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nitting found its way into Rachel Carleton’s
heart and soul when she learned the skill from
her mother at the age of 10. “It took me
quite a few tries before it stuck, but once it did, I was
completely hooked,” she says. She continued the craft
on and off through high school and college, where she
studied fashion design at the University of Cincinnati.
Initially interested in the bridal sector, Rachel realized—
with the help of an internship in New York City—that
realm was not for her (though she would eventually go
on to knit her own wedding dress). She felt drawn to
return to her Midwestern roots and, in her homesickness,
rediscovered her passion for knitting, something that
had fallen by the wayside as she focused on her classes.
“I returned to school with our knitwear course
ahead of me, and the rest is sort of history,” Rachel
recalls. “Suddenly, everything clicked. I had never seen
knitting as anything larger than a hobby. From that
point forward, knitwear felt as necessary as breathing
to me. I obsessively learned everything I could about it.”
Following graduation, Rachel spent the better
part of a decade working as a knitwear designer for a
major American retail brand. When the pandemic hit
and her days transitioned to remote computer-based
work, she struggled with the loss of the tactile experience,
evaluating stitches, tensions, softness, and color through
a screen rather than by touch.
“I found myself feeling a bit empty and needing
some way to fill that emptiness with something tangible,”
Rachel says. “I’d been curious about dyeing yarn,
Knitting and since I’d spent the majority of my life collecting
textile-related hobbies—knitting, crocheting, spinning,
embroidery—dyeing felt like a natural next step.”
NOSTALGIA
Inspired by all the intricacies of the knitting
Armed with a sampler kit of acid dyes and a few
packs of undyed yarn, Rachel embarked on a humbling
trial-and-error process that evolved into something
unexpectedly rewarding. “There was something so
process as well as a lifetime of memories satisfying about painting yarn—it felt so refreshing
viewed through a lens of color, this Ohio and new, and it absolutely fulfilled that need I was
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artisan took her craft to the base level and craving from being stuck at home away from the
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began hand-dyeing yarn in meaningful hues.
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tangible creativity I was accustomed to,” she says.
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“I’ve been a knitter most of my life, but
always found myself fascinated by wanting
to take ownership of the other elements
I was using,” Rachel says of what drew her
to start experimenting with dyeing yarn.
Along the way, she decided to specifically
focus on wool-based yarns. “I think wool
is incredible,” she says. “The idea that it’s
a natural material that grows on the
back of an animal and is waterproof,
flame-retardant, antimicrobial, and
insulating—it’s amazing to me.”
Rachel launched Zeezee Textiles in August 2020 as a physical representation of nostalgia for their family.
small-batch side business selling her hand-dyed yarns, “My colorways and collections all come from this
but when she returned to the office post-pandemic, she space—often a mix of places I’ve been that were
was met with an unanticipated longing to be back at important to me, the childhood quilt I spent every
home creating her colorful fibers. “The pans and skeins night with growing up, paintings my mom created and
that I tended to on the weekends and a spare weeknight hung in the hall, the way seasons in Ohio feel and look.”
were offering me more than I had realized,” she says. In Rachel believes it is the sentiment behind these
April 2022, she committed to Zeezee full-time. color inspirations that really resonates with customers
In just a few years, Rachel has expanded the and reflects the nostalgic values of the knitting
company from a kitchen stovetop operation to a studio community as a whole. “The knitting community is
space in the basement of the new home she shares so much a community—constantly sharing works in
with her husband in Mansfield, Ohio. She produces progress, techniques, artists you admire . . . and the
wool-based yarns for knitting, crocheting, and weaving, aspect of storytelling is very powerful in this,” she
and now offers about 10 specific bases across a says. “Modern-day knitting wouldn’t exist without
spectrum of one-of-a-kind colorways she is constantly the way it was verbally shared and passed down
dreaming up with muses like the Midwest’s seasons; through generations. While my inspiration is very
her recent honeymoon to Ireland, Scotland, and the personal to me, I find it’s the storytelling of those
Netherlands; and mediums used by her artistic mother. inspirations that my customers really connect with,
“My inspiration is very dear to me—nostalgia,” and this sense of connection is just another branch of
Rachel says, noting that Zeezee was the name of her magic for me.”
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sister’s first and long-cherished stuffed animal, a For more information, visit zeezeetextiles.com.
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TEXT BY ELIZABETH CZAPSKI PHOTOGRAPHY BY RACHEL CARLETON
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