Hearth & Field recently spoke with Mrs. Carla Hanson, a fiber artist and Texan. Mrs. Hanson, who is a mother of seven children, did not herself grow up knitting or weaving, but came to the craft as an adult. She tells us below about how she has found dyeing and spinning and weaving yarn, advising customers, and building craft-based friendships to be fulfilling ways to create beauty and to connect with other people and with the natural world.

Hearth & Field: Were you always interested in fiber arts?

Mrs. Carla Hanson: Not really. Although my mom tried to teach me to knit when I was growing up, it didn’t really click until much later. In about 2003, however, I decided out of the blue that I wanted to learn to weave. I really have no idea where the sudden interest in weaving came from, but my husband was very supportive, and we found our way to a wonderful shop. The owner, Anna Barry, suggested starting with a rigid heddle loom, which I did. Shortly after getting started with that, I thought I should learn to spin too.

I actually thought I would save money by spinning my own yarn, which in retrospect is really funny. I got an old spinning wheel and took some spinning lessons from Anna, and I really fell in love with spinning. It takes patience to learn (as do all the fiber arts), but once you get past the very beginning, it becomes so relaxing and peaceful and almost meditative. I especially love making highly textured art yarns from art batts. As I delved further into weaving and spinning, I sometimes wanted a color or combination of colors that I couldn’t find, so I started learning to dye yarn and fiber and found a new passion. I feel so very fortunate to have the opportunity to make a living doing what I love!

H&F: It’s surely a blessing to be able to make a living doing something you’re passionate about. So, that’s what you’ve done: after learning the craft, you started a small business. Can you tell us about it?

Mrs. Hanson: Gladly — I am the owner of Purple Lamb Fiber Arts, where I make and sell hand-dyed yarn for knitters, crocheters, and weavers as well as fiber for spinners and felters. Many of the colorways I make are inspired by the classics — art, literature, and music — as well as the beautiful world we live in. My husband and I have seven children (and we have been a homeschooling family for twenty-four years now!): my husband and some of the children help with Purple Lamb as their time and interests permit.

H&F: You mentioned colorways; that is not a word with which all our readers will be familiar. What does it mean, and why do so many of your skeins feature variegated colors? 

Mrs. Hanson: A colorway is the term for the color or colors and the arrangement of those colors on a skein of yarn. While I also have semi-solid colorways (one color with a little variation in the depth of shade), I do have lots of variegated colorways because they are so much fun! It’s a delight to see what colors will appear next as you knit or crochet or weave with variegated yarn.

H&F: And you said your colorways are often inspired by classic art and literature?

Mrs. Hanson: Yes. There’s so much room for creativity with variegated colorways. I have been a lover of great literature for as long as I can remember, and I have created many colorways based on great books. Characters from Homer’s Odyssey, The Lord of the Rings, and most of Jane Austen’s novels have found their way into my work. In each of those cases, I used color to portray characters or events from
the books.

H&F: There are several different ways to spin and dye yarn. Can you tell us which techniques you use and how they work? 

Mrs. Hanson: Right, I think there are as many different ways to spin and dye yarn as there are spinners and dyers.

H&F: Ah, so probably more than “several.”   

Mrs. Hanson: Yes. It’s worth mentioning though that while I did start my business selling handspun yarn, I rarely sell handspun yarn anymore. While I still love to spin, the focus of my business for the past many years has been dyeing soft, natural, millspun yarn as well as making art batts for other spinners to spin.

I dye protein fibers such as merino wool, silk, baby alpaca, and other very soft fibers. To do that I use what are called acid dyes. That just means the pH of the water or dye mixture has to be mildly acidic for the dye to form a bond with the yarn or fiber. I use citric acid to lower the pH. The dyes also require heat, and I use steamers like the ones caterers use to supply the heat. Beyond that, the techniques depend on the goal for a particular colorway.

Some of the techniques I use are common among indie dyers and others are techniques I have developed myself to achieve a particular look or style of yarn.

If I’m dyeing a semi-solid colorway, I place the yarn in a bath of water with the dye and slowly heat up the water, dye, and yarn together. If I’m dyeing a variegated or multi-colored yarn, the amount of water and how I add the dye to the yarn vary depending on whether I want to keep the colors separate or allow them to blend. I keep careful track of my dye “recipes” so I can recreate the same colorways again and again. In spite of that, no two skeins will ever be identical, which is one of the things I love about hand-dyed yarn.

H&F: How does hand-dyed wool differ from other wool? What makes it worth the effort?

Mrs. Hanson: Well, if the comparison is between mass-produced acrylic yarn and hand-dyed yarn, the difference is huge. Natural fibers such as sheep’s wool, alpaca, and silk are so much nicer to wear than something made of acrylic. Acrylic is a petroleum product. Isn’t that crazy? It isn’t warm, it doesn’t breathe, and it isn’t very soft. It will probably last forever but not in a good way.

Wool, on the other hand, is warm and cozy and extremely renewable. So long as you choose a fine wool (maybe Merino or Polwarth), it’s also very soft! Alpaca is even warmer than sheep’s wool because each strand is hollow, so that makes it even more insulating. Silk is amazing for summer and incredibly soft as well. And of course, you can get the best of all the different properties of each fiber by combining different fiber types.

Even when we’re talking about hand-dyed merino wool yarn versus machine-dyed merino wool yarn, I have found that the yarn I use is softer than a lot of commercially-dyed yarn. A lot of it comes down to the micron count.

H&F: Could you explain what micron count is?

Mrs. Hanson: The micron count is a measurement of the thickness of each individual strand of wool. That’s not the only thing that affects softness, but it is certainly one of the main criteria. That itchy sweater you had as a kid was probably made from higher micron wool, having a micron count of thirty or above. That kind of wool certainly has a place in the world. It’s sturdy and strong and great for outerwear and beautiful rugs. My focus, though, is on the really soft stuff: fiber you want next to your skin. Merino has a range between fourteen microns and twenty-four microns with most of it falling between twenty-one and twenty-three microns. While some of my yarn bases use twenty-one micron merino, most of them are a little lower and softer — in the nineteen micron range.

H&F: There are many different ways to source wool: from different breeds of sheep, of course, but also from sheep farmers with radically differing approaches to raising animals. What do you look for?

Mrs. Hanson: I look for two things: really soft wool and animals that are treated well. There’s a place for every breed of sheep, but as I mentioned before my focus is on the really soft stuff you want next to your skin, and only a small number of breeds meet that requirement. The ones that come to mind are Merino, Polwarth, Rambouillet, Cormo, and BFL. Of those my favorites are merino and Polwarth. Merino has the greatest softness, and Polwarth has wonderful bounce and a longer staple length. That’s the one I always recommend to new spinners. As for the sheep, I want to know that they are well cared for with enough space to be healthy and happy.

H&F: What else is special about hand-dyed yarn?

Mrs. Hanson: Just as important as the quality of the materials is the creative aspect of hand-dyed yarn. I like to think of a skein of undyed yarn as the canvas on which I work. Each skein is a little different even when several skeins are dyed together. That is the nature of anything handmade, and that’s what makes it really special.