Senior Times • April 2016
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Tri-Cities women create vivid rainbows in wool for fiber artists By Loretto J. Hulse news@tcjournal.biz Three Tri-Cities women enjoy giving fiber artists new brilliant choices by creating kaleidoscopes of color. They’re owners of S.M.A.K. Super Fibers, a home-based business that makes hand-dye wool and other animal fibers. They sell their yarns on Etsy.com and at Badger Mountain Yarns in Richland, and at local bazaars during the holiday season. The women started the homebased business in February 2015, selling first on Etsy.com. S.M.A.K. is an acronym created from the first initials of the founders: Sara Tracy of Kennewick; Ariana Howland of Richland; and Melissa Lyle of West Richland. The fourth founder is no longer associated with the company. The women have created 55 color combinations they offer as their standards and try to keep several skeins of them on hand for filling orders. “We advertise that orders will be filled within three weeks but, other than the holiday season, we can usually get them out faster,” said Howland. They meet about twice a week to dye yarns for orders and to experiment with different color combinations and fibers. “Once we’re set up to work the actual dying goes fairly quickly,” said Tracy. They’ve been taking turns working in each other’s kitchens. But are looking forward to the day when Tracy’s basement remodeling project is complete. One room of the basement will be dedicated as their work/storage room. “It’ll be great to have all our stock and tools in one place,” said Lyle. Dying fiber is fairly easy, once you’ve established a routine. Their tools are regular kitchen pans, uten-
sils and some plastic ware. They use acid-based dyes from Dharma Trading Co. located in California. The pots and pans can be bought in any kitchen store but these are dedicated to the dying process because the chemical composition of the dyes etches into the cookware, said Howland. Other than the kitchenware, the only other requirements are a stove or microwave to heat the dyes to set the colors and a sink to rinse out any excess dye. The wet wool dries on a wooden laundry rack — outdoors in the summer, in Howland’s laundry room in the winter. Dying is done one skein at a time. Each weighs 3.5-ounces or 100 grams. The women work primarily with mill-spun wool, either worsted or fingerling, which refers to the size of the yarn. The skeins run $16 for the worsted wool, or $20 for the fingerling, sometimes referred to as stocking yarn. They’ll also do special orders in other fibers and bulky wool yarns. “We really enjoy the challenge of custom orders,” said Tracy. The trio cheerfully admits their business, S.M.A.K., is the result of a hobby that’s gotten out of hand. They’re self-taught. “We were just experimenting with
Ariana Howland uses a technique called painting, which requires spooning liquid dye in broad stripes across the damp skeins of wool. When done she’ll wrap the skeins in plastic wrap and heat them briefly in the microwave to set the colors.
colors, having some fun,” said Tracy. Their first try at dying involved strong solutions of Kool-Aid, which produced attractive, pastel and midrange colors. They also tried natural, plant-based dyes. “The plant-based dyes were inconsistent color-wise and produced mainly muted, earthy colors,” said Tracy.
So they decided to try some commercial dyes. “We bought some inexpensive wool yarn, some dyes and — with the help of the internet — began experimenting,” said Tracy. “We’re much happier with the intense colors we can get with these acid-based dyes.” uFIBERS, Page 15
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