. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Today, I bring you a giveaway from SouleMama Sponsor, The Fibre Company. In their words:
"Kelbourne Woolens was created in 2008 as the distribution company for The Fibre Company yarns, but the two names are essentially interchangeable at this point, and we maintain both websites with identical content. The Fibre Company is a line of artisan yarns, carefully crafted with the highest standards of quality and craftsmanship. We currently offer 8 lines, and each color is kettle-dyed to create a subtle variation and depth of tone. We are wholesaler distributors of the Fibre Company yarn, so unfortunately don’t sell direct to the public, but we sell to local yarn shops (both online and brick and mortar). We create all the pattern support for the yarns and all the patterns are available online as .pdf downloads as well as in hard copies from LYSs. We also travel to yarn shops and teach advanced knitting techniques - historical and uncommon techniques are our particular favorite!"
Follow along with The Fibre Company on their blog!
SouleMama: Tell us about your background. What path led you to the work you do today?
Courtney: Kate and I both have degrees in weaving, and have always been avid hand knitters. Our love of yarns stems, originally, from our grandmothers to whom Vintage Modern Knits is dedicated. We both still weave, but found that as we were in school and then starting families that the portability of knitting became an important consideration! Weaving is sort of like being a writer—you end up shut up alone in your studio for hours at a time, which isn’t very conducive to having toddlers! The social aspect to knitting was a big incentive for us, and the online knitting community is incredibly active and inspiring. We are happy to be a small part of such a diverse and lively community of artists and crafters.
SouleMama: How do you come up with new designs and ideas?
Courtney: We’re always brainstorming and planning ahead new and unique pattern support, yarns and colors to add to the Fibre Company brand. Luckily, we appear to never have a shortage of design ideas – the hardest part is finding the time to see each individual project through to the end and making sure out idea translates into a beautiful and successful design. When creating new designs, we not only take into consideration what we want to knit, but also what yarns we want to help promote, what colors are “in” during the season of publication, and what knitting trends we see and want to explore. And finally, we’re always thinking about the properties of each yarn and make every effort to ensure that the pattern + stitch combination demonstrate the yarn’s individual properties to its best advantage.
SouleMama: What's your favorite part of your job? The most challenging?
Courtney: We both really like the new product development. It’s such an interesting blend of creativity and good business sense. We know what we think makes good yarn, and then we start down the path of pricing all the component materials, sourcing small amounts, spinning samples, testing and inevitably re-hashing the components over and over again until we get it perfect. Then we get to pick the colors, which is the best! On the flip side, the most challenging is balancing all the aspects of the business. While we’re having all that fun testing new yarns and colors there are orders that need to be shipped and phone calls that need to be made, but we also have to find time to work on patterns, the website and balance the books. Sometimes it can be overwhelming, but we always manage to pull it off!
SouleMama: Do you have a favorite inspirational quote?
Courtney: “Have nothing in your house that you don’t know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” --William Morris
For today's giveaway, The Fibre Company is generously offering the following to ONE winner:
~ 3 skeins of Canopy Fingering to knit one of our popular free baby sweater patterns, Lucille
(Canopy Fingering is a blend of merino wool, alpaca and bamboo and is a dream to knit with! We think it is a great baby yarn; we’ve used it a lot for designing baby items for our company and for our own kids. Lucille is a top down, eyelet-yoke cardigan with a leaf lace motif on the body and sleeves. A matching bonnet, complete with ribbon rosettes, is included in the pattern. The winner will receive a hard copy of the pattern and three skeins of yarn in the color of his or her choice.)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Thank you to The Fibre Company!
To enter today's giveaway, please leave a comment (one entry per person, please) in today's post. I'll close comments by 8am EST on Sunday, and announce the winner(s), chosen via Random Number Generator, shortly after. Comments closed! The winner is...
I love that green neck thing that she's wearing in the photo, and I further love that William Morris quote. Beautiful yarns :o)
Posted by: Melissa Nichols
