Meet Your Driver

Hey there Roadster, Welcome to Garage Dyeworks.

My name is Sharon, and I’ll be your driver on this roadtrip through hand-dyed yarn!

Before we hit the road here is a bit about me, and how Garage Dyeworks came to be.

I have always been in love with color, which is no surprise when you look at my yarn, and distinctly remember being a huge fan of coloring with crayons. I loved them. I would sit down and color whole pages, transforming the white background into a colorful world of creativity through my childhood hands. I loved crayons so much, the way they transformed a page, their smell, their touch, I can remember them so vividly. My favorite was orange, specifically the bright red orange.

As I got a bit older, probably around 6 years old, I remember being fascinated by the blue yarn and shiny knitting needles my grandma gave to me. I can still remember how patient she was with me, while trying to teach me how to make a garter stitch square. I ended up being very good at one particular stitch, and made miles upon miles of I-cord (even though I didn’t learn the name until much later on).

At 17 my best friend, along with my godmother taught me the basics of knitting with real needles, but it took quite a few years before I became a serious knitter.

I was learning more about the craft, and I visited an independent yarn shop for the first time. I was immediately captivated by Noro and other hand dyed yarns, I had never seen such richness of color in yarn. I had never been exposed to yarns dyed in this way, and something sparked in me.

I was transported back to that little girl sitting and filling those blank white pages with so much color from my crayons. The bright red orange crayon in hand as I created art that was my own. I knew this was the next step for me, creating a yarn color that was uniquely my own.

This lifelong passion for color led me to start creating my own hand dyed yarns, well, with a little practice and patience.

My first yarn, well it didn’t go as planned. I took a ball of yarn and some powdered drink mixes to create my first dyed yarn hank.

It was so ugly that I threw it away.

We live and we learn, and thankfully the 17 years I have been dyeing have taught me a thing or two about creating beautiful colorways that dance across yarn fiber.

I took inspiration from Noro, and dyers like Tina Newton from Blue Moon Fiber Arts to develop my own style and I have officially been an indie dyer since 2008.

Garage Dyeworks wasn’t always the name of my brand, and I was firmly known as Stitch Jones, a hard rock yarn persona that did everything from rock music trivia events, to yarn dyeing classes.

Stitch Jones may have retired, and been reborn under the Garage Dyeworks brand name, but the design to create color and foster a community remains.

I consider myself fortunate to be in this business, meeting other creatives and fiber artists every where I go. I have met so many other dyers who inspire me to continue creating with color, many of which have become friends.

My yarn dyeing lives on in a multigenerational home in beautiful Oregon, USA, surrounded by my family and loved ones.

Thank you for coming on this roadtrip with me, and I hope that my yarns brings you the same joy I found with my bright red orange crayon.

XO, Sharon

Dyer, Creator, and Crayon Lover