Local Yarn Store, A Verb For Keeping Warm and Dye Garden

A visit to a local yarn store (LYS) is always a treat and when the store has really nice product it is even more of a treat. The voyage started meeting one of my best knitting buddies Warren in the morning for a delightful lunch with another knitting friend, Annie. Annie joined us to solicit Warren for help  with button holes. After our lunch Annie went home to work on taxes and Warren and I headed over the Richmond San Rafael Bridge to visit A Verb For Keeping Warm in Oakland, CA. I had been to the store one other time but don’t remember being as mesmerized with the yarn as I was today.

All the yarns in the store are high quality natural fibers. I was literally drooling over almost all of their yarns.  They are expert dyers have their own yarns and  fibre selling them with their label “A Verb for Keeping Warm”.  In the back patio there is a “dyers garden” where you will find freshly dyed yarns hanging to dry and a garden with natural dye plants. I will begin with pictures of the inside of the store and move to the back patio.

My apologies for not providing the names of the yarn manufacturers for each picture. My goal is to represent the vast and deep color array offered. Warren was a wealth of knowledge about all the yarns as we browsed the store.



Then I stumbled upon the back patio where a women was potting plants and we spoke briefly. She explained the plants and how the color indigo comes from the leaf of the indigo plant, Indigofera tinctoria. To obtain red dye the root of the plant Madder is used which was growing in the same planter box as the indigo . The Madder takes three years before the roots are ready to be processed into a dye. Lastly she told me about a plant that creates yellow dye Weld or Yarrow where the blossom is used. I thought that was interesting; leaf for blue, root for red and blossom for yellow.

This planter has two types of indigo and the plant in the forefront is Madder for a red dye Indigofera tinctoria Polygonum tinctotia Indigo Plant Freshly dyed yarn hanging to dry.

This is a beautiful store and if you have the chance to visit or take a class I highly recommend it. They are a great resource for the community. Which I forgot to mention in another corner there was a gentlemen teaching spinning to a group of about 5 students. Yarn is not their only thing they also have stunning fabrics for quilting.

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2 Responses to Local Yarn Store, A Verb For Keeping Warm and Dye Garden

  1. Kristine April 18, 2012 at 10:38 PM #

    Thanks for coming to Verb! It means a lot to us 🙂 See you soon!

    • Toni April 19, 2012 at 8:15 AM #

      Krisitine thanks for commenting I am hoping to take the felting class the end of this month. So you may be seeing me sooner rather than later.