Our fall celebration with Kristine Vejar of Bread & Butter yarn and Julie Weisenberger of Cocoknits this last weekend was so inspiring. While many of you made it to the shop to meet Kristine and Julie, squish yarn, and try on samples, we want to bring the story of Everyday and Bun to those of you who live far afield.
Both bases are 100% merino, which is grown, spun, and dyed in the US. Everyday, a Worsted/Aran weight yarn is put up in a 200-yard, 100-gram hank. On the other hand, Bun is a chunky weight yarn with 130 yards in each 100-gram hank. The 17 colorways reflect the beauty of Northern California. Read on to see what my favorite color is!
What inspired you and Adrienne to embark on the journey to establish Bread & Butter Yarn Co.?
We wanted to create a beginner friendly, happy-go-lucky yarn and really wanted to create a yarn that we could share with yarn shops.
Over the years yarn shops have requested to stock A Verb for Keeping Warm, our line of naturally-dyed yarn, and due to the time and material intensive nature of natural dyes, we were never able to figure out how to do that. We always disliked saying no because we adore yarn shops and feel that they are the backbone of the knitting and crocheting community and in general really love creative collaborations.
While I adore Verb yarn, it is costly and mostly lighter in weight. From helping customers find yarn for projects for the past seventeen years, I have learned there are a lot of folks who love to knit and crochet seasonally and / or want to have the quick gratification of a quick knit. In thinking about how to create a more accessible yarn, one day, while looking around Verb’s shop I thought - well, we offer yarns from other yarn companies that are not naturally dyed, why don't we create our own? This yarn could and would be more affordable than Verb, made of U.S. wool, milled in the U.S., heavier in weight making it quicker to knit, and we could offer it to yarn shops. Hooray!
That night, we were drinking wine with Julie Weisenberger and a friend who is a baker. We were talking about though at Verb we offer a myriad of materials to create garments and textiles, how yarn is Verb’s bread and butter while simulatanously discussing this idea for a new yarn brand. A lightbulb went off! We all looked at each other and said - what if bread and butter was the name of the new yarn company!? And since we all love actual bread and butter as well as yarn, the name was the perfect fit.
I found this yarn's dyeing and spinning process fascinating. Can you tell our readers a bit more about that?
I had a very distinct idea of how I wanted to create this yarn. I adore the way the spectrum achieved via natural dyes shifts ever so gently with the change in light and wanted to emulate this effect in the colorways of Bread & Butter. To do so, I drew upon my knowledge of hand carding and hand spinning.
Each colorway is composed of multiple hues. I chose nine colors for the mill to dye. Using handcards, I blended the dyed fibers with one another (and added white fiber in some cases) to create the sixteen colors in the line. Once each color was carded, I spun the fiber on my drop spindle to create the yarn samples. I sent the samples to the mill and they replicated the blends. (The reason why we work with this mill, located in the Carolinas, is because they can do this style of blending and spinning which is rare in the U.S.)
Nothing in life is easy. What challenges did you and Adrienne meet in the process, and how did you overcome them?
One of the hardest things about the project is one of my favorite things about the project: the way the yarn is blended prior to spinning. In general the mill has a lot of rules, which has been a big learning curve. (Luckily I love putting together a puzzle!) The mill requires that we allocate basically every ounce of dyed fiber into a yarn and that each batch of fiber be a specific overall weight before it can be spun. So when working with these nine base colors, we needed to figure out how many unique colors could be created that would use all of the fiber and match the weight criteria. It was quite daunting to figure out where to start! I was thinking it to death and finally I decided to just jump in and create a color and let the process flow.
Each sample was weighed out, carded, spun, and labeled. After I made about 50, we laid them out on a table and begin to select those that were especially pretty. We began tweaking them here and there, carding and spinning new samples, until all the colorways complemented and supported one another from the perspective of color harmony, used all the fiber, and were within the correct weight criteria.
With the spinning in mind, can you tell me about the creation of Abalone, one of my favorite colors? Every time I look at it, I see something different.
So we had spun all the samples as described above but we had these bits and bobs remaining of four dyepots. I decided to just card them all together. What emerged was the most subtle, beautiful lavender grey with little flecks of soft sage green and sky blue running throughout. The color reminded us of an abalone shell hence the name. It is one of my favorite colorways. I am glad you like it too!
Your friendship and collaboration with Julie Weisenberger of Cocoknits is long-standing; she must have been thrilled to have new yarns and a new palette to design with. How did seeing your yarns come to life in her work feel?
Julie makes my job fun because she is so enthusiastic! She literally cast-on the first samples of Bun we received to create Mabel. Similar to how bread and butter is a cornerstone at many tables, often times eaten daily, our hope is that Bread & Butter is that feel good yarn offering warmth, comfort, and coziness. Yarn with which you can make each of your family members and friends the basics: hats, scarves, and sweaters. So I have absolutely loved seeing Julie work with the yarn because so many of her designs are timeless essentials that can be (and are) worn on a daily basis.
What has been the greatest joy in the creation of Bread & Butter Yarn Co.?
Our greatest joy will always and forever be seeing people make with this yarn and seeing them smile. Especially when someone makes something for the first time - like a first sweater or hat - in our yarn. And seeing the maker’s face light up, feeling so proud and happy of their accomplishment. I feel that Bread & Butter is the perfect yarn to make those firsts! And seconds, and thirds!
Thanks, Kristine! I am excited to get a project a bit bigger than Bash's Kercheif in Bun on my needles. I have a couple of ideas of what I might like to knit, and I hope you do, too!
