We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Babs Ausherman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Babs, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

In late 1999, my husband and I moved to Northeastern Tennessee so that he could accept an exciting job opportunity. However, this meant that I gave up the best job I had ever had with the best boss and coworkers I had ever experienced. I found a job teaching at a local university (I have an MBA) and started developing hobbies in my spare time. These included picking knitting back up which I had done from a young age and learning to spin yarn from undyed yarn,

Soon I had a lot of undyed yarn. It needed color on it, so I started exploring how to do that. I took a natural dye class at a local park. I searched dyeing online and learning about various kinds of dyes and fibers. I took a few more classes and learned a lot. But largely I am self-taught in my back yard and in my kitchen. In 2004 I was still teaching, but trying to determine how to create a business for myself out of various efforts. Most of my family has had their own businesses at one time or another and trying to figure out how to make money from my efforts has always been a way that I have thought. Also, knitting was becoming popular again as people wanted to cozy at home and economic swings.

During the time when I was trying to figure what my product was going to be I tried knitting and selling scarves and hats, dyeing silk scarves, and dyeing yarn. The item with the best margin was the yarn as I wasn’t spending many hours knitting and then receiving pennies for my efforts. The silk scarves sometimes sold, but were not a reliable seller. What came to me in time is that by dyeing yarn and selling it to other creators and crafters, it became a joint creative effort.

Dyeing yarn requires limited capital to get started. What allows me and other longtime indie dyers to succeed is our eye for color. And that is also what separates us one from the other. Over the years, I have worked to create and provide my customers with a broad range of colors that are not based on just the colors that I like. This broad number of colors (I have over 500 color formulas) allows us to create color combinations for yarn sets that appeal to a broad range of fiberists and are suitable for many different projects.

Going back to the beginning of my business, I had to start selling as I was dyeing so much yarn and testing so many formulas that I could never have used it all up. I love when I can dye with impunity because I have enough undyed yarn on hand that I can try one thing after another. The trying new things, combining in new ways, seeing new methods has been critical to maintaining my excitement and interest over the years. In 2025, we will be celebrating our 20th anniversary.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I provided some of this in the previous question.

Let me start by saying I originally trained to be a chef and it’s interesting that I ended back up in a kitchen – a dye kitchen. I have done many things over my career and everything has impacted my skills and success in this business. I owned the family insurance agency in my 20’s, went back to school and got my undergraduate degree in business, was an office manager for a community mental health agency, got my MBA, worked in a small hospital in Florida which allowed me to build an understanding of team building, healthcare regulations, employee training, workplace safety issues, critical thinking and much more. I also taught business classes at university level for a number of years. Teaching was instrumental in allowing me to speak comfortably in many settings.

From my childhood, I had sewn, knitted, and done different kinds of handwork throughout my life. Textiles and fibers have always spoken to me. However, I didn’t really start my creative journey until we moved to Tennessee when I was in my forties. I have many artists in my family and a number of them have been successful in their work, making livings from their creative endeavors. It did not scare me to think that it might be possible for me to do so as well when my work as a teacher ended.

I truly believe that artists are always trying to create solutions to problems. For me these are questions of how to achieve a certain effect or how to create a specific color. I have had many customers say, for example, that they want a cooler red, or a bluer teal. First of all, I don’t do custom dye colors. I have spent many hours chasing a specific color and I rarely succeed. But I love adding colors to our repertoire if they seem useful for a number of people of applications. Then, I ask folks to send me a color chip or a picture from a magazine with the actual color they see. I have to see in person what the other person is looking at because we all see color differently due to the structure of our eyes. Some colors are actually not achievable on the wool yarns I use because I am starting with an ecru base color. Really cool and light colors won’t work. And many colors are enriched because of the base color.

My brand name came as a result of my husband calling me Miss Babs throughout our marriage. It seemed appropriate. As time passes and as I plan the passing of the business on to someone who has worked with me for many years, I wonder how good an idea it was to self-brand in that way.

What am I most proud of with my brand? I believe I am known for my color sense, but I also hope that we are known for our customer service. I truly believe that if my customers are not successful with the projects they are working on, they will not return to us. We try to provide support in making sure the yarn matches, advising them of concerns we might have, providing educational material on our website and YouTube that will help them be successful. We provide real telephone support, which I have been told we’re crazy to do, but it’s important to me to do so.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I started dyeing full-time in 2005. The dyeing I had done previous to that was more in the line of hobby dyeing, and selling some locally. I really did a slow ramp up of the business and sales increased steadily over then next 3 years thanks to a website, adding a couple of employees, and going to a couple of fiber/yarn shows. Then in 2008 my husband became sick and was no longer able to work. As a result, I had to ramp up the business in a very short timeframe to begin the process of becoming the primary breadwinner.

I moved from a somewhat regular pace, to a much more frantic pacing and longer hours to my days. At the same time, knitting was taking off exponentially due to the economy and the Ravelry internet community. The downturn in the economy encouraged people to stay home and find ways to create handmade items for themselves or as gifts. At the time, a skein of sock yarn cost approximately $22, but could provide hours of knitting or crafting enjoyment. Also, the Ravelry internet community was a way to reach and advertise to people who were interested in the products we were creating – hand-dyed yarns and fibers.

This level of effort continued for what seems like years. It does affect relationships with family and friends and frankly with myself. I was constantly focused on how to make this work and how to make sure we had a roof over our heads, and so on. It is hard to turn off that level of focus and I think I definitely have. Our business is somewhat seasonal, so there are times when you have to kick up the effort, and let it fall off at other times. But it is hard when you are the “one” who is ultimately responsible to make sure that payroll is met and all the other bills as well.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I am relatively old school when it comes to marketing to my customers. The primary way that we stay in touch is on a bi-weekly basis via email. I don’t like sending emails more frequently than that unless necessary. The holidays often have a higher frequency due to how dates fall. I do not like to annoy my customers with emails. I also don’t send follow-up cart messages. Anything that resembles “we’re following you” type of marketing doesn’t work for me.

We regularly use Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. We have not found TikTok to be something we’re comfortable with, but we try a bit. The other useful social media platform is YouTube where we have some educational videos. We also have regular Zoom-based Studio Updates, Yarn and Chats, and we also have chats with designers.

Brand loyalty comes as a result, I believe, due to a number of things that we do. When shipping we try to create a package that is a joy for them to open, with the yarn wrapped in tissue. We also provide every purchase whether online or in person with a free stitchmarker – a little gift for them to remember us by. Stitch markers are a tool used by knitters. And most importantly providing wonderful colors for them to work with, supported by good customer service.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.missbabs.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missbabsyarns/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissBabsYarnsandFibers
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MissBabsHandDyedYarns
• Other: Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/groups/miss-babs-fanatics

Image Credits
All the photos were taken by Dan Cullinane – on staff, and collage by Veronica Ory, forest image in public domain