Knitting sustainably

Hello folks, and welcome to this week's blog post! We've talked a lot over the past few months about sustainable yarn. We've shared a ton of information and looked at a lot of different topics, and it's been a learning curve for us all. While it's super interesting to explore these subjects here on the blog, putting all of that information into real-life practice can be pretty overwhelming.

'Green', 'Eco-friendly', 'Recyclable', ‚'Natural'; these just some of the words you might come across when trying to shop sustainably, and they can be great indicators of an earth-friendly product. But what about when businesses use them as a marketing tool, attaching them to a not-so-sustainable item to sell more? When a company is more interested in putting their money into marketing their products as 'green' instead of doing the actual work to make them so? This is greenwashing.

Back in 2015, way before Making Stories was even a thought on the horizon, I went into a yarn shop in San Francisco where I was visiting my partner and, looking for something that was locally made, picked up a cake of Twirl Yarn. It was one of the most gorgeous yarns that I had ever seen, and it sat in my stash for a good long while (it takes time to find the right project for a precious skein, am I right?) before I eventually transformed it into one a hat.

Hiya lovelies! After a little bit of a hiatus and last week's revision of our cruelty-free yarn blog post, we're back to our regular blogging schedule! We have lots of exciting articles planned for the next few months - hello non-superwash indie dyer roundup, hello deep dives into natural and acid dyeing and sustainability! - and we thought we'd start of the fall season with something that'll hopefully come in handy in the next few months: a little guide to sustainable yarn shopping.

Last week, we shared Karida Collins' (Neighborhood Fiber Co.) perspective on dyeing and selling superwash and non-superwash yarns in our 'Indie Dyer Perspective' series on superwash - and this week I'm thrilled to welcome another indie dyer I've admired for a long time to these virtual pages: Bethany Evans-Brown from Woolberry Fiber Co.!

Woolberry Fiber Co. is a completely family-owned and run yarn business: Bethany and her husband Rhys hand-dye all of their yarn while taking care of two little ones - and they just welcomed their first employee to Woolberry Fiber Co.!

Back in May, when we published our first two articles on superwash yarn where we explored why superwash yarn is not sustainable and looked for more sustainable superwash options we received quite a few comments over on Instagram asking 'But what about the indie dyers?'

It's true - a lot, if not most, indie dyers dye on superwash bases. Superwash yarn takes dye beautifully, and it's still very high in demand, so it doesn't come as a surprise that it constitutes a large portion of the indie dyed yarn market!