cindy

So much for geography ...

The company in all actuality is located in my head then down through my heart which comes out of my hands as knitted stuff.

If you come by, you’ll get the royal factory tour which includes such major points of interests as the brainstorming/workroom also known as the kitchen; the dyeing facility oftentimes called a back porch,

The drying area—anything that serves as a hook; and finally, the pre-shipment/storage station which includes any empty spot

throughout the house (which

are few and far between in

lightof our many treasures.)

The company was

established in 1994, the

year of great sadness,

when a friend handed me

knitting needles and a pattern

to which another friend added

skeins of her extra yarn,

and that was all she wrote.

I knitted my way through grief, I spun away my anger: my sadness dyed in works of tactile art.

Hours of operation are: before the children’s breakfast, backpacks, and busses, red lighted intersections, between cooking and homework, betwixt bath tub occupation and pajama donning (which can sometimes yield a whole bootie, depending upon the willingness of a child to stay immersed to the early raisin stage) and after stories—for about two minutes for then my needles lull me with their “you’re getting very sleepy” rhythm. And those gloriously wonderful two days that we call weekends.

Okay, the product is cute, so how do I sell it? How ‘bout I sell the ‘HOW TO’ and the ‘WITH THIS’: hence , patterns, yarn, kits, and Knit Wits went into production in much the sane, I mean, same fashion the finished booties, hats and slippers; ie all the moments between all the time that something else was not occurring and sometimes, when it was…

At first, I attempted to manufacture, market and sell the finished hat, slippers and baby booties. I would skein up the yarn, then I dyed the skeins either by boiling them in a specific color or laying them out and brushing on different combinations of colors to produce the “rainbow effect” I then steamed them to set the color.

The yarn was then

hung to dry ,usually

for a few days. Then I

knitted, felted, shaped

and dried the booties

once again for a few

days. I sewed on the

accessories, packaged

and peddled them to whomever I could.

Well , gentle crafting reader, you probably know

from your own experience that most folks -particularly those who do not enjoy handcrafting - have no idea of the hours involved and .75 an hour won’t even feed our fiber

addiction much less the family.

My Hannah and I spent

many an hour at various shows

without a sale, shops were

delighted in the booties, just

not the price …

something had to change.

It has been almost 30 years now, since I

soloed in on fiber arts and we’re still in business. We have moved from wool to organic cotton, working with farmers and mills of the southwest and southeast US.

Stony Hill has moved from our beloved hilltop house of nineteen years to the mountains and into my Mother’s childhood home in Tryon, NC.

I feel as if I am living in a dream. I wake up in the room I shared with my sister once upon a time. Each day I am greeted by the beauty of my valley the warmth of my little community, I am happy.