Hey Y'all, Anne here! Let's start with a little backstory...
Before I joined the team at QCY, I had my own brand of hand dyed yarns, fiber and hand-spun yarn that I operated on the side of my full time corporate job (which I hated btw). I vended an event here in Charlotte, that QCY also vended at, which is where I met Janis who adopted one of my hand-spun babies. A couple of weeks later Janis posted an announcement that she was looking for a full time assistant for QCY. So of course, I sent her an email and said "Hey! Remember me!! I'd love to play with yarn full time." Part of our discussions when I came on board was some of the fiber crafts I could bring to the table that QCY didn't already have in their portfolio, and QCY fiber and hand-spun was born!
I got my yarn addiction started by learning to knit (from YouTube videos) about 6 years ago. Once I was fully entrenched in all that yarn had to offer, I quickly picked up crochet and Tunisian crochet. By that point I was obsessed with hand-dyed yarn, so I had to try that too. So of course, the natural evolution would be to start making my own yarn, right!
I knew no one who spun or had a wheel so I quite literally just asked some IG friends who spun what a good newbie wheel was and bought one without ever having used one. It was a little bit of a scary leap since spinning wheels are quite expensive, so I was very determined that I was going to master it come hell or high water. It was a bit of a process like all crafts, finding the right kind of fiber and technique that worked for me but after about a year of continuous spinning I really felt comfortable with it and started selling the yarn I had made. I have since added to my small fleet of wheels and just can't get enough of the truly one of kind yarns I can make. It is such a fun rush to know that not only did I knit the sweater I was wearing, I dyed and made the yarn too! I still have a lot to learn when it comes to spinning but as a certified fiber nerd I am totally ok with that! Peep below to see some outtakes of the spinning process, and how our fiber becomes your QCY handspun yarn!
Just cooking up some Rainbow fiber for a hearty breakfast! (you may or may not see this fiber colorway soon, wink wink)
Once it dries, I finger crochet it into pretty little braids!
It gets spun into single ply yarn in my sunny dinning room office/studio. This wheel is my Schadt Matchless, which is my favorite!
And then after resting for awhile it gets plied with one or two of it's friends! This wheel is my Ashford Kiwi which I like for plying jumbo bobbins.
After resting some more (who knew yarn was so tired?), I wind it off the bobbin with my electric skein winder. My shoulder thanks me for not winding thousands of yarns of yarn on a niddy noddy. Then it gets a bath to set the twist and hung out to dry! I like to wash my hand-spun with Eucalan to add back some of the lanolin and make it extra soft.
Then it gets twisted and is ready for its glamour shot (once Lila moves out the way).
This is me in action at the show where I met Janis!
I hope you've enjoyed learning a little bit about me and now you know how yarn obsessed I really am! I can't wait to see what y'all make with these hand-spun babies, it truly is the best part!