These Yarns Are the Perfect Gift for the Quirky Knitter in Your Life

Searching for a gift for the quirky knitter in your life? Look no further than DyeForYarn and DyeForWool, two Etsy shops spotted by Bored Panda that sell hundreds of yarns with fun, surreal, and occasionally gross color names like “Fading Whiskey Hangover,” "Rotten Pistachio Cream Macaron,” and “Army of the Dead.”  

Nicola and Cordula, who hail from Nuremberg, Germany, started DyeForYarn and DyeForWool in 2010. Given the evocative names of their yarns, you’d think the two would be former creative writing majors. Surprisingly, Nicola and Cordula's website says that they once worked as biology and molecular medicine scientists. The pair enjoyed knitting lace shawls in their free time, but weren’t able to find lace yarns in Germany at the time, so they decided to dye their own. Their hobby evolved into a passion, and Nicola and Cordula quit their jobs to run their fiber business full-time.

DyeForYarn sells mostly silk, silk/cashmere blends and similar lace-weight yarns, and DyeForWool provides knitters with heavier, woolen yarns. However, you’re probably at least partly purchasing both shops’ offerings for their descriptive monikers—which, more often than not, don’t encapsulate the yarn’s shade so much as paint a colorful (and occasionally hilarious) mental image. Sure, to a creatively morbid mind, that deep crimson fiber might look like “Poisoned Blood.” But other yarn hues, like the bright purple “Memory of a fearsome tale” and the deep aqua “Giant clam closing forever,” have names that are even farther out there.

If you ever find yourself in Fürth, near Nuremberg, Germany, Nicole and Cordula run a brick-and-mortar shop, where they dye their yarns by hand. It’s open Saturdays, from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., or by appointment. But if you’re stuck in America, you can always check out their offerings on Etsy, at DyeForWool and DyeForYarn.