Vegetally dyed yarns in summer colors and wonderful rugs at R.B. Burnham and Co. Trading in Sanders, AZ. Please click for a larger view.

Sanders, AZ I put together the photo collage above as part of an update that I was doing for the  R.B. Burnham & Co. web site and I thought you might enjoy seeing some of the rugs that they have in their gallery as well as the summer crop of vegetally dyed yarns by Marie Begay.  Marie guards her dye recipes as a trade secret and frequently mixes colors from different plants together to achieve the hues that she is after.    She also overdyes gray and heather naturals to get some of her deeper shades and some of the colors soak for days before Marie is happy with the results.  The yarns are custom spun for Navajo weaving and I find that I get better design definition from them than from other types of commercial yarn.   The yarns sell for $9 per 4 oz. skein and come in a worsted (#1) weight and a sport (#2) weight.   Burnham’s also has natural and aniline colors of the same yarns at $5.50 per skein.

The rugs in the center of the collage are by Spider Rock Girls Rose Yazzie (right, Burntwater), Emily Malone (center, Burntwater Teec Nos Pos) and Lavera Blake (left, Burntwater).   You can see more of their weaving at their web site.   The other pictures in the collage show scenes from the trading post and you can see rugs by Mae Clark and Maybelle Begay at the upper right center.

Burnham’s is located just south of I-40 at the U.S. 191 South exit and has an online store for wool purchases, although it’s probably better to call them (928-688-2777) for specific colors of vegetal yarn.  You can see why I stop by so often to update their pictures!

Hag0shíí (so long for now)

Mary Walker