Deep color, beautiful texture and an Oregon dyer who understands yarn from both sides of the counter. Some indie dyers begin with a few dye pots in the kitchen. Others arrive at dyeing after years of knitting, experimenting and imagining the colors they wish they could find.
Karen Rhyne brings another perspective to the dye pot: she is both a yarn dyer and the owner of a local yarn shop. Karen owns Knotty Lamb in Forest Grove, Oregon, and dyes yarn under the name Lamb Good Fibers. She understands yarn from both sides of the counter. She knows what catches a knitter’s eye, but she also knows what happens after that beautiful skein leaves the shop. It still has to become something.
That combination is evident in her yarn, where the colors and shifting tones gradually come into focus as the project takes shape.
Color With Depth
Lamb Good Fibers describes its yarns as having “deep, rich colors dyed in small batches to capture life’s special moments.” I totally agree. These are not colors that simply sit on top of the yarn. These are colors that have many layers like subtle tonal shifts, unexpected speckles or darker areas that make the finished fabric more interesting (without overwhelming the stitches).
Even the brighter shades tend to have some complexity. They are colorful and expressive without demanding that every project revolve around the yarn. It is the kind of color that makes you turn a skein over in your hands because the other side is different from the other side.
The perfectly normal LYS behavior that every knitter and crocheter understands.
So. Many. Bases.
One of my favorite aspects of Lamb Good Fibers is the incredible variety of yarn bases they offer.
Many indie dyers are known primarily for fingering-weight merino and nylon. That combination makes wonderful socks but Lamb Good Fibers gives knitters and crocheters more room to wander.
Their line has included classic fingering and sock yarns, sport, DK and aran weights, along with Suri alpaca blends, boucle and tweed bases. A smooth, tightly plied yarn can highlight cables and textured stitches. Suri creates a soft halo and turns color into something fluffy like cotton candy. Boucle adds movement before you have worked the first stitch. Tweed scatters tiny contrasting flecks across the fabric, giving even a simple stockinette or crochet stitch a little more personality.
The color may draw you in, but the texture keep you in and determines the project.
The Particular Charm of Tweed
If I were choosing one place to begin with Lamb Good Fibers, I would be strongly tempted by the tweed.
Traditional tweed yarns are often associated with quiet, earthy colors. Lamb Good Fibers takes that familiar texture and gives it a more playful personality. The little Donegal neps add scattered bits of color and contrast on the hand hand-dyed background. The result feels both classic and modern. A tweed DK would be lovely for a cardigan, hat or textured cowl. Fingering-weight tweed could become socks, a lightweight shawl or a sweater that is interesting but not busy -- just likeable.
It is yarn that gives a simple project a great deal of character without requiring a complicated pattern to do the work.
And Then There Is the Boucle
The Baby Boucle is an entirely different experience.
Made with Suri alpaca and silk, it has tiny loops along the strand and a soft, airy texture. Boucle does not produce the crisp stitch definition of a smooth merino, but that is not its purpose. It creates softness, movement, cushion, and a fabric that looks almost cloudlike.
This is the yarn to choose where the yarn itself is the star: a simple scarf, a soft cowl, a loose sweater or perhaps stripes paired with a smoother yarn. I'll admit it took me a long time to appreciate boucle but now I absolutely love it for scarves and wraps. Sometimes the smartest thing we can do with an unusual yarn is lean into its unique character instead of trying to make it behave like an ordinary one.
Where I Would Start
For someone new to Lamb Good Fibers, I would begin by deciding whether color or texture is calling louder.
For a dependable, versatile project yarn, the DK and sport bases offer plenty of possibilities. The fingering and sock yarns are natural choices for socks, shawls, wraps, sweaters, and lightweight accessories. If you want something with a little more personality, look at the tweed. If softness and texture are the entire point, explore the Suri and boucle.
As I’ve said before (and will say again and again until I perish), knitting and collecting yarn are two distinct hobbies—each worthy of our time and enjoyment. Sometimes, those pleasures are separated by years, only to be reunited by the right project at just the right moment.
We’ll continue to introduce you to talented indie dyers in future posts. Know a dyer whose work deserves to be featured? Leave their name in the comments and tell us why we should check them out!
—Heidi