When “just one more chapter” meets “just one more skein”
Yarn and books have a lot in common. I own more of both than I could possibly use in this lifetime, yet somehow I’m still shopping. Apparently, I collect hobbies that require extensive storage and absolutely no self-control.
So when I discovered an indie dyer who creates yarn inspired by literature, I was immediately intrigued.
Canon Hand Dyes is a Portland, Oregon, yarn company founded by Amy Serradell, a dyer who turns stories, characters, places, and a healthy dose of imagination into hand-dyed yarn. The result is colorful, playful, and just a little bit clever—the sort of yarn that makes you want to know the story behind the name before you even decide what to make with it.
A Small Business with a Literary Twist
Amy started Canon Hand Dyes in 2011 in the kitchen of her apartment. What began as a small dyeing business grew slowly, one update and one colorway at a time, but it never lost the personality that made it interesting in the first place.
The name Canon Hand Dyes is perfect. In literature, a canon is the collection of works considered essential or important. In Amy’s hands, it becomes a collection of yarn colors drawn from books, films, characters, and other stories that have stayed with us.
Some of the colorway names currently at Treasured Yarns include Nancy Drew, Chamber of Secrets, Padfoot, The Leaky Cauldron, and I Open at the Close. If you recognize those references, you already understand some of the fun. They don’t just identify a color; they create a picture in your mind.
That is one of my favorite things about indie-dyed yarn. You aren’t simply buying “blue” or “brown.” You may be buying a mysterious blue worthy of Nancy Drew or a shadowy combination that immediately brings a favorite fictional world rushing back. The name becomes part of the project’s story.
The Magic of Self-Striping Yarn
Canon Hand Dyes is especially known for self-striping yarn and mini-skein sets. Self-striping yarn looks effortless once it is on the needles: you knit along, and neat bands of color appear almost as if the yarn has done the design work for you.
Those perfectly timed stripes aren’t appearing by accident.
Self-striping yarn takes a surprising amount of measuring, planning, and precision to make sure each color shows up in the right order—and sticks around for the right number of stitches—before the next one begins.
The knitter, meanwhile, gets to work an ordinary stockinette sock and accept all the compliments. Crocheters can enjoy the same color-changing magic in simple cowls, hats, scarves, or anything else that lets the yarn show off.
Best of all, people who don’t knit or crochet will assume you painstakingly changed colors—and wove in all those ends—over and over again. There’s no need to correct them. I say we keep the illusion alive.
Mini-skein sets offer a different kind of freedom. They are useful for colorwork, striped accessories, scrappy projects, contrast heels and toes, or those patterns that ask for six small amounts of yarn when your stash somehow contains every color except the six you need.
The literary themes tickle me, but the yarn is not merely a novelty. Bases such as Charles Merino Fingering, William Merino Fingering, Emily, George Merino DK, and John Merino Sock give knitters choices for socks, shawls, hats, cowls, colorwork, and lightweight garments. Many include merino and nylon, providing the softness we want from hand-dyed yarn with the durability needed for projects that will actually be worn.
What really draws me to Canon Hand Dyes is that it still feels unmistakably like the work of an individual maker. The colors have a point of view. The names reveal what inspires Amy. Even when two skeins come from the same collection, each one feels as though it belongs to a larger imaginative world.
Perhaps that is the real magic of Canon Hand Dyes. Every skein begins with someone else’s story—a character, a place, a bit of literary magic—but it doesn’t end there. Once the yarn is in your hands, the next chapter belongs to you.
The only remaining question is whether you’ll cast on immediately or admire the skein on a shelf for six months first. Around here, both are perfectly respectable choices.
This post is part of the Meet the Indie Dyer series at Treasured Yarns. If there is a small dyer you think I should feature next, send me a message on Facebook or Instagram. I’m always looking for wonderful yarn businesses to share with the Treasured Yarns community.
Happy stitching!
Heidi