Inside Crochet August/September Issue 3

Feature
| INDY YARN EASYKNITS
“
The Sushi sock rolls are one of Jon’s
most popular stock items – the unique
colour-changing properties give the
ﬁ nished item an extremely vibrant
ﬁ nished look.
”
on his yarn dyeing skills to his customers. Anyone The business is still an exciting endeavour and
(Far left) Jon arranges his
latest colourways.
who has attended an Easyknits workshop will agree he is really enjoying experimenting with different
that the way in which Jon passes on the information base yarns and colours. He describes himself as
(Above) A gorgeous
needed is a treat. One of his favourite parts of the being quite selﬁ sh with the base yarns, choosing
scarf crocheted in
Easyknits yarn.
yarn dyeing process is unwrapping a freshly cooked only those yarns that feel perfect to him and that he
skein from the steamer or the dyepot and seeing how would wish to knit with. The aran-weight yarn he
the colours have worked together – they always seem dyes has been a recent addition to his shop and one
to evolve in the cooking process and no two hand- that was prompted by feedback from customers.
painted skeins ever look the same, so seeing how Colourways and names are a different kettle of ﬁ sh –
they have turned out is a bit like magic. sometimes the new colour combinations just appear
Re-skeining the yarn is one of Jon’s least without any effort and other times there is a certain
favourite parts of running Easyknits because it is so amount of sitting and head-scratching before the
time consuming. However, Jon is adamant that the perfect combination comes to him. Add to that the
yarn looks much nicer when it has been re-skeined unpredictability of hand-dyeing
so he continues to do it. The satisfaction he gets yarns and Jon has learned to
on ﬁ nishing a pile of yarn, attaching the labels and embrace the colours that come
photographing it so that it is ready to sell, makes him out of his dye pot as individual
feel proud of his brand. moments of glory.
Whether the name or the
Future Plans colour comes ﬁ rst is also not
The decision to start Easyknits is one that Jon has written in stone. Many of
never looked back on – his love of yarn and his Easyknits’ colourways are
desire to get back to working in a more hands-on inspired by food, ﬂ ora and
environment (after missing his messy days in the fauna. His geeky side does
studio at university) has really paid off. Jon doesn’t sometimes sneak into the
look at commercial sock yarns in the same way any process with some yarns named
more, because the colour combinations just don’t after favourite sci-ﬁ references.
excite and inspire him. Once he had dyed his ﬁ rst This shows how much Jon’s daily
skein, he knew that this was something he would be life inspires him, from his garden to
doing for a long time to come. his taste in TV programmes and books. His
22 | INSIDE Crochet
IC3.feat.IndyYarn.FINAL.indd 22 7/7/09 14:41:46
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