The Beginning of a Collection
Most Pink Pearl colors begin long before I ever touch yarn. This is how a yarn collection begins at Pink Pearl, not with dye, but with story.
When I start dreaming up a new collection, I am usually thinking about a season. Sometimes it is the time of year. Other times it is an emotional or spiritual season, a time of growth, reflection, or joy. I sit with that feeling and let it unfold. I write. I pray. I listen to music. I notice what keeps returning to my mind.
And sometimes, God just shares a little glimmer while I am driving down the road.
One evening after rehearsal with the barbershop chorus I direct, I was thinking about upcoming collections and a fiber festival I would be vending at. I wondered if there should be a special story just for that event. As I drove through the Blue Ridge, the idea slowly formed. What if the story itself took place there? What if the characters were crocheted animals, inspired by the wildlife around us?
That moment did not give me a color yet. It gave me a world.
From there, I began researching animals, textures, fiber weights, sparkle, spots, and unexpected color combinations. The story shaped the possibilities. The possibilities began whispering color.
At Pink Pearl, a color is rarely just a color. It is the visible thread of something much deeper that started as a quiet idea, a place, a feeling, or a story waiting to be told.
Where Via Cordis Began
The beginning of the Via Cordis collection followed a similar path, but in a quieter, more inward way. It’s another example of how a yarn collection begins here, with a story first, and color later.
I knew I wanted to write another novella for Lent. I didn’t yet know the story, only that it needed to feel like a journey. Something reflective. Something that unfolded slowly, day by day.
Then one evening in December, while scrolling Facebook, I saw a pattern for a finger labyrinth. And just like that, everything shifted.
A few months earlier, in October, we had explored labyrinths at church during a series on prayer. I had been struck by the idea that walking a labyrinth is not about getting lost. It’s about following a winding path that still leads you exactly where you need to go.
As soon as I saw that pattern, the lightbulb went on. This could be more than a story. It could be something to make and hold while reading. A companion project for the season. A way for hands and heart to journey together.
That was the first thread of Via Cordis.
Walking the Story Into Being
Once the idea took root, I began asking questions.
Who is walking this labyrinth?
Why are they walking?
What are they carrying with them?
How can this winding path unfold over forty days, plus the Sundays in Lent?
I love working with weekly themes in my devotional-style novellas, so I began mapping out the emotional and spiritual arc. What does the heart encounter in the early days? What begins to soften or shift in the middle? What does it mean to reach the center, and then to walk back out again?
The story came slowly, like a walk itself. One step, then another.
As I wrote, I began to notice how much of the main character was shaped by someone very dear to me — my sister, Mellissa. She is a sociologist and a college professor, and she has a beautiful way of moving through the world. She notices everything. The smallest plants, the quiet movement of insects, the way light falls across leaves. Nothing is too small to matter.
That attentiveness found its way into the story. Into the pace of the walk. Into the way the character notices the world along the path.
Without planning it, Via Cordis became a story about paying attention. To the path. To the heart. To the quiet things we usually rush past.
From Story to Fiber
The novella, Via Cordis: The Way of the Heart, is still in editing as I write this, but the story itself is complete. And even before the final edits are done, the colors have already begun forming in my mind.
This collection will lean into grounded, neutral, earthy tones. Colors that feel rooted, steady, and close to the soil. Shades that hold quiet strength rather than brightness. Colors that feel like walking slowly, breathing deeply, and letting your heart catch up with your steps.
Dyeing is planned to begin mid-February, and as it does, I’ll be sharing more of that process here at the Maker’s Table. You’ll see how these story themes begin translating into fiber, one color at a time.
Because before Via Cordis becomes a collection of yarn, it is first a path. A story. A quiet walk toward the center of the heart. That’s how a yarn collection begins for me, every time.
If you’re just joining this Maker’s Table series, you can start at the beginning and read how this journey from idea to fiber first begins in From Story to Skein.
👉 Read the first post here.
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