About
Hi, I’m Erica, the creator behind Wild Violet Fibers.
My fiber journey started in 2011 when I first learned to knit and crochet during a study abroad program in the UK. Since then, knitting and crochet have been my hobbies of choice – a way to express my creativity, play with color, learn new skills, and release stress. Many of my knitting projects are inspired by trips and travel as I seek to capture the memory or feeling of a place and the time I spent there in a knitted garment.
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In 2020, two pivotal things happened. I kettle dyed my first skeins of yarn, bare alpaca I’d purchased on a trip to Vermont, and I was diagnosed with type 1 narcolepsy, a chronic sleep disorder characterized by overwhelming daytime drowsiness and sudden sleep attacks. In 2021 my then-fiancé and I made a sequence of big life changes to enable me to reinvent myself and restructure my life around managing my narcolepsy. We got married, I left my job, and we bought a house with a kitchenette in the garage and wild violets in the yard. Wild Violet Fibers was born.
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Every skein of ethically-sourced yarn is hand dyed by me in small batches using professional acid dyes. I allow the dye bath to exhaust before rinsing each skein and soaking in wool wash. Although I use recipes to repeat colorways, each skein is a unique piece of art and may have variations in appearance and color. In an effort to reduce waste around the dye studio, I also use leftover dye stocks to create special, one-off colorways. These colorways can't be reproduced and are truly one of a kind.
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My colorways are inspired by nature, the seasons, the place I live (New England), places I’ve been, and my own lived experience. What I love most about the dye process is that it allows me to express these inspirations through explorations of color. My goal is to create yarns that spark joy and inspire creativity in your own fiber adventures. Over the past decade, fiber crafts have been my primary means of self-expression and self-care. I hope you’ll find something here that you love and enables you to both express and take care of yourself as well.
Happy crafting,
Erica