Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Day 25: Dyers In Their Studios: Sabrina of Anzula

Sabrina (left) and her Team (with ABC interviewer in pink)
To tie in with my Month of Blogging about Reversible Color Crochet, this month's Hooked On Hand Dyed Profile is about Sabrina Famellos of Anzula Luxury Fibers. I got to use Anzula's For Better or Worsted yarn for the Clouds Removed afghan, one of two hand dyed yarns I got to feature in my book.

I met Sabrina at my first TNNA, and was thrilled to discover that she is a crocheter! Unlike most of the dyers I have interviewed, Sabrina's business has grown so much that she works with a whole team of helpers! So I am excited to have her share her experiences and inspiration...
 
Background
• How long have you been dyeing yarn?
I started dyeing fiber in 2005 to spin and sell at farmer's markets. I started dyeing full-time in 2009.
• How did you get started dyeing?
It grew from my love of crochet. I was crocheting accessories, and spinning yarn. In the early days of social media, I met some fiber friends on Tribe and we got together one weekend and learned to dye.
• What is your background?
Massage therapy and teaching massage.
• Do you have any special experience with art or science that influences you dyeing? 
Only youthful experimentation.
Your Yarn
• What makes your yarn special or unique?
We choose luxurious and unique bases to ensure an incredible product.
• What is something interesting about your dying process that non-dyers might not know?
Our yarn is really labor intensive. Everyone in the warehouse is involved with each skein – someone has to mix the dye, then someone else dyes the yarn, someone else rinses it, it has to be flipped while drying and harvested after drying, someone else reskeins it, someone else labels it, and someone else ships it.
• How do you choose your colors and name your yarns?
New colorways come from experimentation – I could be trying to create a certain color that inspired me, or I could just have a recipe I want to try and see what happens.
• Where do you find inspiration?
Everywhere! Sometimes new colorways or blends literally come to me in a dream. A lot of times ideas come from traveling and seeing new places and things.
 
Just The Facts
• How many colorways do you have?
Almost 100.
• Do you create seasonal or special order colors?
We do create custom, exclusive colorways for shops – Minty Unicorn for the Yarnover Truck, for example.
• How many and what types of bases do you use?
We have 14 bases right now. When choosing our bases we are concerned with luxury, uncommon blends, and quality.
• Where do your yarn bases come from?
We source all of our yarn from mills in North America.
• Where can we find your yarn? LYSs and online?
We are in LYSs across North America and a growing number of shops in Europe. Several of our shops do sell online.

Your Team
• How has your business grown in recent years?
We are continuously growing, in all aspects of the business. We are adding more dye pots; we recently added another reskeiner. Some areas of the business (like labeling) that used to require only part of a person's work day, now take a full-time employee.
• How many employees work for you now?
We are a team of eleven.
• How does working with other dyers influence your work?
Right now, we don't work with any other dyers, but we are always open to collaboration. We do use each other as sounding boards. We all have different experiences in our industry and we seek out counsel in each other.
• How did you use your Indiegogo Campaign to improve production?
We were thrilled by the support we received through the campaign. Unfortunately, the logistics of putting a/c in our current building didn't work out, for a lot of reasons. The good news is that we are using that money to put an air conditioner in a new building! When the temperature rises next summer, we'll be ready thanks to all of the support we received.

Personal
• What are your favorite colors?
I love the rainbow, which is probably why we will be ever expanding our colorways.
• Favorite fibers?
I just love yak. BFL, silk, camel
• Do you crochet, knit, or spin? What came first?
Crocheting came first, then spinning soon after I was dyeing. I also knit and weave.
• Anything else you would like to share?
I think we pretty well covered everything

Link Up
• Website? www.anzula.com
• Ravelry Group? http://www.ravelry.com/groups/anzula
• Facebook? https://www.facebook.com/AnzulaYarns
• Twitter? https://twitter.com/Anzula

We are also active on Instagram (http://instagram.com/anzulaluxuryfibers) and Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/anzulayarns/).
 

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