529. The Romancelandia Yarn Collection with Nakia from Wild Star Fibers

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Sarah Wendell: Hello and welcome to episode number 529 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell, and today my guest is Nakia of WildStar Fibers. Nakia created the Romancelandia collection of yarn, and I know several of you who are knitters probably just sat down real hard thinking, how did I miss this?! We’re going to talk about what books inspired her Romancelandia collection and how she translated tropes into color combinations.

I will have links to her shop in the show notes, and she will be putting some of the extras up for sale very soon. I will also have links to all the books we talk about and where you can find more about Nakia and WildStar Fibers at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

Hello and thank you to the Patreon community for supporting the show, making sure every episode has a transcript, and for keeping me going each week. I want to say hello and welcome to Abigail and Kelli who are two of the newest members of the Patreon community. We have bonus episodes; we have, coming soon, a Discord server; we have a lot of mayhem planned, so if you would like to join our Patreon, please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.

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Are you ready to explore the intersection, dyeing wool, and romance? I am! [Me too! – gk] Let’s do this! On with my podcast with Nakia of WildStar Fibers.

[music]

Nakia: Hi, everyone! My name is Nakia. I am the founder and dyer of WildStar Fibers yarn company?

Sarah: Please tell me about your business, about WildStar Fibers, how you got started, and specifically about your Romance collection, which everyone on the Smart Bitches team completely loves!

Nakia: [Laughs]

Sarah: It’s so, I have so many questions – so many questions! Please tell me everything. How did you start WildStar Fibers, and what led you to a romance collection?

Nakia: Okay, so I started WildStar Fibers from just, you know, I was home with lots of babies and needed something to do to keep my hands busy, so I picked up knitting again. I had learned how to knit in high school and kind of dropped it, but then we were, you know, I needed things, activities to do with kids, so we started out with yarn and Kool-Aid and food coloring as dye, you know, and dyeing yarn here and there, and then that just kind of tumbled into, you know, I started researching, like, professional dyes and dyeing yarn for myself because it seemed more cost-effective that way, and then it just kind of grew into a business and, you know, I realized how much I loved it. [Laughs]

Sarah: I mean, as a person who also started her own business: well done! That is not easy –

Nakia: Thank you! [Laughs]

Sarah: – to start your own creative business. That is very challenging!

Nakia: Yeah.

Sarah: What were some of the things that you learned? Like, how easy is it to dye yarn?

Nakia: It’s kind of, it’s not a really complicated process, but it’s one of those things where it, I think the hardest part is, you know, coming up with the inspiration and actually translating that inspiration to the physical yarn, being able to kind of get it out of your brain, because, you know, there’s lots of thoughts of colors and things –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – how things should go together, and – [laughs] – there have been some misses where I’ll dye something, like, oh no, that didn’t come out the way I thought it would, but –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nakia: – you know, you just need some dye, you need some wool or any kind of protein yarn, protein-based yarn; and acid, like vinegar, citric acid; and heat, and that pretty much does the trick.

Sarah: And it’s very cool; the process of dyeing yarn has not changed a lot, has it?

Nakia: Nope.

Sarah: It’s pretty much the same chemical setup –

Nakia: Same exact thing.

Sarah: – as it has been for lots of years.

Nakia: Exactly, exactly, and, you know, whether you’re doing it on a small scale, like on your stove, the way – [laughs] – that I do or, you know, in mills and factories, like, it’s still the same –

Sarah: Same thing!

Nakia: – the same process, yeah.

Sarah: So you created the Romancelandia collection.

Nakia: I did!

Sarah: I am presuming that this has been a very large success. It’s gorgeous. It’s just –

Nakia: Thank you so much!

Sarah: – gorgeous.

Nakia: Thank you. I have been a romance reader forever. [Laughs] I picked up my first –

Sarah: ‘Cause you have excellent taste!

Nakia: Thank you, thank you! I picked up my first Nora Roberts book I think when I was sixteen. It was one that my mom had on her bookshelf, and I had just been, been stuck with the – [laughs] – that love since then. But I’d been trying to come up with different, you know, ideas for collections, and I recently got a Kindle Unlimited subscription –

Sarah: Yes?

Nakia: – and so my book reading has – [laughs] –

Sarah: Gone up!

Nakia: – increased exponentially, so –

Sarah: Yep!

Nakia: It’s like, you know, I’ve got all, look at all these beautiful book covers, and, you know, I got to talking to some friends about romance novel tropes and what our favorite tropes were, and I thought, oh hey, that would be really awesome, you know, idea for a romance novel collection, and so what I ended up doing, ‘cause originally I was going to choose specific book covers?

Sarah: Right.

Nakia: And I thought about it, and I thought, no, I’m going to just kind of go with the flow and see what, you know, what I come up with. I have a notebook page of so many – [laughs] – ideas, so these are just the, the initial six, and I’d eventually like to come back with another couple of batches.

Sarah: So tell me about the Romancelandia collection, the six, the six colorways that you’ve come up with.

Nakia: So we have Fated Mates; you know, I had the, like, Throne of Glass series on, on my mind with this and the whole idea of, like, fated mates and everything. I’ve got Forced Proximity –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – which was almost called Only One Bed.

[Laughter]

Nakia: Got Slow Burn; this one I think is my, one of my favorites.

Sarah: I love the fact that Slow Burn is this deep purple and then coral. Yeah.

Nakia: It felt like that was, like, you know, gives you that look of, like, burning.

Sarah: Yep!

Nakia: We have Love Triangle is –

Sarah: Yep!

Nakia: – you know, lots of –

Sarah: Pink and blue, yeah.

Nakia: I have Enemies to Lovers, and this one –

Sarah: That’s the most pale of all of them; that’s the lightest colors.

Nakia: It is! It, it’s like a – and I don’t, my colorways are always really, really bright and just, like, really punchy, but this one, I don’t know what it is, I just love it, and it’s such a, such a, like, soft color, but then that orange pop that’s in here?

Sarah: Yep. You’ve got that beautiful mint and the light blue, and then the orange is like, hello!

Nakia: Yep, yeah. [Laughs] And this one, surprisingly, ended up being the, the most popular of –

Sarah: Oh, that’s interesting!

Nakia: – of the, you know, the batch or of all of them, but yeah, it’s pretty awesome, and I’ve already got plans to make a sweater for myself and so – [laughs]

Sarah: Ah, so that’s the occupational hazard, right? You dye the wool and then you’re like, well! Got all this wool!

Nakia: Yeah, I start squirreling it away, so I’ve got these huge bins downstairs that are my –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – you know, sample –

Sarah: Yes.

Nakia: – sample batch, and that’s exactly what, what it is: any time I see something that I can’t part with –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – I keep it for myself. And then we have Forbidden Love –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – here, and this one is, I really love this one too. Anything that’s got, like, that magenta and kind of coral-y red –

Sarah: Yep!

Nakia: – color is –

Sarah: I, so I have a bunch of questions from different –

Nakia: Okay.

Sarah: – staff members who write for Smart Bitches, many of whom are knitters, and Shana wanted to know, you mentioned that you were inspired with Fated Mates by Throne of Glass. Were you inspired by specific books for all of the colorways? How did you decide these color combinations?

Nakia: I think ultimately what I ended up going with were some of my favorite tropes? There were, you know how, like, there’s so many books that have so many different –

Sarah: Oh yes!

Nakia: – you know, things throughout them?

Sarah: Yes.

Nakia: You know, especially, especially long-lasting, like, series?

Sarah: Yes!

Nakia: But I just went, ultimately went with what my favorite tropes were.

Sarah: I mean, you’re in charge, right? It’s your –

Nakia: And it’s – yes, yes, exactly! Who’s going to tell me no? [Laughs]

Sarah: This is a major motivator for me, by the way, running my own business? Well, who’s going to stop me if I want to –

Nakia: Exactly!

Sarah: – do this? No one’s going to stop me!

Nakia: No, see, and I think that’s the, the awesome thing about having a business is ultimately you get to decide, and if it doesn’t work then you can move on and try a different avenue, but –

Sarah: You are totally right.

Nakia: Yep. There’s no one to tell you that it’s not going to work. [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s right! No one to stop you; no one to tell you it’s not going to happen. Absolutely true.

So were there other books that specifically found their way into this collection?

Nakia: Definitely the Throne of Glass series, A Court of Thorn and Roses. There is a, a book called Skin of the Sea and it’s by Natasha Bowen.

Sarah: Yes?

Nakia: That one is, you know, kind of like a slow, like soft, gentle romance. Some of the books in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series, and –

Sarah: Yeess?

Nakia: Yeah, there’s just, I have so many favorites –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – so hard to narrow it down.

Sarah: Yes, it always is. This is my, this is the question I get, like, all the time: so what’s your favorite romance novel? And I’m like, that’s not a question that I answer with a singular book.

Nakia: No!

Sarah: Like, that’s just not going to happen!

Nakia: Like, how long do you have? Let’s sit down and talk about this. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yes! Do you have time? ‘Cause I’m going to need some time. Yeah.

So how do you decide your color combinations?

Nakia: What I recently started doing was, I have a set of watercolor paints?

Sarah: Mm-hmm?

Nakia: And so lately I’ve been trying to kind of paint out the color combinations and blend them together on paper to see how they look before I apply them. A lot of it is just, okay, what are my –

Sarah: Right.

Nakia: What, what do I love? And what do I feel goes together? Every now and then I’ll pull out the, you know, color wheel, but most of the time I don’t. I just kind of throw things together – [laughs] – so you hope it doesn’t come out too mud-, too muddy. But –

Sarah: Because you have to get it to the point right before it all turns into that one combined brown –

Nakia: Exactly. [Laughs]

Sarah: – green color.

Nakia: Exactly.

Sarah: The color, the color that your water turns when you clean your brush? You need to, whatever that color is, that’s, that’s the line of gone too far. [Laughs]

Nakia: And you know I have some, especially some of my early skeins, I have some like that where it’s like, yeah, this is not –

Sarah: Watercolor Brush Water is the name of this color, thank you.

Nakia: Exactly. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: Exactly.

Sarah: So what are the color mixes that translate best to yarn? Are there some colors where you’re like, this is going to work, and there, are there other colors that are like, okay, this is harder?

Nakia: You know, for me personally, I have the hardest time with translating greens to yarn? I think I, I love purple, so any range of anything with purples, magentas –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – and even, like, leaning more towards like blues? Those I feel the most comfortable with, and those, if I have, you know, a picture in my mind, that I feel like always, I can get it on yarn.

Sarah: Yep, yep, yep.

Nakia: Greens I feel like are kind of a struggle for me sometimes because they’re so, they’re such a beautiful range, and, but, plant, you know, like especially with Fated Mates, this one came out much better than I would have ever imagined. I’ve got some, like, kind of like dark mossy green in there, and there’s the teal, and it came out so good.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: One of the colors I don’t dye much of is yellow? But it’s one that I would love to experiment with –

Sarah: Yeah?

Nakia: – and –

Sarah: Is it a hard color to dye?

Nakia: It’s a hard color to dye and have people like it? Because it’s, because yellow, you know, like, everybody has a very specific type of yellow that they’re drawn to, and so it’s kind of hard to figure out, oh, do you like the brassy yellow, more orange, or do you like the, like, neon lime? [Laughs]

Sarah: Yep. Do you like pale, pale yellow? Do you like a light orange yellow? Yeah. It, yellow can be tricky.

One of the biggest questions that a lot of my writers had was about maintaining color consistency over multiple skeins, because when you order a yarn you’re ordering a specific colorway, and then often you’re ordering a specific batch so that you know that the colors will match, and sometimes you have to mix batches which don’t always match, and yet your, your colorways and batches match so well, first of all – well done.

Nakia: Thank you!

Sarah: How do you do that? That seems really, really hard. Is that one of the most challenging parts?

Nakia: That one I think is the, the most challenging, consistency, because –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – you know, sometimes it can range, especially, you know, depending on the season or the temperature of the water that you start with or –

Sarah: Humidity! Yeah, absolutely.

Nakia: Exactly! And sometimes even from the, the supplier that I get my dyes from, every now and then something will come in and it’s not the same as, you know, the previous batch of dye. Try to make a huge batch of the dye so that, you know, those skeins are all coming from the same exact batch of the same mix, and then that kind of helps with the consistency. I do always tell customers that I strive for consistency always, but every now and then, because it is a hand, a hand-dyed product, that it is, you know, there may be some variance, so –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – it’s always best to kind of alternate skeins or expect that if you are making a large project that you have to kind of break, break it up a little bit so that there isn’t any unintentional, you know, pooling of colors.

Sarah: Yeah, yeah. With the Romancelandia collection, were you surprised by the response?

Nakia: I was.

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: It was very – [laughs] – ‘cause I thought it was, you know, it was a passion project of mine, but I wasn’t expecting it to have had such a, a huge draw, and –

Sarah: Yay!

Nakia: – so that was really exciting, and I mean, like, honestly, it was kind of combining my two loves – [laughs] – books and yarn.

Sarah: Heck yeah!

Nakia: So it was, it was real cool to see, hey, you know, like, there’s so many other people that are –

Sarah: Lot of readers, lot of knitters. They overlap a lot, yep.

Nakia: Yeah.

Sarah: And I noticed that when you launched the collection, you were taking orders, so you know exactly how much you have to fulfill.

Nakia: Right, and, and I, I started dyeing last week, and it’s, this has been the biggest preorder? Probably like the biggest launch that I’ve had?

Sarah: Congratulations! That’s fabulous!

Nakia: Thank you! Thank you. So it’s definitely a, a large undertaking, but it’s exciting.

Sarah: Yeah!

Nakia: I have my children, I’ve kind of like roped them in, so they’re helping. [Laughs] They’re helping with labeling and, you know, drying and getting things ready, so turning it into a family project?

Sarah: That’s adorable! I imagine that your kids are going to have really fun memories too. Like, we’re helping mom –

Nakia: I hope so.

Sarah: – dye all the romance yarn.

Nakia: [Laughs] I hope so! It was funny, when I sat down to, my eight-year-old daughter, she was really excited about line, and she wanted to know all the names and I was explaining it to my teenage son, and he, he just was so tickled, he thought it was hilarious because he, you know, my entire, his entire life I have always had, you know, books in my purse –

Sarah: Yep, yep.

Nakia: – books stacked everywhere, reading –

Sarah: Yep!

Nakia: Anytime we have to sit down somewhere, I always tell the kids, make sure you have a book with you, because –

Sarah: Yes.

Nakia: – you need to, something to do, and so he was asking me about the names of the colorways –

Sarah: Aw!

Nakia: – and he’s asking, well, what, like, what does that mean? Because he does-, you know, he doesn’t read romance – [laughs] – so it was a lot of fun talking to him about it and talking to the other kids.

Sarah: That’s adorable! They must be so proud of you!

Nakia: I hope so.

Sarah: I bet. I mean, there’s no question.

Nakia: [Laughs]

Sarah: How many test skeins did you do before you got the colors that you were after for this collection? Was this a pretty straightforward development, or did you have to go through testing for some of the different tropes that you were creating for?

Nakia: There were, there were, most of them were pretty straightforward. I would say that, you know, Enemies to Lovers, Forced Proximity, and Love Triangle, those were the, the easiest. Like, I dyed the batch and knew immediately, that’s exactly what I want. But with Slow Burn it took a while; took, I think I had four batches, so I got four runs of that colorway that are – [laughs] –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – that were not perfect? Forbidden Love and Fated Mates, I think I ran maybe like two batches –

Sarah: Yeah?

Nakia: – of each of those before I got to where, where I wanted.

Sarah: Nice!

Nakia: It’s always awesome when that first batch is the one, you know, and as I’m, like, writing down my notes and things it’s obvious.

Sarah: Yep. And you have to take notes of the process and the amounts and everything that you’re doing so that you can replicate it for – that’s part of the key –

Nakia: Yeah.

Sarah: – to consistency, right? It’s not like you just chuck it in there and walk away like it’s an Instant Pot.

Nakia: It’s a, yeah, I’ve got it down to, you know, a science. I have, like, timers set for each step in my notes for each colorway. I’ll, you know, write out, okay, you know, like if I decide later on I’m going to change a process I’ll put the date and the, you know, what the change was that was made, and so that, you know, when I’m looking at it for, a year from now –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – I know exactly what –

Sarah: [Laughs] Past Nakia has left you an instruction manual.

Nakia: [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, Past Sarah has to help Present Sarah out a lot. It happens.

Nakia: It’s, you know – [laughs] – Present Us will always thank our Past Selves for –

Sarah: Yes! Past Sarah and Present Sarah have to work together to help Future Sarah; she’s going to be tired, we just know it. Yeah.

Nakia: Exactly, exactly.

Sarah: So you’ve really married your love of reading, your love of the romance genre, and science and chemistry and knitting.

Nakia: Yes!

Sarah: I don’t think – I mean, when you look at yarn you’re like, oh, that’s really pretty. It, it – I am learning a lot right now about the process of how those colors happen, because it’s not like – when you’re dyeing something that is multiple colors and has speckles and goes from like a – like, for example, Enemies to Lovers is a very, very pale minty green, and then these pow! Speckles and stripes of orange. Like, that’s, that’s got to be really challenging!

Nakia: It’s, you know, it was one where I wasn’t sure if it was, you know – [laughs] – like, is this the right, the right move to go from this really soft to this really bright?

Sarah: Looks great.

Nakia: Thank you, thank you. I’m happy with it! [Laughs]

Sarah: Excellent! So you mentioned that Enemies to Lovers surprised you at being the most popular. Were they all unilaterally popular, or were there some that were really just pulling ahead?

Nakia: Enemies to Lovers and Love Triangle ended up being the, the runaway, like, successes? Yeah, like, you know, all of them seem to be pretty popular, but those two –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – were so far ahead in orders and, like, just the people sending emails and messages and, and, you know, like, social media, like, comments and likes and all of those. All of those things that we have, we don’t want to count but we have to count because it –

Sarah: Yes. All of those metrics.

Nakia: – because of reach? Yeah.

Sarah: Yep. So how do you advertise your work? Is it mostly on Instagram and social media, Instagram and Facebook?

Nakia: It’s all on Instagram and Facebook and there, you know, like, there are a couple of Facebook groups that I belong to that will allow, you know, small business posts, like usually on Saturdays or something and so –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – I, you know, do post there, but up to this point I haven’t had to do any paid advertisements or anything. It’s just been, you know, social media and other people sharing and, and commenting and posting, which is really awesome, and I’m –

Sarah: Yeah!

Nakia: – so grateful for, for that, that help, because that’s, you know, like, that’s the, the best way to get – [laughs] – to get the information out there to other people who, who are interested.

Sarah: Absolutely, and there’s no better way to show the product than to show what it looks like, and then I noticed, you know, you, you have a head band on your Instagram of Love Triangle all knitted up, and it’s –

Nakia: I do!

Sarah: – gorgeous! It’s just, I love this headband pattern, by the way! It is, I don’t knit and I want to learn how to do it just for that. It’s so cute.

Nakia: Thank you, thank you! I try to knit up little swatches of the colorways, and this one I just decided like, you know what? It’s not – I don’t want to do a swatch; I want –

Sarah: Yeah!

Nakia: – like, I want something that I can use, so.

Sarah: Yeah! It must be incredibly lovely to be like, I dyed this, I created this, I made a headband, now my hair is back and I look good! Like, that’s wonderful!

Nakia: It feels so good, and especially –

Sarah: Yeah!

Nakia: – like, being out and if, you know, someone will say, oh, I really like that sweater; where’d you buy it? Oh, well, I made it, and –

Sarah: And I dyed the yarn.

Nakia: [Laughs] Here’s my business card!

Sarah: Very smart! Very, very smart, ‘cause you’re never not at an opportunity to talk to other knitters; they’re everywhere! They’re just everywhere!

Nakia: Exactly.

Sarah: So what tropes are you thinking of doing in the future? I realize that this is a hard question ‘cause you just started dyeing all of the orders for the first set, but are you thinking about a second set?

Nakia: You know, I kind of have started loosely putting together, you know, some ideas. Like I said, I’ve got a, a list of, of different, you know, different tropes. I’ve got like the, you know, like the Mafia Romance or, you know, like those kind of –

Sarah: Yep, yep.

Nakia: But I figure I’ll get through this and then start working on –

Sarah: The next batch?

Nakia: – ideas of colors that can go with the next, the next round, and I think that sometime next year, hopefully in January, February, once we get past the holidays, it’ll be a good time to start really pulling that together. But I am looking forward to, since this one was so well received and everyone seems so excited about it, I am really looking forward to, to kind of doing it again.

Sarah: Yeah!

Nakia: The, you know, because there are always wonderful books coming out, and so there’s lots of inspiration to pull from.

Sarah: Yep. And it’s, and it’s an interesting exercise in trying to figure out, this particular book delivers this particular feeling. What color is that feeling? It’s very synesthesia-focused. Like, what is the color of this feeling? And not everyone is going to agree on the color, but the thing that I loved about your first Romancelandia collection is the number of people who emailed it to me and said, oh my God, did you see this?!

Nakia: [Laughs]

Sarah: Like, yes! Yes, I did; it’s gorgeous! I don’t even knit and I want to just, like, rub them on my face!

Nakia: Just buy the yarn to collect it.

Sarah: Yeah! I mean, I have seen several people across many different paths in different crafting areas say, the acquisition of the supplies and the use of the supplies are two very different hobbies.

Nakia: Exactly, exactly.

Sarah: Buying fabric and using fabric: two separate hobbies.

Nakia: I have an office full of fabric because I used to sew.

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: Oft-, you know, every day, and – [laughs] –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – I still buy fabric –

Sarah: Oh yeah!

Nakia: – occasionally? But I have yet to –

Sarah: I am subscribed to a fabric club; it just shows up in the mail and I’m like, oooh!

Nakia: Oh, that’s awesome! [Laughs]

Sarah: I just got the teal collection and I’m like, this is amazing!

Nakia: You know, I, my daughter got into polymer clay crafting, so now all of a sudden we have lots of things.

Sarah: Lots of Sculpey everywhere!

Nakia: I got myself a set too and –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – I have not sat down to use it, so, but – [laughs]

Sarah: I used to teach that at, at a summer camp; I was an Arts councilor –

Nakia: Oh –

Sarah: – and I used to teach Sculpey clay, ‘cause as, as a camp activity it’s great because you make something, and then you just shove it in a low oven for a little while and then it’s done the same day, so it’s very gratifying for kids to, like, make a little thing.

Nakia: Right!

Sarah: You make a little charm, make a little necklace, make a little bracelet charm, make things for your friends.

Nakia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: I had a whole, ‘cause I was teaching, I had a whole set of little animals that I would make. Like, I had a little elephant holding a canoe paddle.

Nakia: Oh, that’s cool!

Sarah: It was, it’s very fun and gratifying, and one thing I think that, especially in the, the ongoing Quarantimes, is that the things that make you feel creative joy are so valuable.

Nakia: ‘Cause it brings a, a sense of peace and kind of fulfillment, especially with things being so uncertain and –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – you know, like, scary. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. And I think that’s why baking was popular too: like, you make the thing, it takes a little while, and then you have the finished product, usually the same day, unless you’re like –

Nakia: And you can enjoy it and –

Sarah: Yes.

Nakia: – and it, it makes you feel good, so –

Sarah: Yes! Knitting is the same way; so is quilting and sewing: you make something and then you’re wearing it or wrapping yourself up in it –

Nakia: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: – or making yourself feel warm and cozy! These are all very warm and cozy hobbies.

Nakia: Exactly, exactly.

Sarah: So how long does it take for you, now that you have all the preorders in, how long does it take for you to dye the wool and process everything and get everything out?

Nakia: Ah, you know, I, right now I have the collection set at a six-week time frame –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – to get everything dyed and –

Sarah: Makes sense.

Nakia: – ready to ship out. Hopefully it’ll be ready faster, but I figured six weeks gave me a, a reasonable amount of time so that I don’t have to, to rush. I still have, you know, kids are going to be starting school, but I also have a toddler at home and a husband that travels for work too, so a lot of my dyeing is during nap times or late at night when everybody else is asleep and it’s –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – you know, mostly just me.

Sarah: Well, you don’t have to worry about your Halloween house set up: you can just move all of your dye pots onto the porch and put on a witch costume –

Nakia: And just – [laughs]

Sarah: – and just stir and be like, hello, would you like some candy?

Nakia: [Laughs] Yeah! And you know, we’ve already got the spiderwebs out on the porch –

Sarah: Yeah, you’re fine! That’s all you need!

Nakia: – so we’re good! [Laughs]

Sarah: Do you have to hang up the yarn to dry? Like, do you have the most gorgeous clothesline in your yard?

Nakia: I’ve got some really cool yarn racks. Every now and then I’ll, if the weather’s really nice, I’ll set them outside on my deck, but I’m, I am really nervous about birds flying over and things, so I – [laughs]

Sarah: Nobody wants bird-poop yarn; that is not a colorway that anyone is interested in.

Nakia: Feel like I have, I can’t relax if it’s outside on the porch, so –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – we’ve got, you know, got, like, the laundry racks that can break down, and I, my basement is pretty much the, we’ve got fans set up and –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – spin dryer and everything usually hangs up down there.

Sarah: So I always ask this question: what books are you reading that you want to tell people about?

Nakia: Okay, I just read this book, actually just finished it right before we sat down, and it’s by Carissa Broadbent, and it is – I’ve got to – it just released this week, and I think it was Garden of Serpents? The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent, and that one, that was a good book. It kind of, it had a lot of, you know, like, it had the, the romance and a lot of sexual tension, but it, there was a lot of action. I think the book blurb said, you know, like, The Hunger Games, but it’s like romance, but it’s excellent. So that I think of everything I’ve read lately, that’s my number one –

Sarah: Wow!

Nakia: – right now, and I don’t have any other ones lined up. I’ve got a long, you know, TBR list, but –

Sarah: Yep.

Nakia: – you know, indecisive, so – [laughs] – I haven’t sat down yet to, to figure out what, what’s coming up next.

Sarah: Well, I do have a book recommendation for you, ‘cause I think it would make gorgeous yarn.

Nakia: Okay?

Sarah: There’s a book called The Monsters We Defy by Leslye Penelope. It is a mix of paranormal and historical fiction. It is set in Washington, DC, in the ‘30s? Well, first of all, the main character, she can see spirits and she can see the dead, and there are spirits they have to work with, but people are disappearing? And suddenly she realizes that she needs to figure out why they’re, why these people are disappearing, and then there’s a heist, and then there’s found family, and then there’s all these characters with different powers coming together to try to figure out how to save people, and –

Nakia: Okay.

Sarah: – it is the perfect blend of paranormal fantasy and historical fiction? I could not stop reading it, and my gosh, would it make good yarn colors.

Nakia: Okay, I’m going to add that one. 

Sarah: Do people say that to you, by the way? Like, okay, this is a good yarn color, or this is a good idea –

Nakia: Yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: – for a yarn color, so take this; make a color.

Nakia: I get, you know, I get the, I get emails every now and then of, you know, hey, I had this idea, and it, a lot of times it – [laughs] – does work out!

Sarah: Yeah?

Nakia: That book sounds amazing. I, like, fantasy romance I think is my, like, that’s my, my jam right now. [Laughs]

Sarah: Now, I understand the preorder period is over. Are you going to have any extras for sale?

Nakia: You know, there will be some extras, so once I’ve got everything dyed and all of the orders fulfilled and shipped, then I will, I’ll have an update in the –

Sarah: Cool.

Nakia: – on the web-, on the website with whatever leftovers I have from the batches, and then some of these will be eventually making an appearance as regular, you know, regular shop colorways. I, I’m always, most of the time, always open to custom orders –

Sarah: Yeah.

Nakia: – so these’ll be added to that custom order –

Sarah: Option.

Nakia: – list of col-, options where customers can, can have –

Sarah: ‘Cause I have a feeling after this episode comes out people are going to be like, where can I buy them? They’re gorgeous; I want them now!

Nakia: [Laughs] Yeah.

Sarah: ‘Cause, I mean, think about it, if you think about it, reading, knitting, all of the crafts, a lot of that relies on people’s poor impulse control.

Nakia: Yes.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Nakia: That’d be –

[Laughter]

Nakia: You know, not enough, don’t think about –

Sarah: Nope.

Nakia: – do we need it? It’s –

Sarah: No!

Nakia: – I want it. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah, you don’t think about whether you need it. What is it? SABLE: Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy?

Nakia: Yeah, yeah. [Laughs]

Sarah: Yeah. You have more yarn than you can use in your actual lifetime; you’re doing just fine. Absolutely, good job.

Nakia: Exactly.

Sarah: So where can people find you if they want to go shopping? Where can people find you?

Nakia: My website is wildstarfibers.com, and there are, right now the shop is pretty bare. I think I’ve got some mystery – [laughs] – mystery colorway listings there, but I’ll be kind of trickling in new, new things over the next few weeks. And then I can also be found on Instagram @wildstarfibers and also on Facebook at WildStarFibers.

Sarah: Fabulous. Will you please, if you can, let me know when you list some of the extras for sale so I can tell everybody on my website about it?

Nakia: I definitely will.

Sarah: That would be great!

Nakia: I really will.

Sarah: Okay! Thank you so much for doing this; it has been such a pleasure to talk to you!

Nakia: Thank you! It was wonderful talking to you today too.

Sarah: I am so excited about how happy everyone was to, like, tell me about this collection. Like, Sarah, I know you don’t knit, but I know you know people who knit. Have you seen this? Like, yes, I have! It’s amazing! So there are many, many, many people squeeing over what you’ve created, which is, like, the best compliment, so well done!

Nakia: It feels so good. Thank you! Thank you!

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Thank you to Nakia for hanging out with me, and thank you for listening! It is an honor to keep you company. I will have links to her store, to her Instagram, to everywhere you can find the Romancelandia collection, and like I said in the intro, the extras will be on sale soon I hope, and I will get an email about it, so I’ll definitely let you know when that happens.

Are you a knitter? Do you dye wool? I know there are many listeners to this particular show who also dye wool. Hello, dyeing-wool people! I’m curious about your creative hobbies. What creative things bring you joy? Please tell me! I would love to hear from you. You can email me at S-G, [email protected] – you’d think I’d get that right after so many years? You can also leave a message at 201-371-3272. I love hearing from you, and if you have creative hobbies that bring you joy, I want to know all about them.

One of my creative hobbies is terrible jokes. I mean, I don’t write them, but I go hunting for them, ‘cause as I said, you know, the acquisition of supplies and the using of supplies, two very different hobbies. Ask my fabric collection.

This week’s bad joke is delightful! It’s also about knitting.

Why should you knit sweaters for jalapeno peppers?

Give up? Why should you knit sweaters for jalapeno peppers?

Because they’re little chilly.

[Laughs] Little chili! Little chilly! I love a bad joke.

If you have bad jokes for me, you know what to do, right? You should send them to me ‘cause it’s like my favorite thing? [email protected]. Look, I said it without stumbling. Yay me!

On behalf of everyone here, we wish you the very best of reading. Have a fabulous weekend, and we will see you back here next week.

Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.

[end of music]