Interview of Nicole and Cordula from DyeForYarn
Interviewed by Meri
This issue of amirisu features a charismatic yarn dyer from Germany, “DyeForYarn”. Many of you might have seen shawls made from their gorgeous silk yarn.
They have two very successful Etsy shops (DyeForYarn and DyeForWool) plus a brick-and-mortar shop where they sell colorful treasures of silk and wool. Let’s hear where they started out and how they put love and passion into their work.
All photos copyright DyeForYarn.
amirisu: I’ve read somewhere, perhaps in your profile, that you used to be co-workers. How did your collaboration start? Were you knitting together before you started to dye?
DyeForYarn: We worked as colleagues in a biological science lab. Nicole started the whole knitting passion thing when she discovered lace shawls. Cordula soon joined in, but we didn’t find the yarns and colours we were looking for, so we decided to try dyeing yarns on our own.
amirisu: Do you still have your day job at the lab? How do you juggle between your day job and yarn dying work?
DyeForYarn: We had quit our day job more than a year ago so we could fully concentrate on dyeing yarn. We also opened a brick and mortar shop near Nuremberg in November 2011, where we dye and sell our yarns.
But beforehand we were working really hard to keep up both our lab work and our dyeing business. It felt like working 24/7 for about one and a half year, no free time, but it was worth it.
amirisu: It feels like DyeForYarn and amirisu have lots in common!
Where do you get inspiration for colors? How do you come up with the unique names? They are all very funny and interesting. The humor and dark humor (?) of color names and your brand logo caught my attention first.
DyeForYarn: At first we dyed colours that would match our own colour scheme, but we soon left our comfort zone and started dyeing yellow, orange, beige etc. We’re inspired by every colour that we see in nature, in the city or by people wearing colours we haven’t dyed yet. Sometimes customers suggest colours that they like to have. Recently the wish for “mustard green” came up.
Our names are based on a sketch from Monty Python: “The Parrot Sketch”, where John Cleese uses a lot of synonyms for being dead to make sure that the pet shop owner understands his complaint about Cleese’s parrot being dead. Blessed with a very black humour we decided to use these synonyms as colour names.
amirisu: Among them, which yarn and colors are your favorite? Any recommendation to our readers?
DyeForYarn: Of course we like all our yarn qualities, but our favourite yarn is Tussah silk, in lace and fingering weight. Our favourite colours differ greatly. Cordula likes very dark, almost black colours as well as olive and beige, Nicole likes light pastel colours. We recommend to pick colours that match your tan and your wardrobe. The latter is important to make sure that you have something to wear your shawl/finished object to.
amirisu: Last question. What do you enjoy the most about your business? On the other hand, what was the biggest challenge and how did you cope with it?
DyeForYarn: We enjoy not having a boss and making people happy with our products. It’s also a very creative business with many diversified activities.
The biggest challenge was making enough money to live out of our business. The German government offers a little extra help for starters, and this helped us a lot.
amirisu: I really admire your courage and hard work. It is sometimes hard but truly rewarding to stand on your own feet. Thank you so much for sharing your story – hope it will give our readers inspiration to pursue their own passions.
Cordula and Nicole’s story of following their hearts felt similar to ours, although neither of us is likely to quit our day jobs anytime soon. We hope you will try their yarn in the near future – you will love it.
DyeForYarn Etsy Shop
Adresse:
Hirschenstr. 31
90762 Fürth
Germany