Two years ago, Jule Kebelmann and her husband, Matthias, were driving to meet their realtor for a house-showing in rural Brandenburg, Germany when they got the news: the house had been sold. With the impending end of their lease in Berlin drawing closer, the couple were disheartened. They needed a home where their two young kids could explore and play freely, and where Jule could grow her hand-dyed yarn business, Hey Mama Wolf.
When he got off the phone with the realtor, Matthias started scouring a map of Brandenburg for ideas. He noticed a nature sanctuary and suggested they take a walk. When they got there, the two strolled around the area and stumbled upon their future home—a 13th century watermill once used for making flour in Prignitz, Germany.
Today, the building that once contained the watermill’s wheel serves as Jule's studio. She and her family live on the property in a farmhouse built about 250 years ago. Within 30 feet of the buildings, there are two barns and a chicken coop. She uses one barn for storage and rents the other to a carpenter.
Unlike her old studio in Berlin, the new pastoral setting gives Jule the space to cultivate an unlimited number of plants. “I love that now I can go outside whenever I want to, and really explore and get to know the plants very well,” says Jule. She creates all of the hues found in her yarns using plants and flowers harvested from her "dye garden" behind the storage barn.
Moving to the new space has also improved Jule's work-life balance. Before focusing on her yarn business full time, Jule worked in the city designing costumes for major films. But her job’s long hours made it difficult to raise her two young children. Running her own business gives her the freedom to work from home, keep flexible hours, and spend more time with her family.
Jule dedicates the basement to her dyeing process and the ground floor to her “dry studio.” In the dry studio, large, white-trimmed windows shower Jule in bright sunlight. The soothing sound of fresh springs flowing into a nearby creek drift through the space, and she can hear gentle chirps from birds singing in the woods. She can peek outside at cows grazing on a neighboring meadow, chickens clucking about their coop, cats roaming in the yard, and insects buzzing among her plants. There, she reskeins—or rewinds—the yarn, packages orders, and photographs her items. She also works at her computer, answering emails and adding listings to her shop.
When Jule descends into her studio's vast, 3,000-square-foot basement (she uses only about 20% of the space), the air is thick and filled with a mix of fragrances from her garden. Her organic wool yarn soaks in vats of hot water to absorb vibrant flowers like hollyhock, indigo, and St. John’s-wort. She keeps the windows propped open to combat the humidity and help illuminate the underground space.
A crucial step of Jule’s dyeing process is mordanting the yarn. Mordants are fixatives that help the yarn absorb the dye, and Jule soaks her yarn in them before and after dyeing the yarn. She prefers to pre-mordant with a metal salt called alum. She soaks the yarn in water, adds the alum, boils the water, lets the yarn cool, and washes it. Next she boils her fresh or dried plants from her garden, then strains the plant matter out of the water. She then adds the dye she’s created from the plants to the vat of mordanted yarn, boils it again, washes it, and typically applies copper or iron vinegar to the yarn as a final step. She reskeins the yarn in her dry studio if necessary.
One thing that entices Jule about dyeing with plants is the smell. “I always look forward to dyeing with certain plants because they smell so good when they’re cooked,” she says. “I would love to smell like birch bark all the time. I’d buy a perfume of it!” But perhaps the most thrilling (and also challenging) part of Jule’s process is the unpredictability. Even when she follows a dye recipe carefully, she finds her results are very different with certain plants. For example, St. John's-wort is one of her favorite plants to work with because it can produce dyes ranging from maroon to bright green.
The seemingly endless possibilities excite Jule, each new dye another opportunity to learn more about her flowers and plants. She also enjoys experimenting with various mordants and types of water in her dyeing recipes to achieve different color shades from her plants. In Prignitz, the water is "soft" which means that it's high in iron and dulls Jule's plant dyes. “That’s why I also collect rainwater, which makes brighter colors, so I get different colors from different waters," says Jule.
Hey Mama Wolf has thrived in its new environment. Jule is producing more yarn faster, thanks to the watermill’s spacious farm buildings. Her family is happier, too—the kids spend more time outdoors and the couple are raising chickens and growing vegetables in their own backyard. Though Jule left behind the thrilling energy of the city, she feels more fulfilled than ever bringing life and purpose to her new home and her creative business.
Check out Hey Mama Wolf to see Jule’s organic yarns. To pitch your space for the Inspiring Workspaces series, fill out the Seller Handbook pitch form. How is your work inspired by your environment? Let us know in the comments below.
Words by Tess Duncan
Tess Duncan is an editor for Etsy's Seller Handbook. She enjoys taking 35mm photos, admiring long Furbies, and staying up too late. She's never met a chocolate chess pie she didn't like.
