The tight-knit team at Knomad lives and breathes all things yarn, and our admin team is no exception! Knomad’s Marketing Coordinator, Nataly Salazar, has a true passion for fibre.
“One of my most memorable experiences was when I dyed my first skein of yarn,” Nataly said. While her day-to-day is usually focused on coordinating marketing campaigns, she loves to experiment with artful dye techniques in her free time. “I have been in this industry for many years selling fibre. I know the complete process, but it’s totally different when you immerse yourself in the customer’s world. It was such a nice experience. I’d never seen the yarn in that way. For our dyers it’s more than just yarn — it’s a canvas, and it has infinite possibilities.”
Nataly has an artist’s spirit. At Knomad, she focuses her creativity on highlighting the beauty of our bare yarns. “I really love my job,” she said. “I am a passionate person, so when I start something I want everything to go well. The best part is when I get to plan a campaign to create with the team: the assets, the platform that I need to use to communicate something.” She pores over Instagram and reviews customer surveys to better understand how to serve our customers. “I’m always looking for data which will improve my job,” Nataly said. “I am constantly studying the dyer’s world. Every day is a challenge, I learn something new every day.”
A self-taught crocheter, Nataly says that learning the craft has been humbling. “It is a really fascinating activity, but I feel so small seeing the talent of other members of the team – they are really talented and creative at knitting and crochet,” she said.
In her spare time, she tackles all sorts of creative projects. An avid painter, Nataly says that some techniques felt familiar as she experimented with dyeing Knomad yarn. “I have taken several courses to learn more natural dye techniques. My first dye ‘canvas’ was a skein of Steam. I fell in love with that base. It has softness and structure from wool, with an awesome hand feel and extra warmth thanks to the natural luxury of baby alpaca fibre.”
Experimenting with yarn dyeing has given Nataly a new appreciation of the subtle differences in each Knomad yarn. “Every yarn is considered for its different uses and for different projects that the dyers work on,” she said. To Nataly, that care in the manufacturing process is what makes Knomad yarn special. “It seems romantic — every yarn is made with love, and we strive to provide high-quality, ethically sourced yarns. We care about finding suppliers that take care of the environment and are fair and ethical with their collaborators,” she said.
The payoff comes in seeing our customers succeed. “We work hard so the wholesalers can create masterpieces. We care about our dyers, and we care about their clients, too,” she said. “We want to make sure their artistic vision comes to life exactly the way they imagine.”
That loyalty to our customers is why Nataly loves traveling to fibre events to meet artists and craftspeople. “The most difficult thing about my job in 2020 was not being able to attend the dyer fairs. We had planned to attend and to get to know the community more closely. They are the voice of the brand, and that’s why we have invented a thousand ways to listen to them through digital surveys and also through our customer care,” she said. “It’s very important to listen to them.”
While Knomad’s manufacturing partners have a deep history with creating high-quality yarn, Knomad is a young company, which makes Nataly feel more invested in the outcome of her work. “I think that the most exciting moment working here has been when we sold our first product,” she said. “It literally felt like a birth. Knomad is our child, seeing it grow from an idea to what it is now, feels great. It fills us with so much happiness and pride — all the work continues to be worth it. We’ve been working so hard to achieve it, and we will continue working that way. We’ll always try to make the user experience the best.”
Tags: Natural dyes, steam
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