Name: Beth Karr
Business: Roving Acres Farm
Website: rovingacres.com

Roving Acres Farm was founded in 2010, and was a lifelong dream of Beth Karr. Luckily her husband, Chris, and daughter, Sarah, were fully behind the idea! Located in beautiful Ashtabula County, Ohio, the farm has been rehabbed to be a fiber farm after many years of neglect. We love the idea of raising the animals and deciding what to do with the fiber. It’s been a dream come true.

We love all of the yarn and other fiber products we have for sale, so it is very hard to choose our favorite. However, for pure softness and loveliness to work with, we would have to say our Cormo yarns are the best. The bulky version is a joy – super soft and works up super fast. Can’t beat that! Our best selling yarn is our Alpaca Blend Sock yarn, and the most popular colorway is “Sea Glass”.

Besides fabulous customer service, we strive to offer our customers a farm connection. We give customers information about the sheep/goats/rabbits their fiber comes from, and in many cases we have the name of the animal it came from right on the tag.

We believe our “super power” is our hand dyeing. All of our dyed items are dyed by Beth who loves to experiment with color combinations and dye techniques. And she does custom dye orders as well.

Name: Karen Bachman
Business: iKNITiatives
Website: etsy.com/shop/iknitiatives and iknitiatives.com

What got you interested in your art of choice?
I became interested in hand-dying yarns/fibers in 2013 after having attended the Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Show. I had purchased my first spinning wheel that day and that is when I knew that I wanted to create my own hand-dyed colors and hand-spun yarns and take my existing hand-knit business to the next level.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
My favorite items have to be my ombre gradient sock yarns and my ombre gradient spinning fibers (punis).

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
What I strive to offer the fiber arts community is excellence in customer service and one of a kind colorways that will enable my customers to create unique pieces. That is why you will find that I offer only select repeatable colorways and you’ll find that even those are unique in their own way.

What is your fiber arts superpower?
My fiber arts superpower is my attention to color and detail. I’m always looking for the next beautiful color or color combination to create. I incorporate a lot of depth and multi-faceted layers of color into my yarns and fibers.

Name: Joanna Romaniuk
Business: Joanna’s Boutique
Website: etsy.com/shop/JoannasBoutique

I was growing up in Poland where I learned to knit. I came to US 28 years ago, worked, raised my two daughters and now I’m retired. I love working with colors and I learned to dye. As I was not fully satisfied with results of dyeing yarns I learned how to dye fibers and spin yarns from them. And I discovered, that I love to play with colors! Dyeing and spinning what I dyed allows me to play with all kind of colors. Colors i would never wear, colors which would not work for me, even colors I don’t particularly like.

Since I can’t wear all knit, I can’t knit all I spin and I can’t spin all fibers I dyed sharing fun with others by selling what I produced become natural next step. And it new opened whole new world to explore. What I love the most: to hear: it’s so pretty. I love it!

Name: Jill & Nik Duarte
Business: HipStrings
Website: hipstrings.etsy.com

What got you interested in your art of choice?
We both got interested in the fiber arts as a way of carrying on a family legacy – as the years go by we just get dragged deeper into the rabbit hole. Our new adventure in 2015 was weaving, and we added two floor looms to the family.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
I’m especially fond of our new custom blends – especially the Lapiz lazuli blend.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
We love to use our backgrounds as a scientist and engineer to bring a new take on fiber arts tools and supplies.

What is your fiber arts superpower?
Ambidextrous spinning.

Name: Jess Pflueger
Business: Fiddlehead Fibers
Website: etsy.com/shop/FiddleheadFibers

What got you interested in your art of choice?
Initially, I was interested in knitting as a means of making items that fit–long enough scarves and sweaters. Then finding that I could work from raw materials (fleece straight off the sheep) to make knit items drove me to where I am today…washing, dyeing, spinning, knitting and a wee bit of weaving.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
Not really. I haven’t met a wool yet that I didn’t like!

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
The chance to discover all the different kinds of wool that are out there

What is your fiber arts superpower?
A continuing curiosity to know more than I know about fiber arts than I know today

Name: Emily Eckel
Business: Artisan Buttons
Website: etsy.com/shop/ArtisanButtons

What got you interested in your art of choice?
I grew up in a home with two creative parents and there were always arts and
craft projects happening in our home. Over the years I’ve continued to
explore different crafts and I’ve enjoyed them all. I started making buttons
about ten years ago when I came across a book about how to make buttons.
People started asking me to make buttons for them and that is how I got
started in this business.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
Right now I really enjoy the wood buttons I’m making. They have beautiful
and subtle grain patterns. It’s really fun to make them and try out different
designs. The triangular three hole buttons are unique and make great
statement buttons.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
I strive to offer the fiber arts community a hand crafted alternative to the
typical buttons found in the big box stores. I’ve learned to listen to my
customers and make them products that meet their needs. At the last IK&S
several people mentioned that they like large wood buttons for their projects.
I’ve responded to that by making a variety of wood buttons.

What is your fiber arts superpower?
The camaraderie of engaging with kindred spirits who love creative
occupations really energizes me.

Name: Karen Cuffaro and Rebecca DeSensi
Business: Amelia and Wiggles
Website: http://www.AmeliaAndWiggles.com

What got you interested in your art of choice?
We were inspired to hand-dye yarn by working with beautiful yarn in our own crochet and knit creations. Once we started playing with yarn and dye, a whole new outlet for creative expression opened up for us, part science and part serendipity.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
We both agree on tonal yarns always! Lately Karen has been inspired by her walks with Wiggles through North Park, and has created some beautifully bold colorways using greens and browns with pops of flower-inspired colors. Rebecca has been experimenting with layering multiple colors for an overall blended effect with surprising peeks of vibrant color.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
Working with just two elements, yarn and dye, would seem to have a limited outcome, but each artist brings their own experiences, likes and dislikes, and techniques to the hand-dyeing process, resulting in different expressed visions. We offer our yarny color vision in small batches, but big color!

Name: Lisa Beamer
Business: Fibernymph Dye Works
Website: fibernymphdyeworks.bigcartel.com

What got you interested in your art of choice?
As an avid knitter and spinner, it seemed natural to take my craft one step further and dye the kinds of yarn and fiber I enjoyed using in my own crafting. I’m in my sixth year now of dyeing, and it never gets old! I love what I do and am so happy to share it with others.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
My favorite items are usually whenever I come up with something new, be it a new product or a new colorway. I just want to play with it and create it in every configuration possible.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
I always strive to offer a high quality product and excellent customer service. Within that, developing new and innovative items for my customers is always a priority.

What is your fiber arts superpower?
Color. Putting together new color combinations, often ones you might not think would go together but they end up playing well. Also, drawing inspiration for my colorways from unique places in my world.

Name: Dawn Craig
Business: Fairy Tale Knits
Website: www.FairyTaleKnits.com

What got you interested in your art of choice?
My grandmother (Maw) taught me to knit when I was 9. From then until 2001 I didn’t knit much and in 2003 is when I started knitting almost daily. I started dyeing when I was looking for yarn for a KAL. I couldn’t find lace yarn in purple that I wanted. So I dyed it. After that I was just hooked.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
I have 2 favorite bases, Phoenix Feather (50% Merino 50% Silk) and Mermaid’s Hair (Alpaca/ Merino with sparkle). My favorite colorways are Court Jester, Wingardium Leviosa, and Rapunzel’s Ribbons.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
Quality yarn in unique, fun colors all US sourced or fair trade items.

What is your fiber arts superpower?
Able to combine plain yarn, fairy tales fun, and the color wheel to make your knitting magical

Name: Rebecca Shepler
Business: Dusty Tree Soap
Website: www.dustytree.com and on Facebook as Dusty Tree Soap

What got you interested in your art of choice?
I’m a ‘retired’ archaeologist who used to spend her days happily sitting in pits of dirt, squinting at tiny pieces of fragments in rather dirty hands all day. I used to get paid to play in the dirt – it was a dream job really, but if I think back it was also research. Research on how cleaning products would scrub away a days worth of digging while most also scrubbed away the natural oils in my skin. I used to have really sensitive hands, dry cracked knuckles and cuticles. Who knows what type of store bought products I was using and thought nothing of it. Fast forward years and I had kids, I knew right away I wanted to use pure natural soaps to cleanse their brand new skin. Nothing but the best for my babies. So I made my own soap, a rather utilitarian object, but I always experiment with different herbs & oils to create winning combinations.

Do you have a favorite item or colorway?
I have two – my Pumpkin Charcoal Soap that I use daily as a facial soap. It contains bamboo activated charcoal, tea tree essential oil and pumpkin puree. My other favorite is Shea + Clay. Which contains raw unrefined organic shea butter, Moroccan red clay and lavender essential oil – a winner for my dry skin.

What is something you strive to offer the fiber arts community?
I strive to provide them with a better way to cleanse their skin. Dusty Tree Soap is vegan handcrafted soap made using edible vegetable oils, pure essential oils and nothing synthetic. I leave out palm and soy oils too. I made a pledge to myself that I would never put anything into my soaps that I didn’t feel good about.

What is your fiber arts superpower?
I don’t think I really have a superpower any different than most knitters other than after working in a yarn shop for a bit I have an unusually keen knack for fixing mistakes.