Working with small farmers as well as quality commercial suppliers to offer hand-dyed, natural fibers for knitting, crocheting, and weaving.

Every skein of yarn here was hand dyed by me, in my studio, on our farm near Lost City, Oklahoma.

Welcome to the electronic presence of Lost City Knits. Here you’ll find most of my hand dyed yarns and my lace patterns, which can be downloaded. And my blog is here, which began as a way to chronicle my interest in knitting as well as my life on our 250 acre farm in northeastern Oklahoma but has grown to be a full-time business.

Some History:

I’ve done some sort of handwork all my life, from sewing clothes in high school to cross stitch. But when a friend learned to knit, and then came over to show me what he’d learned and to teach me the knit stitch, I was done for. I made a simple scarf at first — garter stitch, no increases or decreases or yarn-overs. “Oh, I really like this,” I thought. New challenges included socks and sweaters, and when I first turned the heel on a sock I felt as though I ruled the world. Soon I began studying Estonian lacework, and I saw that all of the mistakes I’d made early on, if organized into a pattern, were lace. I’m a natural-born knitter, and just didn’t know it for a few decades.

My new curiosity led me to the Taos Wool festival. Struck by the colors of Northern New Mexico, and the wonderful fibers I saw at the festival, I knew I was also going to be a dyer and designer.

My business model:

My business, Lost City Knits, features luxurious, natural fibers. Some fibers I obtain commercially, but most I obtain from farmers I know who raise animals and want something interesting to come of the fleeces produced. I clean shearings by hand, consult with a mill to decide how to best use the fibers I have, and then begin dyeing the milled skeins in small batches. My color inspirations are many — our farm in the foothills of the Ozark mountains in rural Oklahoma, trips we take, books I read…the inspirations are endless. I’ve found I get the best results with a non-toxic chemical dye.  By working with only three or four skeins at a time I’m able to vary colors as I like, and sometimes combine colors from different pots to good effect.

I love working with color, but I also design intricate lace patterns inspired from traditional Estonian styles. Non-knitters sometimes consider these patterns mind-boggling, but in the end it’s all math and everything has to add up.

My business is quite small. I produce in a day what I can produce, and no more. Sometimes I get on a roll, and sometimes something on the farm requires attention and no yarn gets dyed at all.

I do not have a traditional brick and mortar store, and instead attend Arts and Craft festivals, Fine Art festivals, Wool festivals, and our local farmers market on occasion. I also have an online business, the source of which begins up there in the right hand corner of your screen.

By centering my business around dyeing fibers and producing patterns, I hope my creativity helps feed the creativity of my customers, who often combine colors and patterns I wouldn’t have thought to put together, which makes me happy.

Denise Bell

Lost City Knits

Meet Some People Whose Animals Provide Fiber to Lost City Knits:

Lisa Brandborg

When we first began attending the Cherry Street Farmers Market in Tulsa, Lisa was a vendor who sold skeins of yarn from llamas on her farm north of town. I bought a skein, fell in love with the texture, and Lisa began providing me with llama that I have mill spun. She currently manages the farmers market, a job that llama wrangling well-prepared her for.

Nancy Osborn and          Sue Young

We first met Nanc and Sue at a farm table dinner and immediately hit it off with them. Nanc has always raised sheep, and they currently have 40 head on their acreage in central Oklahoma. Time with Nanc helped us realize that we are not livestock people, because she is a livestock person, and hearing her speak about what she loves reminds us that hers is not an endeavor to be entered into lightly. Nanc knows what to do when something goes wrong with her animals, while I know how to pick up a dropped stitch five rows back. To each her own. Sue is a joy, a quick wit, and a consumer of much of the yarn that her own farm produces!