Shelia Anderson of Urban Girl Yarns (Photo by Shawnee Custalow)
It all started with a mistake. Shelia Anderson began dyeing yarn four years ago in her Jackson Ward kitchen. As she picked up a skein to show her partner, the yarn hadn’t yet cooled from the heating process of dyeing, and she dropped it into three different colors of dye below. “All of the colors ran together … and then it was so much more pretty,” Anderson says.
From this happy accident, Urban Girl Yarns was born. “I try to put a lot of colors together that we see in urban areas as far as the plants, the flowers, some of the structures and buildings.” She started out selling at farmers markets such as South of the James before getting her color creations sold in local stores. Fast forward to summer 2019, when Anderson’s yarn achieved wider recognition from coverage on the “Grocery Girls Knit” podcast and in a pair of magazine articles. Now several shops carry the products locally and out of state, and Anderson travels to sell the yarn at festivals.
A selection of Urban Girl yarns
As her business grew, she realized her home was no longer a viable location for operations. She discovered the perfect workspace at 10962 Richardson Road in Ashland. And at 1,400 square feet, it was “quite a step up from my little kitchen,” she says.
Anderson has been in love with knitting since the age of 7, but after a 20-year career in the Navy and a full-time federal government job that she currently balances with her yarn business, she initially wasn’t planning to start dyeing herself. “I realized there was no African American representation that I could put my hand on … and I thought, ‘No.’ I thought, ‘This has got to change.’ ”
Urban Girl Yarns are available in different weights and fibers such as mohair, alpaca and wool. They have fun color names such as Tiny Dancer, Shockoe Sunrise and The Street Walker. Skeins cost $26 to $45 each.
While her studio isn’t open for retail, Anderson plans to host a public open house, so check facebook.com/urbangirlyarns for details.
