Artisan Knitworks located in St. Clair Shores recently hosted a trunk show with knitting yarns by Riin Gill. Ms. Gill sells knitting yarn through her company Happy Fuzzy Yarn. Riin is a Michigan fiber artist that lives in Ann Arbor. As a fiber artist, Riin hand dyes and hand spins the yarn she sells. Currently she is expanding her line to include different types of yarns and colors.
In the current newsletter from Artisan Knitworks, they noted that even if you missed the trunk show, Ms. Gill left behind a large supply of wool and wool-tencel yarn along with a large selection of her roving. In looking at the pictures from the newsletter, I noticed some Happy Fuzzy Yarn sock flats that look very interesting. While Ms. Gill was in St. Clair Shores, a collaboration of Michigan artists took place.
Sandra VanBurkleo, the owner of Artisan Knitworks is a history professor by day and a knitting designer at other times. She has designed a side-to-side vest on paper, but was triggered by Riin Gill’s new semi-solid Michigan Romney wool to begin knitting the project. She will use this wool and mix it with four of Riin Gill’s colorways to work up her design. Ms. VanBurkleo has long thought that designs made specifically for hand spun yarns have been missing from the knitting industry. Sandra will be adding Terrie Voigt's dichroic glass buttons to this vest as another Michigan artistic touch. Ms. Voigt is a designer of kiln fired glass sculptures and gallery pieces who moonlights as a button designer.
If the vest is finished like Ms. VanBukleo envisions, then this will be a design using all Michigan products. At that point she may be able to work on a series of patterns especially created for handspun yarns. These designs would make use of the textures and colors that only handspun yarn can deliver.
The Michigan knitting world is anxiously awaiting the result of this collaboration. This writer is positive that there are skeins of hand spun yarn just waiting for a design that is just right. Let’s hope they won’t be waiting too long!
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