Leanne here; Maker, Artist, Nature Lover, Animal Advocate, Gardener, Cyclist, …and Mom to four kiddos who, along with my partner, are simply and wonderfully my life.
Though educated as a chemist another lifetime ago, I've spent the past 20+ years as a homeschool and private school teacher to my kids and to those in our community. I've taught many subjects but focussed on math, science, and art, including the fiber arts. Teaching kids with fiber is such a joy. They dive in with open hearts because they already know the peace and empowerment that comes from creating with your own hands.
I used to credit my love of fiber art to my knitting journey which began a few years before starting a family. I picked up a Vogue Knitting book - yes, before Youtube tutorials! - and taught myself the basics. I was instantly hooked.
In reality though, I think my fiber obsession began much earlier with childhood crossstitch and embroidery kits, hand-sewing projects, that awesome circular knitting machine for making Barbie tube dresses - remember those? - and some epic string art projects with my grandfather.
I no longer teach much which has freed up my time to dive into some new fiber passions like spinning and weaving. Creating colour through the dyeing process is my biggest passion at the moment. Dyeing allows me to be an artist with a physical, practical output that I can share with you all.
It started with Pantone 342. Every dyer’s journey is unique but there’s probably some commonality in the search for a specific colour. For me, it was Pantone 342, a green I could not find anywhere.
My husband suggested I make it myself. What??? Huh. Yeah, I could try that! My first attempts did not go well. I used the wrong dyes, the wrong parameters, and had some washed-out, barely green, quite sad-looking yarn. But I tried again and again with some different dyes and some different parameters until I had success. By this time, I was hooked, success or not.
Where are we now? I’m very much still learning, not just the nuances of dyeing, but also my limits and how to maintain joy. Currently, there’s no rhyme or reason to my colourways. I’m following where my inspiration leads me. I do love to make collections though, not just of colours but of coordinating yarns and fiber. It’s joyful to imagine all the posibilities of a colourway.
Where are we going? Who knows! What I would love to be able to say about Huespun some day is that we worked with local shepherds and contributed in at least some small way to the revitalization movement of the local fiber industry (working on this) and to the growing slow fashion movement. I’d love to be able to say our passion was contagious and our colours well received and well used. I’d love to expand our natural dyeing experiments and have a large selection of environmentally sound, naturally dyed products. And I’d love for our kids to see their Mom doing something a little scary and new and hopefully rocking it. :)
My very first dye attempt was less than successful
Eventually I landed on a colour I was happy with
Pantone 342 college colours for a sweet girl headed to NY
First dip dye experiment - too much dye but that depth!
First time dyeing combed top - still too much colour
First assigned pooling colourway inspired by lichen
Hanne Rimmen's Sailors Tee in the Lichen AP colourway
Some first rolag snails - a fiber prep I wish I'd met years ago
From rolags to mitts - using handspun to learn from it