OUR TEAM

Leann Ross - Owner

I'm a third generation fiber artist. It's almost as if yarn and fiber are a part of my DNA. My mother's uncle taught her to knit, and she taught me. The passion for crafting was instilled in me at a young age, sitting in my mom's craft store after preschool soaking up the beautiful materials of all different colors. Summertime boredom meant trips to the garage where her stock was stored and constant discoveries of something new to make. However, it always came back to knitting for me.

From knitting ,came spinning and learning to design my own yarn based on the project. I wanted to create with it . I was driven to learn about the individual characteristics of various yarns, ranging from breed of sheep to refining processes to even blending different fibers together. Starting with some Romney wool and primary colors, I embarked on the venture that has become Forbidden Fiber Co.

After spending a year designing and knitting a wedding dress, I needed a new challenge. I bought a few cross stitch kits and away I went. In 2020, we pivoted to dyeing embroidery threads and cross stitch fabrics, and now it's major part of our day-to-day operations!

Over the past fourteen years at FFC, the stories I've been able to tell through yarn and fiber have been beyond my wildest dreams. I've been so blessed to see this business grow from dyeing fiber on my dining room table and spinning it out in my washing machine in the basement, to working in a 3,500 square foot studio with five other talented women.

My favorite places to stitch are in my stitching chair with a good show on tv or poolside in the summer while my three kids, Logan (12), Noelle (10), and  Genevieve (7), splash and play . I'm a California native but have lived on both coasts, and also for a semester in Madrid, Spain! In 2018,we relocated from Los Angeles to Memphis, TN to be closer to my husband's family. I miss Disneyland but am loving life in the country. I'm a budding homesteader with a somewhat successful garden, an obsession with cooking from scratch, and four rescue chickens.

What I love most is my amazing team , without whom Forbidden Fiber Co. wouldn't be nearly what it is today. Also, they kill flying bugs for me, which makes them *completely * indispensable.

Charity Harvey - Operations Manager

Charity does a little bit of everything and pretty much keeps the place running!  She designs and dyes our project bags, makes stitchmarkers and progresskeepers, zipper pulls, and pretty much anything else we dream up.  She dyes most of the floss and keeps track of everything that's needed for all our different boxes and kits.  She also supervises our junior team (known as "the boys" and keeps things running smoothly from day to day.

Kelley King - Creative Production Manager

Kelley is our graphics designer extraordinaire!  She creates all our social media and website graphics and also our packaging, including all of our treasure troves, mystery boxes, and mystery kits.  She designs cross stitch patterns and handles all our printing.  She also is the mighty wielder of the Silhouette and sublimation machines.  Kelley also helps supervise the team to keep things running.

Felicia Rogers - Shipping and Inventory Manager

Felicia ships out the majority of our orders and dyes a lot of yarn, too!  She has recently began creating her own colorways, and they're so good, sometimes I wonder if I'm even needed around here anymore!  She also takes care of just about everyone who walks in the door at the FFC studio - from making sure you know where to find things to handling checkout.

Connie Sharp - Production Assistant

Connie handles just about anything we can throw at her!  These days she works closely with Charity to manage our fabric inventory, cutting, serging, and ironing but she also cards floss, makes stitchmarkers, progresskeepers, and zipper pulls, winds mini skeins on our big skein winder, and basically just helps out wherever she can.  We're so thankful to have her on the team!

Easton Craig - Production Assistant

From rinsing yarn, floss, and fabric, carding floss, making stitchmarkers, progresskeepers, etc, punching holes in almost every floss card that leaves the studio, this guy does a little bit of everything.  

Ashley Zeigler - Production Assistant

Ashley is the newest addition to the FFC team and we're so happy to have her!  She irons and packages fabric, helps make zipper pulls and other accessories, cards floss, and pretty much anything else that we come up with!