Meet the Maker: Celtic Raven Fibres
If you’ve been spending any time on Darn Yarn’s socials lately, you’ll have seen some of the spectacular colourways made by Cindy Hagen of Celtic Raven Fibres. Cindy is a longtime dyer and fibre arts enthusiast, located in the beautiful town of Shelburne, NS.
Cindy has been knitting, sewing, and crocheting for as long as she can remember. She learned to knit when she was 8 years old and had to knit a 4-inch square for Brownies.
“I can still remember that square and how long it took me to pick out the colour of yarn I wanted to knit with.”
She caught the knitting bug then and has been knitting on and off ever since. For her, knitting is like a reliable old friend:
“I cannot remember a time when I was not knitting. It was sporadic at times, but it was always there ready for me.”
Eventually, Cindy expanded into weaving and spinning as well.
Intrigued by anything fibre-arts related, Cindy took a dyeing workshop at a local community college in her early 30s, and she was hooked immediately. She dyed intensively for several years before putting the dye pots away when life and family responsibilities interfered. Years passed, as they do, without a return to the thing that she loved. Then, five years ago, everything changed.
I had been part of an Artists Way group and out of that came the thought that I really wanted to dye yarn again. I purchased some yarn from the Emily at The Mineville Wool Project and that’s when Celtic Raven Fibres came into being.
Since then, she has been unstoppable, creating a collection of truly gorgeous yarns.
Cindy draws inspiration from the colours in nature, taking photos whenever she sees something that attracts her:
The thing about nature is you often see colours that you may not put together and yet when you really look at them, they vibrate and glow. When I see that happen, I know there is a new colourway in the works.
She has experimented with many different dyeing techniques, often receiving help from friends and family in finding names for her creations. A recent favourite colourway is Stay the Blazes Home, created in response to a challenge on the Roving Knitters HRM Facebook group. She ended up knitting a pair of socks with it and sending them to Premier Stephen McNeil.
When asked what she loves most about her work, Cindy’s answer is clear:
I LOVE colour. The best part of dyeing yarn for me is getting to play with colour. It’s like when you got to open that new box of pencil crayons or wax crayons. So many colours. So many possibilities. I love mixing the colors, diluting the colours, speckling the colours. I love how colour makes us feel. For me, it is all about the colour.
That love of colour shines through in her collection of colourways—opening a box of Celtic Raven yarn really is like opening one of those massive boxes of crayons that we all lusted after when we were kids.
Cindy holds a weekly, Wednesday morning knit-a-long on the Celtic Raven Fibres Facebook page, so tune in if you’re looking for company while you work on your latest project! Her goals for this year include creating kits with custom patterns and yarn created just for them. A Christmas Advent Calendar has also been on the list for a while—hopefully, this will be the year it comes together!
We’re so glad to have Cindy in the Darn Yarn family, and we can’t wait to see what she comes up with next!
Select a purchase option to pre order this product
Countdown header