I've loved working with Comfort Wool to create custom buttons for their custom orders and projects. I was so interested to hear how they began knitting and and thought I'd ask Teresa at Comfort Wool to share her story and how Comfort Wool was inspired here!
Comfort Wool
Fiber love started for me in 2004. I had just moved to Seattle with my partner. We knew no one. I was working days, he was working nights. I was commuting by bus every day and alone at nights, and decided I needed something to bide my time. After seeing some random people knitting around town, at coffee shops and the like, I decided I had to learn to knit. I'm a DIY type by nature, so I figured I could teach myself easy enough. I drove out to a Joann's one night, grabbed some Susan Bates aluminum needles, worsted weight acrylic yarn and a "teach yourself to knit" book that had to have had a copyright date from the 1950's. I got home and stared at the book like it was written in a foreign language. After several failed attempts, I was casting on.....then knitting. Looking back...trying to knit a scarf out of worsted weight, double stranded acrylic on US8 straight needles was a disaster of epic proportions.
Fast forward to 2005, my first child was born and all fiber crafting was abandoned. I wasn't really making anything buy squares and scarves anyhow. When I became pregnant again in 2007 with my daughter, so much had changed. I had began cloth diapering my son and ventured into the wonderful world of wool diaper covers. A knit soaker for my son was my first shaped project. A mild success!!! I haven't put down the needles since.
As I fell in love with all things wool, my new obsession led me to the world of Hyenacart, where I was introduced to some amazing hand painted yarns and fantastic indie-dyers. At the time, I was not working outside of the home and money was hard to come by. I decided to try my hand at dyeing yarns. I practiced with kool-aid and other food safe dyes as I researched other dyeing methods. I was dyeing more yarn then I could knit in my lifetime, so, I decided to try my hand at selling. My first stocking on Hyenacart was a sell out and I was hooked!
From there, I've expanded to selling not only my dyed yarns, but also hand crafted knitted garments, hand spun yarns and patterns. In 2009, a dear friend, who had previously been selling cloth diapers, began dyeing yarn as well. She had a natural eye for color. Her yarn was pure art. I asked her to come on board as a dyer under the name "Comfort Wool." She has been wildly successful and I have absolutely adored working with her over the last year.
I get most of my inspiration from my children. Watching their daily interactions with the world brings me great pleasure. I also love the challenge of trying to dye to match pictures, fabric and artwork, though. Blue is never just blue. Green is never just green. Nature and art are always shades of color and experience that I love to try and capture in my work.
For more information about Comfort Wool, visit us at any of the following. Feel free to leave comments for "follow" us on our blog.
- http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Richmond-VA/Comfort-Wool/115213935527
- http://www.hyenacart.com/ComfortWool/
- http://www.hyenacart.com/iCrave/
- http://www.comfortwool.blogspot.com/
Thank you for sharing your story with us Teresa!!
