Four Directions Weaving is a sheep farm and weaving studio located in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of northern New York .  We raise a rare breed of sheep called Lincoln Longwool, well known for their beautifully lustrous wool that when used with natural dyes, seems to shine with life.  The sheep are both white and an array of natural silvers and charcoals, some that are spun in their natural color and others that are overdyed with natural plant extracts to give subtle variations of color.  Because these plant extracts vary from year to year depending on the amount of sun and rain they receive, the dyebaths are always unique.  This is both the challenge and joy of natural dyes.  I choose to use natural dyes not only for this uniqueness but also for its incredible history as well as for its earth-friendly sustainability.

    The sheep are shorn hopefully before lambing (little lambs often like to perch on their mothers’ backs, making the wool quite messy!) in March or April.  Since all our electricity for our home and studio comes from a windmill (anAWP) and solar panels, and spring is usually both sunny and windy, this is the ideal time to wash all those fleeces to prepare them for the dyepot.  Although I sometimes spin my wool into yarn before dyeing, I generally prefer to “dye in the wool”.  When I dye this way, I will have 3 – 4 dyepots going at once so I can start with a yellow from Osage orange and than dip it into a madder root dyebath to yield various shades of salmons and peach or an indigo bath to get shades of green.

    After the dyeing , the best of the Lincoln locks are put aside for the “Wild &Wooly “ fleece rugs and the rest is run through an electric carding machine to prepare the wool for spinning.  I do a lot of color blending at this time to increase my palette of colors.  The yarn is then generally handspun into a medium weight single ply yarn or a heavy weight rug yarn.