Good Things Are Headed Our Way!

August 8th will be my 3 year anniversary living in Gatlinburg. Since moving here I have found some wonderful friends that are very creative and inspiring. After talking with them about needing some extra income, we decided to put all of our skills together and form a Co-Op of Fiber Artists, Smoky Mountain Colors . Each of us have a passion for the fiber arts, and though our talents over lap, we always end up with a very different and individual result.

Please visit our Etsy shop and our Facebook page to see our new items. We plan on having hand dyed with professional acid dyes, natural hand dyed, including indigo and woad, wet felted items, blended fibers, hand woven garments and accessories and much more. Right now we have some beautiful, hand dyed, handspun and natural dyed yarns.

This is our welcome and what we are about.

Welcome to Smoky Mountain Colors! We are a Co-Op of fiber artists, each with years of dyeing, spinning, felting, carding and knitting experience. We live in the beautiful Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and are inspired by the colors of the mountains, the local people and the legacy of the Appalachian women that came before us.

I look forward to sharing more about the co-op and I really appreciate you taking the time to check us out.

Blessed Be

A Life of Change, A Life of Moving Forward

When I moved to Gatlinburg, almost 3 years ago now, like a child I was filled with dreams, and it never dawned on me that they couldn't or wouldn't come true. Some have, and some haven't (yet).  Sometimes when we are filled with these ideas, dreams and goals, we tend to not think about the journey that it will take to get there. In all honesty the road has been rough. Opportunities coming and going, juggling schedules, unexpected health issues, things I call life happening, serious life happening. But, on the other hand it's been interesting, emotional, taxing and lonely. All things that a personal, private journey should be. No one will ever be able to know exactly how one feels.  Just throwing that out there to think about.

Another change that's moving me forward is that a few friends of mine and I are opening an Etsy Shop. Amazing what wanting to pay your bills with do. :-) Actually I am very excited about this. I will be hand dyeing, hand spinning, and the other ladies involved will be natural dying and blending fibers and spinning also. We are calling the shop Smoky Mountain Colors. If you have ever seen the beautiful Smoky Mountains and the colors that are here you will understand. It's a very inspirational place to be. We are hoping to open our shop July 17th.  I will still be working at Smoky Mountain Spinnery as the hand dyer there and instructor.

So life is full, of good and bad, but it all moves us forward. It's important that we all move forward.

Hand Dyeing Again

It's been a very long time since I had the time to dye anything for myself and I think this is something that I need to do to keep my sanity. Though I sometimes dye at the Studio for work, I'm just not as relaxed and comfortable as I am in my space,  of course. LOL. 

Anyway, I got to experiment with dyeing cotton and then I had time to try another way to dye fiber. It was wonderful. Here are the results.