Today, we bring you a giveaway from SouleMama Sponsor, Kelbourne Woolens + The Fibre Company. In Courtney's words:
"Kelbourne Woolens is the distributor and design arm of The Fibre Company yarns. We create custom spun yarns which are then hand-dyed in a lovely array of tonal, natural colors. We design knitting and crochet patterns and also, recently, have begun making craft accessories.
We blog regularly. We also have an online shop where customers can purchase notions, books, patterns, mill ends and one-off dye samples. This is new territory for us, but we have been making and dyeing yarn now for so long that we're overrun with sample skeins! We're adding new things all the time, and it's been a fun work in progress.
Currently we are having a lot of fun on Instagram trying to spread the love of crochet with our little hashtag campaign #crochetsummer2014! We've been posting pictures of our crochet work, and encouraging others to post their crochet projects this summer to spread the love of the craft. We've been blogging about our favorite crochet designers and projects as well."
SouleMama: What inspires you?
Courtney: Honestly, I wish I knew. Most of the time I'll just be in the shower, or driving to the store and think, "Someone should..." or "It would be nice if..." and then I try a new thing.
Sometimes it's more obvious, like being in a special place, or seeing something or someone amazing. The Summer Dawn cowl was something I started working on when my partner, Kate, and I were teaching at Squam Art Workshops in June. I took two of my super-special-secret-stash skeins in my bag with me to make myself something completely selfish while we were there. I made this cowl, just free form designing, and got so many compliments on it that I decided I should do another version in our yarns. The timing was great to feature it on Soule Mama, in the hopes that we can encourage more love of crochet this summer! To be honest, this cowl was inspired not only by the laid back atmosphere of Squam, but of one of my crocheting icons, Cal Patch! She is the one who has really inspired the crochet mania in me!
SouleMama: What artists/crafters/teachers have inspired your life?
Courtney: I remember when I was a freshman in college, in my painting studio class. A lot of students wanted to paint in the sloppy, modernist or abstract style that was popular but our professor wouldn't allow it. He said that you could only learn to subvert your medium when you had first mastered it--and then commenced my year of painting stacks of white blocks and draped white fabrics. I will always remember the lesson from that class, though. To truly have "talent" you have to first earn mastery of your craft, and once you do that you can be as creative as you want.
SouleMama: Tell us what you envision and dream for the future of your business.
Courtney: The only thing I hope for is for us to continue enjoying what we do, and to continue to adapt to our needs and the needs of our crafting community. If we aren't having fun, then what are we doing?!
For today's giveaway, Kelbourne Woolens + The Fibre Company is generously offering the following gifts to ONE winner:
Readers can also purchase a kit for $25, which includes a copy of the pattern. We have 12 kits available in the color as shown.
The pattern alone can be purchased through Ravelry.
To enter today's giveaway, please leave a comment (one entry per person, please) in today's post. I'll close comments by 8:00 am EST on Monday, and announce the winner, chosen via Random Number Generator, shortly after. Comments closed! The winner is...
I have been knitting for less than a year. Crocheting a little for many years. But never with really nice yarn. It is time to change that. Thank you for sharing.
Posted by: Traci
Thank you, Kelbourne Woolens + The Fibre Company!