Today we’d like to introduce you to Brittney Lockridge of BrittyRaeKnits
Hi Brittney, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My origin story is an odd one. I grew up in Arizona and taught as a high school history teacher for years. I loved history, and I adored hanging out with teenagers every day. If you had come into my classroom 10 years ago and told me that I would own my own business hand dyeing yarn, I don’t think I would have believed you. I didn’t even know the difference between knitting and crocheting!
I have always loved color. As a child, I had a fascination with the brightly colored roses and desert flowers my mom would plant in her garden. As an adult, I covered the walls of my classroom with vibrant student art. I loved surrounding myself with pops of color and eventually went so far as to dye a section of my hair blue.
In 2015, my husband got a job offer in Northern Michigan, so we packed up our house and moved 2000 miles across the country. I was so heartbroken to leave my students, but I wanted to stay at home and “mom” my two kiddos for a while. I have a distinct memory of one of my students asking me what I was going to do when we moved to Michigan. I remember telling them, “I think I’m going to learn to knit.” I just had this idea that knitting is what I needed to do; plus, it would keep my desert blood warm. So, I took a knitting class two weeks after we arrived in the Great White North, and it quickly became an obsession. I read as many books and magazines as I could get my hands on, and I watched a lot of YouTube tutorials. As you can imagine, my friends and family members received tons of various knitted items in the ensuing months.
However, all was not perfect with my newfound hobby. I was having trouble finding the exact yarn colors and fiber that I wanted to work with. I had a fleeting thought that maybe, just maybe, I could figure out how to dye my own yarn. I began to experiment, creating my own colors and figuring out what kinds of fiber I really liked. Well, I quickly discovered that I loved the process of dyeing and handling squishy yarn even more than I loved knitting with yarn! There really isn’t anything like it.
As my freshly dyed yarn stash started to resemble a woolly mountain, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to knit with all the yarn I was dyeing. So, in 2018, I built a website and social media presence to share my “yarnie creations” with other color-loving, fiber-loving crafters; thus, BrittyRaeKnits was born! BrittyRaeKnits offers many different ethically sourced fibers and fiber blends as well as knitting patterns. The colorways are inspired by songs, nature, movies, art, and whatever pops into my head. We ship yarn all over the world to individuals and independent yarn stores.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There were and still are a lot of challenges with dyeing yarn. One of the things I had to learn about was how different fibers dye up differently. For example, if I have one skein of cashmere yarn and one skein of merino yarn in the same pan, and I dye them together using the exact same dye stock and dye process, the cashmere yarn will have a slightly muted and softer color as opposed to the merino yarn. But it’s actually one of the things I love most about using different types of fiber; they all have their own personality!
There are very few resources on dyeing fiber, and many fiber artists closely guard their yarn dyeing secrets. This is especially the case for speckling. Yarn speckles are, as one can imagine, speckles of color dotted all along a skein of yarn. They are stunning and can really bring life to a colorway. I won’t tell you how many tears I shed while ruining skein after skein of yarn with subpar speckles but eventually, I figured it out. When I say speckles are the bee’s knees of hand-dyed yarn, just trust me—they absolutely are.
During the pandemic, there was a fiber shortage in all the yarn mills across the world. It was very hard to get yarn at a time when a lot of people were staying home and wanting to learn how to knit and crochet. I had to be extra careful to keep track of which yarn I had in stock. However, I got to try a few new fiber bases when my standard yarn was out of stock, and I actually enjoyed that part of the yarn shortage.
My biggest struggle today is scale. I work out of a small studio with one large sink, a stove, and a few portable cooktops. Our yarn is labeled “small batch” for a reason because I can only make a handful of skeins of yarn a day. I handle each and every skein with my own hands, and the limited output of yarn makes each one special.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Recently, I have fallen into what I like to call “Book Yarn.” I am a voracious reader, and I view my books as old friends. I remember sneakily reading Nancy Drew books on my lap just under my desk in grade school and curling up with many a romance novel to mend my broken teenage heart as I got older. I wanted to blend my love of reading and knitting, so I had the idea to create custom-dyed yarn colorways based on the cover art for some of my favorite books. In 2020, I reached out to one of my favorite authors, April White, who fully supported my idea of creating yarn colorways based on her book covers. Now, “book yarn” brings knitters and readers together!
I just finished a collaboration with my local indie bookstore, McLean and Eakin to create a colorway called “The Yarn for the Many” and a matching cowl pattern for an upcoming book, “The Will of the Many,” by James Islington.
I am currently working on a limited-edition book yarn colorway for the month of June. “Pride Not Prejudice” is a romantic charity collection of stories celebrating the LGBTQIA+ community, and I am excited to be able to create a yarn color for this project. It has been so much fun to work with authors and booksellers, and pattern designers to reach a wide range of people with diverse interests.
This summer, I will be attending some book events with April White (think Comic Con, but for books). We will be at Book Bonanza in Grapevine, Texas in June and Steamy Lit Con in Anaheim, California in August. We’ll have the table filled with books and yarn, of course.
As for the future of BrittyRaeKnits, I’m excited to create more custom colorways, work on new “book yarn” collaborations, and squish all the yarn! Ultimately, it brings me such joy to share color and fiber, and books with others.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs, or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I love listening to podcasts and audiobooks when I’m dyeing yarn. Here are some of my favorites…
Podcasts:
Stuff You Should Know
Office Ladies
Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend
Audiobook Authors:
Sarah J Maas
Penny Reid
Darynda Jones
Jennifer L Armentrout
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.brittyraeknits.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brittyraeknits/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrittyRaeKnits/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@brittyraeknits/featured
- Other: https://www.ravelry.com/people/brittyraeknits
