Indie knit and spin would be a great place to…

ktb at cosymakes studio – photos theirs

drop off old acrylic you have no use for

knit or crochet a bit on one of the panels

wind yarn and eat snacks – donations go to knit the bridge for rigging costs (win. win. first, your money and labor goes to a community fiber arts project, ane then, after laundering, they’ll donate them.)

learn more about the project

Besides our awesome vendors, we also have some other small changes to the show this year.

The most exciting starts at 12:30, when another room on the same floor opens at the community center and we get extra space!

This room will be used for

1) yarn winding!

2) sitting, knitting, spinning, chatting etc.

3) snacking :)

4) knit the bridge will be there if you’d like to find out about it, knit/crochet with them, or drop off some yarn you no longer need

I hope you enjoy this change to the show and hang out for a bit!

name: Natasha
business name: Luxe Fiber Arts
website(s): Shop

What kind of items do you make?
Lots of hand dyed, handspun, handknitted and crocheted wearables, lots of them ecofriendly and vegan, as well as being rather a button hoarder and often button maker. I adore making crazy, creepy amigurumi (crocheted) softies and doing freeform crocheted belts and scarves. I don’t like following patterns much. I am a bit dyslexic, especially with numbers, so i prefer to go with the flow!

How long have you been in indie artist?
Since birth! No, really, I have never been so good at following direction. It has been a bit of a problem in my life. I went to college for sculpture. In my senior year of college, I opened a tattoo/piercing shop with 2 partners which I ran for 10 years. In the last several years of the business, I grew pretty unhappy being out of the fine art world and started having problems with carpal tunnel and Lupus, among other things. I was so miserable in my job and my health that I thought I needed to get back to my more artsy roots. So I did. But I guess, that was kind of indie, too, right?

What got you interested in your art of choice?
I always loved fiber pieces, and when I got into knitting, I was very disappointed by the available yarns out there, or when I found ones I really liked, they were not the colors I wanted, the fiber I wanted, or were insanely expensive. Of course, in reality, it probably is cheaper to buy it than to make it, but it is a wonderful thing to have just the thing you want. So now, I use a combination of both.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?
I can do it anywhere. It calms me down. It is wearable. It is something that “non-art” people like too. I still do fine art pieces as well, and crazy fiber pieces, but I enjoy doing simple wearable things just as much.

What most inspires you?
Texture, color, nature, other artists, everyday people, the amazing spirit that encourages every living thing to grow. That sounds really corny, but I see people and animals that have such a rough go of it, and are given the tiniest bit of sunlight or love to inspire them and they bounce right back. It makes you want to do better. To be better. To try to be there for someone or something that needs it.

What makes your creations unique?
Me, I guess. I am not the most detail oriented person, which makes me kind of an anomaly in the fiber world, so all of my pieces are always different from each other, like it or not!

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
I started making big circular wraps and button fringy neckwarmers years and years ago because I tend to feel choked by regular scarves and lose them or slam them in the car door. I love being able to pop a scarf in my pocket or purse and always having something I can put on or take off when I am hot/cold/hot/cold. I am also very funny about how things feel. I don’t use ANYTHING that isn’t really really really soft. I can’t even stand to knit with something that is the teeniest bit rough, let alone wear it. so don’t look for it in my shop! ha. No really. Because of my strange sensitivities, if I assure you that it is soft, it is SOFT.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
High quality yarns, fibers, eco-friendly, animal friendly and vegan options in really unique, wearable, comfortable designs.

Does being an indie fiber artist affect other aspects of your life?
There is yarn and fiber everywhere in my house, my car, my purse…everywhere. My husband knows what the smell of a dyepot on the stove smells like (and doesn’t complain). I have met a lot of really amazing fiber and knitting people that I would never have met, some have become some of my best friends in the world. When my health problems kick up and I am not well enough to get out of bed, I can knit in bed, and I can feel like I still got something done. That is therapy! And honestly, there is nothing like sitting on the back porch swing with a cup of coffee or tea, listening to some great music and knitting away…

What is your fiber arts superpower?
Making a super duper tangle out of any length of yarn, no matter how short!

How is the fiber arts world different for you today than it was five years ago?
It is much much much bigger! When I started dyeing fiber and spinning art yarns all those years ago, there weren’t many of us and many of the more traditional spinners and knitters did not like us. Now the wild stuff is kind of…normal. It all comes full circle, I guess:)

name: Rebecca Shepler
business name: Dusty Tree Soap
website(s): Dusty Tree Soap

What kind of items do you make?
Handcrafted in small batches – all natural – cold processed – vegan – unscented SOAP!

How long have you been in indie artist?
I’ve knit for as long as I can remember, but honestly this is my first craft show and I am so excited to be a part of it. Even though I’m the odd one out with a non-fiber related business – soap. The fiber community is such a warm (pun intended) and welcome host…thanks for letting me be a part of it.

What got you interested in your art of choice?
I’ve always been drawn to the idea of soap making and once I got over my fear of working with lye my soaping took off quickly.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?
It really is just soap, but each one is so different and unique. I love being able to chose the oils, herbs and styling techniques and create such different bars.

What most inspires you?
My kids and their imagination, friends and family.

What makes your creations unique?
No two bars can ever be exactly the same so it is always so much fun to experiment. The first cut on every soap loaf is my favorite moment…the ‘Oh, what is it going to look like..”

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
I love my Chocolate Mint Soap. All of my soaps are unscented but I love the smell and look of this one the most…such a contrast between dark and light with the beautiful swirls.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
I want to get them squeaky clean with gentle vegan soap.

Does being an indie fiber artist affect other aspects of your life?
I’m a knitter, so all of my family and friends know to expect yarny goodness gifts from me for most celebrations. So yes, everyone is warm in my wooly gifts…oh, and their skin is clean and healthy with my soap.

How is the fiber arts world different for you today than it was five years ago?
Fiber is everywhere; people’s perceptions have been changed. What an inspiration…..I love it!

name: Stephanie
business name: SpaceCadet Creations
website(s): spacecadetcreations.com

What kind of items do you make?
I hand-dye yarn for knitters, crocheters, and fiber artists

How long have you been in indie artist?
I distinctly remember waking up in my parents’ house on a Thanksgiving morning when I was 19 years old, lying there looking up at the ceiling and thinking, “I want to learn to knit”. No one I knew knew how to knit — even my mother had forgotten how to cast on — so I had to go to the library and get a book and teach myself. After that, I learned to spin, weave, felt, and finally dye. And even though I love all the fiber arts, it’s been dyeing that really felt the most exciting and freeing to me.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?
I love the solitude, when it’s just me and the yarn and the dyepots, and something magical happens. And love the camaraderie when I get together with knitters, crocheters, and other dyers at shows, and we share our love of colour and fiber! I love that my job has both those aspects, and both feed my creativity.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
I love collaborating with other fiber artists — working with designers, with other dyers, with shops, and with knitters and crocheters. I honestly feel that the more we work together, the bigger this community grows and the more people we can introduce to that quiet peacefulness that comes from working with yarn and your hands. It blows my mind that most people haven’t had that experience, and I really want to be a part of spreading that as far and wide as we can.

Does being an indie fiber artist affect other aspects of your life?
Yes, being involved in the fiber arts is so central to my life that it’s really impossible for any part of my life to not be touched by it. There’s yarn all over my house, yarn all in my mind. And I wouldn’t have it any other way!

name: Ana Brito
business name: Wren & Rita
website(s): Wren & Rita & facebook page

What kind of items do you make?
I sew just about anything, such as pouches to store all those miscellaneous knitting gadgets, needle rolls, circular organizers, small draw string project bags, tote bags, large project bags.

How long have you been in indie artist?
I’ve been an indie artist for many years but my business was created during the summer of 2009

What got you interested in your art of choice?
Yarn is my passion and I’m a knitter at heart but I just never had much interest in designing items since everyone else does it so well. I’ve been interested in sewing for many years but was always “scared” of the machine. One day, after moving to Pittsburgh in 2005, an idea for a circular needle organizer popped in my head and the rest is history.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?
Knowing that I’m creating items that are useful as well as appealing to the eye.

What most inspires you?
All my crafty friends.

What makes your creations unique?
Face it, I haven’t invented the wheel but my items are well thought out and well made. I take great pride in creating pieces that you will use for many years.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
Typically, it depends on the time of the years, but I love my earthy tones and colors.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
Organization! Don’t you want to know where those size 7 needles are rather than buying another set?

Does being an indie fiber artist affect other aspects of your life?
I’m much more aware of where I buy things. I believe in supporting local artists and local shops whenever possible.

What is your fiber arts superpower?
Project monogomy!

How is the fiber arts world different for you today than it was five years ago?
I continue to work on my spinning technique and have fallen in love with my turkish spindle.

name: Jennifer Gallentine
business name: Willow Mist Acres Farm Boutique
website(s): Willow Mist Acres

What kind of items do you make?
Hand spun traditional and artisan yarns, hand painted tops, art batts, wet felted scarves, Woven triangle scarves, crocheted hats from hand dyed, hand spun, goat milk soap, lavender sachets, felted soaps, crocheted handspun, hand dyed scarves, art yarn hair bands, fiber jewelry, felted wool dryer balls

How long have you been in indie artist?
2 years

What got you interested in your art of choice?
We started an alpaca farm, with the intention of me focusing primarily on the fiber aspect of farming.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?
I like freedom that it gives me to express my creativity, and the ability to work at home, surrounded by our critters and be able to be a stay at home mom to our 2 year old daughter.

What most inspires you?
the vivid colors in nature, the ones that are so vibrant that they almost don’t seem natural…

What makes your creations unique?
My choices of color, textures, and lots of sparkle!

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
I am really favoring jewel tones at the moment

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
I strive to make fiber, batts and yarn that make fellow fiberistas SQUEE! I love to share my techniques, I am all about educating when at all possible. Everybody does things their own way, and I am here to help.

Does being an indie fiber artist affect other aspects of your life?
It helps keep me relatively sane!! I don’t need anxiety meds, I need to spin and create!! :-)

What is your fiber arts superpower?
perfect, consistently even, corespun singles, I am a freak about that.

How is the fiber arts world different for you today than it was five years ago?
When I first started, I only wanted to use natural, 100% alpaca. Today, that alpaca is being blended with recycled prison uniforms and plastic bottles along with silk, yak and camel. I love the mix of textures that each fiber adds and how each fiber out there takes color in a different way. I just took my original mode of thinking and went gang-busters.

name: Cosette Cornelius-Bates
business name: CosyKnits (literally) aka cosymakes
website(s): cosymakes and the shop

What kind of items do you make?
I dye 6 lines of semi-solid wool and wool/mohair yarns, hand dyed falkland top for spinners, and I write patterns. I also have a book – Knit One, Embellish Too.

How long have you been in indie artist?
I started making art hats 6 years ago! And shortly thereafter started an etsy shop and a blog about my thesis. It has morphed into what I do now.

What got you interested in your art of choice?
I started knitting after college. When I moved to go to graduate school, the yarn shop near my house offered spinning and dyeing lessons. It went downhill (or uphill) from there. I have an undergraduate degree in art, so color, texture, history and so many things make knitting, spinning, dyeing and designing pleasing and deep to me.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
Besides offering the things I make up and dye up, I am also attempting to offer a space for more community – both through cosymakes studio and through Indie Knit and Spin.

Does being an indie fiber artist affect other aspects of your life?
Right now it means I can work around my husband’s schedule and my baby’s schedule and still keep my business even thought I’m no longer doing it full time. In short, it’s an awesome job for me as a young mama.

What is your fiber arts superpower?
I wind balls by hand at the speed of light.
I encourage and empower others to do fiber arts.
I have never failed at teaching someone to knit. We’ll see how long that lasts ;)

Artist: Eileen Hotham

What kind of items do you make?
I make glass beads and use the finished beads in stitch markers (I also knit!)

What got you interested in your art of choice?
I saw a demonstration of glass bead making at an arts fair and was fascinated.
I took a class in Glass bead making at the Pittsburgh Glass Center and was hooked.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?
I love making things and I especially love making beautiful things.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
I love all color, but I keep going back to purples and blues. I’m also very fond of iridescents and metallics (shiny!)

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
One of a kind stitch markers (can be used as pendants!)

What is your fiber arts superpower?
Even though I’m not doing fiber for this show, I will say that I am very good picking the right yarn for a project.

name: Laurel McWilliams
business name: SpinningFates
website(s): Shop

What kind of items do you make?
I hand dye semi solid and self striping yarn

How long have you been in indie artist?
Since the January of 2011

What got you interested in your art of choice?
I love to knit, and was having a hard time find the colors I wanted, so I decided to try and dye some myself. I enjoy the process, and fell in love with the end result.

What do you most enjoy about what you do?
Seeing an idea transform into reality.

What most inspires you?
Anything! Books, movies, things my kids say/do, a fallen leaf on the road!