Hi friends!

Kitchen Sink Dyeworks has officially shut down. Thanks so much for all of your support! 

If you’d like to keep in touch with what I’ll be working on in 2012, please take a second to sign up for my Mercedes Knits Newsletter.

I’m planning a sort of yarn/knitting/This American Life-type mash-up of fun articles, links, patterns, tutorials, and photos that all play on a theme for each issue, brought to you bi-weekly. I’d love for you to join me on this journey down a new path.

You can now find me online at MercedesKnits.

Take care and have a beautiful holiday season!

Love & Stitches,

Mercedes

I can’t believe it’s time for our final month of the Badass Women’s Yarn Club! This month’s Badass Woman is Lee Thrash, Fundraising Database Coordinator for the American Red Cross. Lee knows the power and grace of a heartfelt thank you note, and helps to be sure individual donations are used just as the donors wish, helping many people in our community.

Tell us a little about your work. What is a typical day like? 

Since I work in the admin side of the organization, my typical day is different from our chapter offices that work one-on-one to offer services to those in the community who need help. My main priority everyday is to make sure that every gift that comes in is designated to the chapter and/or service exactly as the donor intended. I also have the honor of sending thank you letters to every donor to let them know what their gift is helping us do in the community and around the world.

How did you get into working with the Red Cross? 

After volunteering in many non-profits for years and working in many unfulfilling corporate jobs, I decided to find a job where I knew - at the end of the day - that the work I did was helping someone. When I saw a job opening at the American Red Cross, I immediately applied and hoped it would be the chance I had been waiting for. It was meant to be - the person I was interviewing to work with had been my supervisor at a previous non-profit where I had volunteered. I have now been a “Red Crosser” for a year and a half.

What inspires you in your work? 

I have a corkboard over my desk with 2 things on it - a handwritten note that a donor sent with their donation that says “Thank Y’all for All Y’all Do” with a smiley face and a card with pictures of a small play some kids in Florida performed to raise money for the storms that hit Alabama back in April. I have a few regular donors that I immediately recognize by the shaky handwriting on the envelope and enclosed is the only dollar or two they can send, but they give it with as much love and desire to help as the company that sends a million dollars. I feel the weight and gift of the responsibility to make sure that the money entrusted by these people to the Red Cross is being used in the exact way that they intend for it to be, and I make sure I never forget that.

What tips do you have for the readers to make a difference in their communities? 

Do anything! I hear people who often think that unless they can make some grand gesture or create a huge impact, then their efforts are pointless. I say that no contribution - of time, money or heart - is too small! Decide what is important to you, see if there is someone else addressing that same thing and see how you can be part of it. I always warn people, though, that once you get started, you won’t stop helping.

Tell us a little more about the Red Cross. I feel like it’s such an institution, that people may not know about all the facets of the organization.

Something else about the American Red Cross that I think is important for people to know is how much we do. Everyone knows about donating blood and about offering aid after major traumatic disasters, but there are daily life-changing services that we offer. For example, fire and police departments often call the Red Cross immediately after home and apartment fires to offer clothes, shelter, comfort kits and other help to people affected - at no cost to them. The Red Cross also delivers emergency messages to and helps arrange emergency travel home for military personnel serving far away from their families. In addition to those services, there is CPR/First Aid training, water safety training, babysitter training, Safe and Well registries to help people locate missing loved ones after a major disaster, and many more.

I’m not one to beat around the bush, so here’s the news:

Kitchen Sink Dyeworks will be closing down by the end of the 2011.

This is, of course, bittersweet, but I’ve made this decision from a place of seeking balance and health, both of which have been infrequent for the last 18 months or so. 

I’ve been doing my typical riff of taking on more, more, more, in my traveling shows, my (beloved) Badass Women’s Yarn Club, and my design work (which, in spite of my saying “I’ll take fewer jobs, do less,” I just keep gravitating back to MORE designing. More on that in a bit.). With this exploded 60-80 hour a week schedule, full of travel, dyeing, designing, teaching, and, and, and…it’s getting to be more than one person should do. 

I’ve been naggingly sick on and off for well over a year, and it’s time to reprioritize.

So after a few months of Very. Serious. Thinking., I’ve decided that it’s time to let the Dyeworks go. It’s been an amazing run, full of beautiful yarns, amazing people, and indelible (and often hilarious) memories. Every enthusiastic email from yarn club members, thank you cards from non-profits we helped, hugs from customers, new and old, at shows around the country, stays with me. 

So before things get out-of-control, harried, scary, it’s time to let this time pass while things are happy, lovely, and fun. 

I’ll be selling the remaining KSD stock in our online store. A fair amount of it is up in the KSD shop now, at a sweet discount, and I’ll be adding more items over the next couple of weeks as the studio gets cleaned out and organized. 

Badass Yarn Club members, you’ll be receiving more detailed information in an email next week, but the short version: November will be the last club shipment. You will not pay for anything you do not receive, and if you do get charged extra by PayPal error, you will be promptly refunded. And November’s club will be AWESOME. I love you fabulous ladies, and bringing you yarn club shipments each month is something I will miss dearly.

So what’s next?

I’ll be designing more knits. A LOT more, if all goes well! 

As the last two years have passed, I have found myself drawn to knitwear design more and more, so when it came time to take stock, that’s where my heart seems to lead. Piebird Design will be renamed Mercedes Knits, and I have a bunch of new designs lined up for release over the next several months. A lot of these will be in beautiful hand dyed yarns from some of my fellow dyers, whose yarns I now get to design in with abandon! That niggling sense of conflict of selling my own yarn and wanting to design in other (read: ALL.) the other beautiful yarns from companies that I love will now pass, and I look forward to new collaborations, freedom, and the openness that will come with this change. 

Thank you for all of your support, kindness, and love, I truly appreciate it!

Love & Stitches,

Mercedes

PS- If you have any questions or comments, just drop me a line at mercedes-at-knitn-dot-com.

October’s Badass Woman of the month is Birmingham’s own Wendy Jarvis, Legal Secretary at Gespass & Johnson by day, Director of Bare Hands Inc & Birmingham’s Day of the Dead Festival by night.

This month’s club donation will be funding BARE HANDS INC, and organization providing opportunities and environments, such as Birmingham’s Day of the Dead Festival, in which artists and audiences play an active role in the creative process and engage in cultural dialogue - a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts organization.  

Wendy writes, “We are currently working hard to make our unique cultural, community-building event sustainable and self-funded while maintaining its spirit of authenticity, and keeping it affordable for all.  We keep admission and food prices low so that more people and families can participate, and use money generated by the festival to fund our After School Art Club for homeless children at the Downtown YWCA, and to seed the next year’s festival.”  

Tell us a little about your work. What is a typical day like?

A typical day varies depending on the time of year.  If it is fall of the year, days are busy because the festival is drawing nigh!  On those days I try to be up at 6am to get a jump on the day, have an hour or two of quiet, check in on email & facebook, and - if I’m focused - exercise   Then it’s time to get to work, where I help my attorneys help clients with everything from wills & divorce to disability & civil rights.  Work ends at 6pm and I put on my festival hat and do things that range from Board meetings & fundraising to papier-mache mask making & sugar skull decorating.  Then, at some point, dinner and hanging out with my sweet husband.  Hopefully the day ends around 11pm.

How did you get into working with Bare Hands?

My husband, Michael Glaser, and I bought Bare Hands Gallery in 2000 and in 2004 helped convert it from a for-profit to a non-profit.  In December of last year the gallery closed but the organization remains in tact as Bare Hands Inc focusing on the “less is more” approach of providing sustainable programs, such as the Day of the Dead Arts & Culture Festival and our After School Art Club at the Downtown YWCA for homeless children.  Leaving the organization in tact means that it can grow in many directions in the future as time and economy allow.  

In 2003 Bare Hands became involved with the Day of the Dead when our artist, Tracy Martin, asked to build a Day of the Dead style memorial for her father that November.  He had passed away that Spring and she knew Dia de los Muertos was a perfect time to honor him.  Tracy and her father, civil rights photographer Spider Martin, loved Mexico and its joyful remembrance traditions during Day of the Dead. Spider’s Day of the Dead was a beautiful event and it sparked the festival that was born the following year - Dia de los Muertos numero dos.  This November we celebrate Dia de los Muertos numero nueve!  

What inspires you in your work?

For me inspiration is initially this enduring desire to do something creative and uplifting, which I learned from my mother.  As time progresses, inspiration begins to come from the community that grows up and around the work.  

What tips do you have for the readers to make a difference in their communities?

As trite as it may sound, I believe the way you improve the world is one person at a time.  If you look at the big picture of need it can be overwhelming and stop you in your tracks.  But, if you can focus on need in your tiny part of the world and really think about how you would ENJOY helping, you will likely find a person, project, or organization that suits you well.  And not 10 or 12 things that suit you well, perhaps 2 or 3.  Focusing your energy and offering a quality part of yourself is key. 

Things are shaping up, but A LOT of old posts and page info was compromised. I am essentially starting the page layout, and shop, over again from scratch, rather than digging through archived files to rebuild the system. I’m looking at it as a clean slate.

Luckily, I found a new shopping cart system that seems to suit our needs, so we’ll be back up and running soon!

You may have noticed that things don’t look quite right around here.

That’s because we’re going through a major website crash. I’m behind the scenes rebuilding, and getting things back to where they should be.

The shop is currently down. I’m sorry about the inconvenience; if you need yarn, contact me directly.