This is the first in a series of blog posts featuring the fabulous sponsors of Indie Untangled, taking place on October 18, 2024, in person in Saugerties, NY, and online. Tickets are available and selling fast!
Cesium Yarn came to my attention a couple of years ago when they released a collection of hand-dyed yarn inspired by Pyrex. Former Indie Untangled event planner Petrina is a vintage Pyrex collector and I loved the theme.
The company is run by Cat and Penny, a wife-and-wife team of scientists turned indie dyers whose vibrant colorways tap into collective nostalgia. Learn more about their business before Cesium Yarns makes their vending debut at Indie Untangled!
Tell me about how you got started dyeing yarn.
We started dyeing yarn in 2020, both freshly graduated from college and locked down due to COVID. Cat missed the chemistry research lab and started reading on different methods of dyeing yarn, and got started trying the processes out. It was very quickly evident that she was going to be making more yarn than we could keep around our tiny apartment, and on December 31, 2020, Penny helped us take the leap into doing it “for real,” setting up our business and getting ready to send yarn out into the world.
What inspires your colorways?
So many things! There’s lots of nostalgia, things that make us laugh, the colors that we want to wear, science, nature. You name it, we’ve probably dyed a color inspired by it. But the driving force is really nostalgia and things we’ve loved over the years.
Do you each have a favorite color or colors, and have they changed since you became dyers?
We both definitely have a color we gravitate towards. Penny is partial to greens and Cat is always reaching for yellows. Dyeing yarn has made us realize that not everyone is as passionate about our favorite colors as we are, so we dye for lots of different moods. Cat goes through love affairs with different colors every season (the summer of Barbie, anyone?), but when picking colors for ourselves, it’s almost always yellow and green.
What are some of your most popular colorways?
Our two top sellers are easily Dragon Hoard and Homestead. They’ve been longstanding favorites in our line-ups, and we always do our best to keep them stocked when we’re in person. Newer favorites are The Library from our Clue-inspired Halloween countdown in 2023, and Waterloo from the Mamma Mia collection. When we release new collections, we always try to guess what will sell the most, and we’ve learned you never know what’s going to be a favorite.
Can you share some of your plans for Indie Untangled?
We’re most excited for our collaboration with Kacey Herlihy of @kaceyknits. We’ll be debuting a pattern and a kit for Indie Untangled, and we’re super excited about the inspiration we chose. Think Rhinebeck landmarks and Jim Henson. We’ll also have notions to go with the kits to set you up to go with the perfect project right out of the gate.
When and how did each of you learn to knit?
Penny learned to knit from her mom as a kid, and has been knitting for over 20 years. Cat started crocheting when she was 16 and battling cancer, and has had yarn in her life ever since. She didn’t start knitting until after she started dyeing yarn, when she wanted to see how the yarn worked up, and was making new colors faster than Penny could knit up by herself.
What are some of your favorite FOs you or your customers have made with your yarn?
My current favorite sweater is my Bombini Brioche cardigan by Jenn Lampen of Synaptic Stitches. I just barely cast it off but I’ll be wearing it all fall and it’ll definitely be in our booth if not on my body at Indie this year. I’ve also seen a woven checks by Stephen West knit from our summer sunscreen box that I just adore (and may have borrowed from the knitter for a while). We get super attached to FOs that our sample makers have worked up for us, because it’s such a privilege to have someone put all that time and effort into something they’re doing for us. Really anything our customers knit blows us away. It’s so fun to see what color combinations other makers come up with!
What’s currently on your needles?
Cat is using her handspun to knit the Framed by Andrea Mowry, and also knitting a sample of the Scooby Doo advent box into a Quadraphenia blanket by Kay Jones. Penny is working on the Chroma by Jacqueline Cieslak and has about half a dozen socks stashed in various places to pull out when needed.
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