Hello there. I am a jewelry crafter, quilter, sewer, handspinner, knitter, and fiber handpainter and dyer, and extremely novice weaver. I have been creative all my life. A friend of mine once told me that one’s creative potential is infinite. Only in the past few years have I actually grown to believe that. I have been, let’s say, enchanted with art of all forms since I was younger.

My biggest passion has been textiles for as long as I can remember. I have been making handbags, skirts, quilts, and countless other sewing projects since junior high. I taught myself to knit when I was 17 and have been knitting ever since.

Since I’m a textile happy fool it’s only fitting that I have gone “back to basics” literally. I began spinning fiber in 2004 while still living in Tennessee. East Tennessee is still home to many traditional crafts so I had seen spinning wheels, hand cards, and floor looms long before I even thought about picking up a drop spindle. My first drop spindle cost me $5.00 at the Earth Guild in Asheville, North Carolina. The first week was very frustrating, the second week was -that’s all it is? By week three I was a spinning demon. I graduated to a spinning wheel a few months later- a Louet S17. I love this wheel- as untraditional as it looks- because it’s virtually maintenance free but also because I handpainted mandalas on the wheel. It might have come out of a kit, but it has my own unique touch to it. In 2013, it was joined by an Ashford Kiwi 2- painted in purple and green.

For handspun yarns, I hand dye all my own wools (except for those I use as natural colors)- sometimes in the spare bathroom or kitchen, sometimes in the summer outside via solar dyeing. I get the raw fleeces from farms across America- sometimes from Etsy sellers, off of Ebay, and a few farms I just regularly buy from once the wool clip comes in. I also buy commercially available wool roving for spinning from several stores, especially for fibers I can not obtain raw such as flax and bamboo.

What's the difference between fleecespun and handspun wools? Fleecespun wools are spun from wool locks- the yarn has some lumpy, bumpy texture to it. It also might have ends of locks sticking out, curls and crimps, etc. Handspun wools are spun from carded wools and have a more uniform, flat texture. When you knit a handspun yarn the stitch definition is very defined and crisp. Fleecespun yarns knitted highlight color and texture of the yarn and stitches are less defined. See my About page for a pic of a fleecespun shawl I knitted.