About Us

The Unique Sheep is an independent yarn dyeing business started by Laura Bullins. A life-long fiber artist, Laura was inspired by the owner of her LYS (Knit Picky) to start selling her handpainted yarn. The response of local knitters to her yarn blew her away and so now shes branching out and offering her yarn to everyone!

At the start of 2008, Laura was joined by Kelly Eells. Kelly has had years of experience dyeing under the name "Liisu Yarns" but saw a good match with Laura and The Unique Sheep.

To contact Laura or Kelly, email them at Laura@theuniquesheep.com or Kelly@theuniquesheep.com. If you are on Ravelry you can track them down under the names "TheUniqueSheep" and "Painty"!

The Unique Sheep and Our World

Kelly has plans to one day save the world. But until we figure out how to make that happen, we are trying to lessen our impact on the environment and improve the lives of our fellow humans, one skein of yarn at a time.

To lessen our negative impact on our environment we:

re-use water multiple times in our dyeing process
use recycled boxes and bags to pack and ship our yarn whenever possible
use recycled paper for printing our patterns, ball bands and other paper work when we can
conserve energy by winding our yarns by hand and drying them in the open air
offer an organic line of yarns, The Green Sheep Collection

We have considered using natural dyes, but it is our experience that natural dyes aren't necessarily better for the environment. Natural dyeing often requires more water and energy and uses chemical mordants that can be dangerous to the dyer and the environment. We feel confident that the dyes we use are the most environmentally responsible option as well as safe for us to work with and for you and your loved ones to knit with and wear.

The environment is important, but so are the other people sharing it with us. We try to do our little bit to help others by donating at least 5% of our net profit to charities. Two of our favorites are Doctors without Borders and the Amani Children's Foundation. We have created colorways inspired by each of these organizations; 50% of our sales of these colorways are donated to the organizations!

We used to use a non-toxic moth proofing agent on our yarn called Mitin FF and these skeins all had the words "Permanently Moth Proofed" on the label. We discontinued this treatment in late 2008 in an effort to make our products more eco-friendly.

Our Yarns

Handpainted yarn is unique, and there are a couple of things you need to know before you order.

Though we strive for consistency, handpainted yarns are works of art that vary from batch to batch. Therefore, its crucial that you order enough for your project. If you run out part of the way through a project it will be very difficult to dye up yarn that will match enough to complete your project.
Even in the same batch skeins can vary slightly, so if you are knitting an item that takes multiple skeins you may want to gradually move from one skein to the next by knitting a few rows of skein 1, then a few rows of skein 2, then a few more of skein 1, and so forth.
When shopping from the website, keep in mind that colors show up differently on different monitors and some colors are difficult to photograph accurately. This is one of the reasons that we recommend buying Unique Sheep yarn from your LYS whenever possible. And if your LYS doesn't carry The Unique Sheep please encourage them to contact us- we are always looking for new wholesale partners!
All yarn ordered off the website is dyed to order. This means that, depending on the size of your order and our current work load, it can take up to three weeks for us to dye your order and have it ready for shipping. If you need your order more quickly we recommend that you buy it from one of our LYS or online partners or, if thats not possible, let us know in an email the reason for your urgency. Whenever possible we'll try to get your order done as quickly as we can!

To learn more about our designers, click here!




	About Us The Unique Sheep is an independent yarn dyeing business started by Laura Bullins. A life-long fiber artist, Laura was inspired by the owner of her LYS (Knit Picky) to start selling her handpainted yarn. The response of local knitters to her yarn blew her away and so now shes branching out and offering her yarn to everyone! At the start of 2008, Laura was joined by Kelly Eells. Kelly has had years of experience dyeing under the name "Liisu Yarns" but saw a good match with Laura and The Unique Sheep. To contact Laura or Kelly, email them at Laura@theuniquesheep.com or Kelly@theuniquesheep.com. If you are on Ravelry you can track them down under the names "TheUniqueSheep" and "Painty"! The Unique Sheep and Our World Kelly has plans to one day save the world. But until we figure out how to make that happen, we are trying to lessen our impact on the environment and improve the lives of our fellow humans, one skein of yarn at a time. To lessen our negative impact on our environment we: re-use water multiple times in our dyeing process use recycled boxes and bags to pack and ship our yarn whenever possible use recycled paper for printing our patterns, ball bands and other paper work when we can conserve energy by winding our yarns by hand and drying them in the open air offer an organic line of yarns, The Green Sheep Collection We have considered using natural dyes, but it is our experience that natural dyes aren't necessarily better for the environment. Natural dyeing often requires more water and energy and uses chemical mordants that can be dangerous to the dyer and the environment. We feel confident that the dyes we use are the most environmentally responsible option as well as safe for us to work with and for you and your loved ones to knit with and wear. The environment is important, but so are the other people sharing it with us. We try to do our little bit to help others by donating at least 5% of our net profit to charities. Two of our favorites are Doctors without Borders and the Amani Children's Foundation. We have created colorways inspired by each of these organizations; 50% of our sales of these colorways are donated to the organizations! We used to use a non-toxic moth proofing agent on our yarn called Mitin FF and these skeins all had the words "Permanently Moth Proofed" on the label. We discontinued this treatment in late 2008 in an effort to make our products more eco-friendly. Our Yarns Handpainted yarn is unique, and there are a couple of things you need to know before you order. Though we strive for consistency, handpainted yarns are works of art that vary from batch to batch. Therefore, its crucial that you order enough for your project. If you run out part of the way through a project it will be very difficult to dye up yarn that will match enough to complete your project. Even in the same batch skeins can vary slightly, so if you are knitting an item that takes multiple skeins you may want to gradually move from one skein to the next by knitting a few rows of skein 1, then a few rows of skein 2, then a few more of skein 1, and so forth. When shopping from the website, keep in mind that colors show up differently on different monitors and some colors are difficult to photograph accurately. This is one of the reasons that we recommend buying Unique Sheep yarn from your LYS whenever possible. And if your LYS doesn't carry The Unique Sheep please encourage them to contact us- we are always looking for new wholesale partners! All yarn ordered off the website is dyed to order. This means that, depending on the size of your order and our current work load, it can take up to three weeks for us to dye your order and have it ready for shipping. If you need your order more quickly we recommend that you buy it from one of our LYS or online partners or, if thats not possible, let us know in an email the reason for your urgency. Whenever possible we'll try to get your order done as quickly as we can! To learn more about our designers, click here!
	kelly@theuniquesheep.com