellow/green or a forest and dark black/green and turmeric can make a yellow to dark brown.
There are some additives you can use to control the brightness of your color, such as baking soda, apple cider vinegar and salt. Baking soda helps to brighten the color of the wool, whereas salt makes the color dimmer. Salt must be used in moderation, however, because it can break down the structure of the wool.
Amelia is open to teaching anyone interested in dyeing wool, but remember that “not all wool’s the same.” The product will turn out differently depending on the breed of sheep you have.
As Amelia put it, “If you want thick wool, I’m your girl.”
For more information on Highland Mountain Farm, and to get into contact with Amelia, visit highlandmountainfarm.com.
