About

I am a weaver and designer of knitwear and handwovens. With a concurrent careers in graphic design, leaded glass and fiber arts, my guiding passion has always been working with color. I've been dyeing yarns for over 20 years, mostly wools using acid dyes. I now exclusively use Lanaset dyes for wool and other animal fibers. Lanaset dyes have many advantages over "standard" acid dyes in terms of colorfastness and lightfastness. I've expanded my practice over that last few years to include working with "bast" fibers — cotton, linen, rayons and tencel. I use professional Procion dyes with these fibers for intense, gorgeous colorways.

I specialize in pre-wound, handpainted warps for weavers in a number of high quality base yarns, as well as original handwoven textiles for the home + wearable items.

You can find my work at Etsy (as Pocket Meadow Farm, the name of my former farm and yarn shop in Berkeley Springs, WV). I am very active on Ravelry as pocketmeadowfarm. My knitting website and blog is Pocket Meadow Farm Fiber Arts.

What base yarns are available in handdyed warps and companion skeins?

• Cottons; unmercerized, 3/2, 5/2, 6/2, 8/2 and its equivalent 16/4, 8/4 and 10/2 are most often available. Mercerized cottons are available in 3/2, 5/2, 10/2 and 20/2. I use mostly RS (ring spun) high quality cottons. More information for weavers is available on my blog; I've compiled a sett chart for your reference. • Tencel, 3/2, 5/2, 6/2, 8/2, 10/2 and 20/2. Sett chart will be added to my blog soon. • Rayons and blends, availability changes often. I'm working on designing textured warps using slub, loop, seed and boucle base yarns together. • Wool and wool blends; I am working on finding a source for lightweight 4ply superwash wools suitable for weaving at fine setts. Currently, I have wools suitable for rigid heddle weaving (and knitting), and sock and lace weight base yarns. • Wool rug yarns and tapestry yarns. A variety of sizes are available, from 352 yards per pound to 1040 yards per pound. Most of what I have in stock is 1040 ypp. • Silk; I do not dye 100% silk at this time. This is mostly due to the expense of the base yarns in the mill cone sizes.
Can you tell me about dyes used in your work?

Wool and wool blend yarns: Lanaset dyes. For technical information, see this page. I have chosen these dyes based on their excellent colorfast and lightfast properties. They are washfast in high temperatures, which is especially important in my work with felted woven rugs. Most acid dyes will wash out or bleed at 140º. The Lanaset dyes are more complicated to use than standard acid dyes, but the results are well worth it. Cotton, rayon, tencel, linen: professional grade Procion fiber reactive dyes. These come in a very wide range of mixed colors; I tend to use a smaller range of primary colors and mix shades as needed. I will continue blogging about dyeing, with formulas and detailed working methods.
Is custom work available?

Absolutely! If you need a color range to match your existing interior design palette, please contact me to discuss. It's best to work from physical samples (paint swatches, fabrics, etc.). I am happy to work with interior design professionals as well.
Where can I purchase handdyed warps and skeins? What about sales tax?

All of the work shown here is available in my Etsy store. I am using Etsy as a primary venue due to changes in sales tax collection laws that require filing tax reports in every state in which a sale is made. Sales tax compliance was made much more complex about a decade ago when states realized that they were not benefiting from online sales at Amazon, and changes were made to necessitate tax collection on most in-state and out-of-state sales from online businesses. Further reading on this topic. Etsy automates this process and makes all reports. It's in the background and frees up my time to do more creative work. I'm hoping to resume doing regional and national shows starting this summer (2023). Dates will be posted on my blog and on Facebook.
Shipping

I use USPS Priority Mail for most small packages, such as warps and skeins. UPS is also an option and can be, in some cases, less expensive. I subsidize a portion of the shipping costs and use flat rates for most items sold on Etsy (for example, the real cost to ship a small package with Priority Mail is $9.00; I have set Etsy to bill this at $6.00). Larger items, or very heavy/bulky packages that will not fit in a Priority Mail box are calculated at actual cost.