I recently had a moment to chat with Ce Persiano of The Uncommon Thread, and the newest hand dyer for fibre space™! As a lover of language, she won me over pretty quickly, and I am sure you will feel the same about her yarns when you see them! Here’s what she had to say.
Lesley: Ok, first the obvious question! What made you decide to start dyeing?
Ce: I thought it would be fun. I was also not working much at the time and struggling to sustain the firmly established hand-dyed yarn addiction I had developed. I thought I’d give it a go and I was soon dyeing more than I could knit. I thought I’d put a few things on Etsy and, much to my surprise, on the first day I put things up they sold. I was encouraged, so I kept going.
L: That is really encouraging! Though, your colors are amazing, I am not surprised! One of the most interesting things to me is where dyers find their colors. Where does your inspiration come from?
C: Everyday life, nature, Ravelry, pretty much everywhere! Sometimes I get fixated on a color and have to find just the right shade. Sometimes colorways develop more organically and by chance. There isn’t much method to my madness, really.
L: There is something to be said for organized chaos! So, how do you come up with color names? Sometimes, an awesome name is really the thing that puts me over the edge and makes me need the yarn just a little bit more…
C: Sometimes I come up with the name first and have to create a color to match, although that is fairly rare. More often than not the name comes to me as I’m creating the
colorway. Sometimes it takes me days to come up with a name. I love language and nature and a lot of my colorway names come either from a foreign language or the Latin name for a plant, or a cloud formation.
L: Sold! I am a language junkie myself…! On the topic of names, where did the name for your company come from?
C: Again, my love of language. I thought it was a fun play on words. Obviously, what I produce are not threads, but I do hope they are uncommon! 😉
L: I don’t think you have to worry about anything there! Since you can’t dye all the time, what is your favorite thing to knit, or are you interested in any other fibre art?
C: I love knitting shawls, cardigans and jumpers. More often than not I’ll be knitting one (or several!) of those. I spin very occasionally on my Majacraft Suzie and I might have a stab at some crochet, but I do it so rarely that I often have open a book for the instructions. The whole American/British sc/dc thing drives me to distraction too. One day I’ll teach myself to weave.
L: Yes, my beginner crochet students have the very same complaint! Do you happen to have any other hobbies?
C: Oh I would so love to have the time! About a year ago I bought a sewing machine, load of quilting books and tons of fabric, but I didn’t have the space to leave my sewing machine out all the time and it was a bit of a palaver getting everything out just for half an hour. I moved to a bigger place recently and hope to be able leave everything out and do some sewing a bit more often. I’d also like to make my own clothes, but I’m very much an absolute beginner, so that’s a while off yet. If only my days had 48 hours…
L: I haven’t touched my sewing machine since I learned to knit, actually…So, how would you define your style?
C: Oh goodness, what a hard question! I never really thought much about it. I guess I make things I like and hope others will too. My heart of hearts lies in subtle semi-solids and gentle variegation and that is what I go for. Occasionally I dye spotty yarn because that is just fun. But really, I dye things that I love to knit myself and I hope that comes across.
L: I think it does! Thank you so much for taking time to chat with us, I know our fibre space™ community will be very excited to see all of your yarns!
Come in and check out all of Ce’s amazing colors! They have just arrived and are absolutely gorgeous. You’ll want to check them out while they are still here….We have the following: