For the love of colour
I've always been creative. My first love was writing and I had high hopes of growing up to be a writer - that might still happen (the writing part, I mean... I think I've well and truly missed the boat when it comes to growing up!), but to be honest, I've been too busy dyeing and generally just too busy with life to do much writing. If you had told me that one day I'd have a hobby to do with knitting and yarn, and that I would eventually turn that hobby into a little business, I might have called you crazy, or something similarly unflattering. But here we are. Like many dyers, I first started experimenting with yarn dyeing after getting into knitting as a hobby, and wanting to work with certain colours and colour combinations.
From my first attempts with a couple of balls of wool, a few bottles of food dye and some vinegar in early 2009, I was hooked on both the idea and the whole process of dyeing yarn. I soon moved onto proper acid dyes, and the vinegar has been replaced by citric acid - no more getting high on those vinegar fumes! ;-) I've been having fun experimenting with different dyeing methods, yarn bases and dye brands ever since. I'm a creature of habit in many ways, but when it comes to dyeing, I love variety and trying new things, and never quite knowing what is going to emerge from the dye pot. To this day, many of the colourways in my shop are one of a kind (although if you see an older colourway you like, I'm happy to attempt reproducing it, and can usually get pretty close).
I'm a bit of a colour nerd. I have always been fascinated by colours and the myriad ways you can combine them to tell a story. Even as a child, I never got tired of rearranging my pencils into colour palettes. I find a lot of inspiration all around me, and especially love experimenting with bright, bold and unusual colour combos - yarn is the perfect canvas for these experiments and it never gets boring.
I've become particularly taken with dyeing sock yarns as I love to knit socks - they are the perfect portable knitting project, don't take too long to complete (my attention span doesn't allow for large items), make great presents, and once you've mastered the basics, they are relatively easy to make, even though they look complicated. If you would like me to make socks for you, please get in touch - I love custom orders. :-) You can now find some of my socks for sale in my other Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/SpacefrogSocks
I live with chronic pain and some other health issues that plague me from time to time, and have had to take some lengthy breaks from dyeing because of them, but as you may have noticed, I will always bounce back - it's my life motto, pretty much!
Thank you for visiting my shop - I truly appreciate all the support I have received from my customers!
