So, What’s It Like to Start/Run A Business???
The past few weeks have been very interesting. I decided to open an online yarn shop featuring my own hand dyed yarn. I got some yarn, dyed it, took pictures of it and opened up my shop. Great. Now, how do I get people to check out my site. Being that I have started this with approximately three nickels and two dimes, purchasing ad space in knitting magazines is not an option. Friends and family did an excellent job at helping get the word out about SpinningYarnsOnline.com. I then tested the kindness and generosity of the knitting community, specifically the Knit Bloggers. I sent an email to many of the wonderful knit bloggers that I read daily. As I suspected, quite a few were willing to check out my yarn and post about it if they liked what they saw and felt. (You gotta feel the yarn to love the yarn!) SpinningYarnsOnline.com yarn was featured in FluffyKnitterDeb’s blog. Here is Deb’s mention:
Here’s another kind of pool…
Carolyn is starting a new online shop called SpinningYarnsOnline.com. She spins and hand dyes her own yarn plus has cute bags and accessories. She contacted me to try some of her yarn…
Meet Pool…
I haven’t swatched with it yet but I can say it’s super soft and the colors are vibrant and rich! It’s 100% superwash merino fingering weight and I can’t wait to knit some socks with it! Go pay Carolyn a visit, you wont be sorry 
——————————————————————————————————
Then came the wonderful review from Jillian, better known as Sknitty. Here is a bit of her post:
Her handdyed yarns come as 100g skeins of superwash merino, approximately 540 yards in the fingering weight skein. The yarn is a 2-ply with a medium twist, on the fine side of fingering. It is cottony soft to the touch in the skein. I had no trouble winding it with a swift and winder and I found no knots. I worked up a stockinette swatch and a garter rib swatch on US1 Options needles. Here they are after a quick steam:
I have to say I am not accustomed to using US1, usually US2 is abut as small as I go. Even with the sharp Options tips, I had no trouble with snagging. I found the stitches to be even and without a noticeable slant. I also noticed that the ribbing was very even without twisting any stitches. The stockinette swatch was 42 stitches wide, BTW.
I then soaked the swatches in a warm bath with Soak for about 20 minutes. There was barely the faintest trace of color loss in the water, which surprised me for such saturated colors.
After the soak, the stitches plumped up a tad and the overall fabric became flatter and even more even.
To the touch the fabric is crisper than in the skein. Still very soft, soft enough for the feet certainly, but not so much that you fear they will pill and wear out in short order. I took to deliberately rubbing the stockinette swatch periodically the last few days as it sat on my desk, and there is no evidence of wear at all.
All in all, a thoroughly positive experience (and Carolyn was a sweetheart too)!
You may notice I didn’t report on gauge or dyeing/color.
Gauge is such a personal issue. Each person’s individual knitting style and preference for the density of their knitted fabric widely influences what resulting needle size and gauge would be found appropriate. I can say, thinking I am a quite middle of the road knitter (not too tight not too loose), that this would be a good fabric for socks and it would even be OK to comfortably go down a needle for even firmer fabric.
As to color, also a highly personal issue. Some knitters just don’t like variegated yarns, and that’s great! If you do, I feel Carolyn has a strong eye for color. Her colorways are bold and mix unusual shades without becoming muddy.
—————————————————————————————————–
We also were mentioned by Star in her blog Keep on Knitting in the Free World. She also checked out the Mulberry Bush colorway. Here’s her post:
Mulberry daydream
It’s one of those days when you just want to look at a pretty hand painted yarn and imagine what it will become…
I’d like to take a minute to introduce you to a brand new fingering yarn from Spinning Yarns Online - a site I believe is only a few weeks old.
Yes! New! Yarn!
Carolyn hand dyes all of the yarn there and spins some too. I don’t think you can get this stuff anywhere else. Starting to sound interesting?
The yarn here is called Mulberry bush and I can’t yet decide if they will be socks or a scarf or… well I think I better knit a swatch first. Let inspiration strike.
Yeah so, look for a more comprehensive review after I actually start knitting with the stuff. But early reports indicate vibrant color and soft 100% superwash merino to be sweet. And the texture reminds me of Koigu.
——————————————————————————————————
Notice that Star says the texture of SpinningYarns fingering reminds her of Koigu. Bestill my heart!!
To make starting a business even more fun and adventurous, two days before my kids were to start school, I decided to ever so gracefully fall down the steps and totally mess up my ankle. A trip to the emergency room, an orthopedist and physical therapist later, I found myself wearing a big, ugly black boot that prevented me from driving, walking and basically functioning like a normal mom/yarn dyer/new knitting shop owner/person. I relied on some really great friends to get my kids (and me) where they (I) needed to be.
So, what’s it like to start/run a business? Well, it’s been fun and frustrating and scary and empowering and scary. Now it’s your turn to get involved. I want to hear what colorways you would like to see. I started this with twelve colorways. Send in comments with color suggestions. I’ll dye up samples and post them here. With your input I can provide yarns in colors that appeal to everyone.
