November Pop-Up Shop: Amano Yarns!

by : Jimmy Beans Wool

We are very excited to announce our 2020 Pop-Up Shop series! Each month, we will be featuring an indie yarn dyer or company, showcasing their yarn, and highlighting perfect patterns to go with them! We'll also share an interview with the owners and designers here on the blog. All photos courtesy of Amano Yarns.



For the month of November, we are so excited to announce that our Pop-Up Shop is the one and only Amano Yarns! Based high up in the Peruvian Andes, Amano Yarns is focused on bringing the culture and feel of the Andes to makers around the world. 

We caught up with Ellen Saville, the Creative Director at Amano, for a chat about what inspires the fiber blends and soft, rich colorways that Amano produces! Read on for some history, some culture, and of course, some fun!



How did Amano Yarns start?

Amano was born out of a true love and passion for luxury fibers, slow fashion and the traditional culture of the Andes. I joined the project in 2017, and have loved seeing the brand grow over the years, but I wasn’t part of the original team – the brand started in 2014. I was attracted to the storytelling, beautiful branding and fell in love with the unique yarns. My favorite project was my first new development I worked on with the team ’Yana’ – it was our first 100% wool product, and we’ve seen a lot of success with it – so much that now we have a whole ‘Yana’ Collection with four qualities grow from the original yarn!



Where do you find inspiration for your colors?

At Amano, we take direct inspiration from the bounty of nature and the Andes which we call our home.  From the high glacial mountains, to Andean textile traditions, to the rich and vibrant culinary culture, it’s very difficult to not feel inspired by the landscapes and people of the Andes. Each yarn quality takes inspiration in a part of Inca culture, we think carefully about how to tell that story through color and a lot of thought goes into each step of this development. For example, with our new Puna Traceable alpaca, the colors were inspired by the famous rainbow mountain in Peru.


What was the first color that you dyed and why did you start with that?

We started our collection with a very soft and traditional baby alpaca in both its dyed and un-dyed form: Puna and Eco Puna. We consider this fiber to be the heart of our collection and this is why it is part of our Origin Collection. Baby alpaca is luxurious, famous and because of our Andean Heritage, we found it a great place to start our brand.  Puna has now a refreshed color palette and is fully traceable, and we’re very excited to see our humble baby alpaca evolve into a full transparent Project.  Furthermore, its worth stating how Eco Puna is un-dyed alpaca. It continues to be one of most popular yarns, and we’re so proud to show just how incredible the natural fiber is. Did you know that alpaca has 22 natural shades?


When did you first learn knitting or crocheting? Do you do other crafts with your yarn?

I actually learnt to knit in Peru. I consider myself quite a crafty person, and I have always loved sewing and embroidery. Since I was surrounded with such beautiful textiles and knitting is very popular in Peru, I thought it would be a great place to learn – people here have knit for centuries and are very highly skilled. I actually also use Amano yarns now for visible mending and darning techniques too on my knits that need repairing!



And just for fun: If you could design a parade float that was fiber themed, what would it look like?

We would love to make a parade float out of our yarns in a very textured and fluffy Andean scene. I would love there to be a mountain range, with sleepy villages and pastoral scenes below, complete with clouds and the high sun in the sky. This way, we could bring a bit of the highlands to the parade!




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October Pop-Up Shop: PassionKNITS Yarn!

by : Jimmy Beans Wool
We are very excited to announce our 2020 Pop-Up Shop series! Each month, we will be featuring an indie yarn dyer or company, showcasing their yarn, and highlighting perfect patterns to go with them! We'll also share an interview with the owners and designers here on the blog. All photos courtesy of PassionKNITS Yarn.



This October, our latest and greatest Pop-Up Shop is none other than PassionKNITS Yarn! Operating from outside of Baltimore, Maryland, PassionKNITS is run by Ain (pronounced Ine or Ein) Munn, the creative force behind the scrumptious colorways and beautiful fades all over the @PassionKNITS_Yarn Instagram! 

We had some time to chat with Ain about what makes PassionKNITS so, well, passionate! Passion-ful? Passion-y? Whatever it is, we love it! Ain shared with us some stories about her inspiration, her choices in different bases, and more! 




1. How did passionKNITS start? 
I started PassionKNITS Yarn because after taking a few yarn dyeing classes I began experimenting more and more. I started to realize I had way more or my own hand-dyed yarn then I realized so I decided to take the plunge and open my own small business. It’s been an exciting journey so far with many ups and downs and some serious learning curves along the way. 

2. Where do you find inspiration for your colors?
I loved the idea of creating different color combinations and putting together colors you would never think complement one another. My colorways are inspired by my memories and moods, infused with passion, and limited only by my imagination. My colorway names reflect different facets of my life, to include my childhood, love of music and my active imagination.

3. Is there any particular colorway that has special meaning to you? 
I have two answers for this question. The first would be Vivian, which is a light pink with sprinkles of grey. This colorway is always made on a yarn base with Stellina because I love the sparkle. Vivian is named after my paternal grandmother who taught me how to crochet. She was the sweetest woman I knew and literally made from sugar and spice and everything nice. The second answer would be Twilight Sky, which is a moody skein made with blues, yellows and reds and is normally made on a stellina base as well to represent the night stars. 

4. When did you first learn knitting or crocheting? Do you do other crafts with your yarn? 
As a child, I learned to crochet, and fell in love with yarn, from my grandmother and aunt while growing up in Queens, NY. I fell in love with yarn again when I took my first knitting class at a local yarn shop and a beginner dyeing class at a Baltimore Yarn Store. I also love to garden, paint and occasionally fish with my husband.




5. And just for fun: If you could design a parade float that was fiber themed, what would it look like? 
Whimsy would be the theme of my parade float. There would be colorways related to fairies, woodland sprites, butterflies, unicorns, mermaids and dragons. There would be plenty of purple, pink, blue and green in different shades and tones.




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