Week 18 - Marie

Marie with her treasured possessions

I am excited as I make my way to across Canberra to meet Marie of Obsession Yarns.  Her reputation goes before her.  The stand she had at the recent Australian Yarn Show was a melage of colour.  The 'Squissiness Table' laid out samples of yarn to be touched and squeezed so customers would know the feel of what they were buying.  In a cacophony of colour her stall stood out.

Marie has invited me to her charmingly eclectic home to be interviewed.  All space on the walls is taken with pictures; painted, printed and diamond art.  Plants and statues are intermingled with trinkets and found items.  In the middle of the room stands a drying rack covered in the latest dyed hanks.  The organised parallel yarn in blacks, browns, reds and mauves add to the riot of colour in the room.  A cat peers around the corner of some yarn filled tubs on the floor.

Obsession Yarns operates mainly online.  The Australian Yarn Show was an exception to the sales model.  Marie uses base yarns bought from others and then dyes them to sell, many to order.  The wool on the drying rack in front of me is already purchased.  It is hard to believe that Marie has only been doing this for a few years.  She fell into this job because of her love of colour.

Marie sold her make-up artist business when she and her partner planned to relocate to a job in Melbourne.  Then Covid hit.  The job and the moving was became a fluid thing, but Marie no longer had employment so found something else to do.  For a while she worked at The Markets Wanniassa then applied for a job with Angela at Black Wattle Yarn as a dyeing assistant.  

Stephen West Shawl

Marie had relearnt how to knit when she returned from The Isle of Skye with a skein of yarn that she could not resist.  Shilasdair Yarns use only natural products to produce yarn of various colours.  Marie took a couple of lessons on knitting from Clare at The Stitching Room and then watched You Tube videos to continue her education.  Encountering Stephen West on her journey towards this new craft, she became a shawl knitter.

Marie tells me that when she takes on a new craft, and she has done a few, she tends to go full pelt; buys everything she needs to do this new thing and then ends up with far more than she needs.  Once she discovered dyeing it was the same.  All the equipment needed to dye all sorts of yarn: pans and burners, yarn bases (fingering, 4ply, 8ply, aran and more), drying racks, and of course, all the dyes.  Marie started an Etsy shop to sell some of the excess.

Current WIP

It was during this process that she discovered that what she likes to knit and what she likes to dye are not the same thing.  Her knitting is not as brightly coloured, more tonal in nature and often more muted compared to the bright pinks, blues, greens and reds I could see in front of me at her house.  We talk about mood and colour; the emotion reaction to colour as you use it.  I find browns, greys and kharis hard to work with, but when these colours, I would never have chosen myself, are put the colours I like, they often make the brighter colours pop.  It is as if the dull is necessary next to the bright to make the bright shine.  

One of the best things Marie has ever made is the Stephen West Slipstravaganza.  It built her confidence and gave her a defining moment of joy.  The first sweater she made was Willowwood by Caitlin Hunter using Woolfolk yarn.  It was not only the first jumper she finished but is the one Marie wears the most! 

Marie uses Ravelry to document all her makes.  She finds it interesting to look back to see what she had made and how far she has come with her craft.  It also gives an indication as to her orgaisation.  Dyeing has many parts and can be complicated.  A system has to be developed to do it well at scale.  Marie takes me into her workshop.  Tables with large shallow dyeing trays on burners set out in neat rows with the next batch.  Books about colour and dyeing.  Shelves with dyes stacked in steps so all can be seen.  More shelfs with bags of bases, all labelled. Marie explains that she started her dyeing in a rented house, everything has to be covered in plastic before she could beginning.  It set up the tight system she now works with.  Marie and her partner bought this house with a view to her working in the garage.  Marie admits that if she had started in this space the tight system she has may not have developed.  Dyeing has hard physical work and can be messy Marie wants to reduce the hard work and the mess.  Her system does both.

Among a household full of stuff Marie picks out the pendant she is wearing, a triskelion celtic symbol and a brass Egyptian cat as two of her favourite things.  She always wears the pendant  feeling a strong connection to the shapes and the what that represents. The cat, part of her ‘obsession with all things Egyptian’ sits high on a mantel shelf and watches all that happens in the house.

Marie in her workshop

It has been a joy to talk to Marie.  Her enthusiasm and energy for what she does shines through her words and gestures.  She offers me a lift to the my next visit, some way off in Woden.  I decline, opting to take the bus in the Autumn sunshine.