When I was just barely starting to understand yarn and get extremely obsessed with knitting, I went to a craft fair at the Seattle Center, the Urban Craft Uprising. The place was filled with all sorts of creative people, working with fabric, metal, ceramics, and of course yarn! I was already in my happy place when I wandered into a tiny little booth with the most magical yarn I’d ever seen. The colours were intense and vibrant and the tattooed proprietors looked like the kind of friends I wanted to have.

Two cakes of Spincycle yarn, one in shades of purple and gold, and the other in shades of blue, on a lichen-covered rock in front of a blue sky.

Those proprietors were Rachel and Kate of Spincycle and they were spinning yarn on spinning wheels to sell at markets. I bought a couple of precious skeins at our first meeting and I’ve been adoring and working with their yarn ever since.

Their company has really grown since our first meeting so many years ago! They bought their own mill equipment to process American wool in Bellingham, WA and now they even have a brick-and-mortar store where they sell their yarn, fabric yardage, and all sorts of wonderful things to excite us makers.

I used their light worsted weight yarn, Dream State, for my most recent pattern, Under the Canopy. It’s a cowl with all-over botanical colourwork that I think works so beautifully in their unique variegated yarn with long colour sections. I used a skein each of the Family Jewels and Deep Bump along with a Cormo yarn I adore, Harrisville Yarns Nightshades in Streetlight.

And I have a treat for you today — an interview with Kate all about their company. She was kind enough to respond to a bunch of questions so we could get to know their company.

A group shot of the Spincycle crew posing together outside their building. Photo courtesy of Spincycle Yarns.

The Interview

• Tell me about Spincycle the company. What makes it special?

Spincycle feels so special to me because everything we do is born out of Rachel's and my knitting desires. Every time we make a new yarn or colorway, it’s because we passionately want to use it! I mean, it’s also special because we’re an American textile mill who pioneered a remarkable process of spinning a handspun style, dyed in the wool yarn in our mill. While we’re bragging, we are also super proud of our commitment to American wool ranching, the livable wages and stellar benefits packages we are able to offer our staff. But, honestly, I really think it’s our undying crush on our craft and the love that goes into the dyeing and milling that really make this whole operation special.

• What do you want folks to know about Dream State?

Well, first off, the idea for this yarn really came to Rachel in a dream, hence the name. But, also, who doesn’t love the undulating color scape that happens when you three-ply our gorgeous, hand-dyed fiber. It’s a softer color transition than our two ply, but no less dramatic.

• What are the values that guide you as you make decisions about how to run Spincycle?

I think our values always begin with the wonderful surprise success of Spincycle. I never imagined we’d have employees, let alone 30 of them, so of course we want to create the jobs we would have applied for had we found ourselves on the other side of the application. Milling is hard! We believe that the people who do it deserve living wages, health insurance, vacations and retirement, and you know what? It’s actually not that difficult to provide those benefits! Same thing with our commitment to US grown wool. It’s not too difficult to purchase wool that hasn’t circled the entire globe before arriving at a dye house! Who knew?!

• Tell me about starting and running a business partnership. What has made the whole thing with Rachel & Kate work so well for so many years? What have you all learned about working together over the years?

Rachel and I are so lucky to have been cut from the same cloth. We have similar work ethics and goals, and oddly complete each other’s shortcomings in many ways. We started Spincycle as humble young hippy girls who couldn’t find or afford good yarn back in the dark ages of the early aughts’s - the eyelash & confetti yarn days! It was so hard and we made almost no money, but we never lost the love or gave up. We always invest our profits back into Spincycle, and never take anything for granted! We love working with others in our industry - I mean, we have the coolest people in the knitting world, right? - so we are thrilled to collaborate and try to lift the tide for everyone.

We are so lucky that amazing designers like yourself, Andrea, were able to show the world what to do with Spincycle! You’ve really helped give us the freedom to become who we are today.

• What’s one thing you’re proud of about what you’ve accomplished with Spincycle?

I’m so proud that we bought a mill! It was always the biggest, craziest pipe dream, and it happened!

• What are your goals for the company?

We are working on lean manufacturing right now! I want to become excellent at the manufacturing business side of things. The creative part is already there - honestly, it’s what drives us - but the business side is a learned skill and I want to hone it!

Wool in piles of roving being processed at the Spincycle mill. Photo courtesy of Spincycle Yarns.

• What’s the task you enjoy most about your job?

New colorway development always and forever. It makes my heart happy. Secondly, I love writing the newsletter. I’m never sure if anyone reads it or if they just skim for the yarn, but either way, I feel so lucky to get to chat with the folks that love Spincycle every Thursday.

• What other creative pursuits are the Spincycle team excited about?

We’re all getting into sewing! We love hand dyeing fabric, so naturally, we need to use all that beautiful, colorful yardage.

• Tell me about the brick & mortar shop!

That was a wild idea that came from the yarn show droughts during early covid times! We really missed interfacing with people and yarn! Along with the fact that we can’t really have visitors at the mill, as it’s too much of a manufacturing environment. We needed a “home” for Spincycle! And lucky for us, because we all love knitting so much, it was easy to fill a store! Every single thing in there is a product loved and used by Rachel, myself or Micah, who runs the whole show at the Brick and Mortar.

Inside view of the Spincycle Yarns shop. Wooden shelves are filled with yarn, sheepskins, and potted plants. Photo courtesy of Spincycle Yarns.

• Spincycle colours are so unique. How did you develop your colour sense? What’s it like developing new colourways?

The colors come from everywhere! We all have folders of photos on our phones of interesting colorscapes snapped in the wild. Not everything is a winner, of course, but nothing feels better that striking dye gold!

• Can you tell me about how you name colourways?

Well, we have to name the yarn the day we dye it, so that the mill can create the batch tracker that moves with the colorway as it goes through its stages of production, so it’s sometimes a crazy scramble to name on the fly. Again, we all have a file of interesting phrases in our phones. Song titles and idioms are always favorites!

Yarn Ideas

Along with answering the interview questions, the folks at Spincycle were kind enough to put together some yarn bundle ideas for your project if you’re keen to use the original project yarns, but are curious about other colours.

Harrisville Nightshades yarn are all different colours of black, which is just intensely satisfying to me. The tiny heathered flecks give a shaded vibe to each one that goes so beautifully with the bright Spincycle colours. Here are some suggested combos, but of course you can get lost on the Spincycle website dreaming up your own ideas.

My only guidance for colour choice was that the two colourways of Spincycle would have a few shades in common, but be different enough to make for some interesting gradients. Here’s what they came up with: