My deep and abiding love for the Beautiful was nurtured from the beginning by my creative mother, my aesthetically sensitive father, and my upbringing in the heart of the picturesque hills and forests of rural Wisconsin. This love for beauty made me want to create beautiful things, like the quilts my mother made or the flowers I found in the fields and forests. For as long as I can remember, I have loved to create things, but my understanding of the place creativity has in our lives blossomed when I discovered the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and his idea of sub-creation. If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a bit of a Tolkien fanatic. I won't give you my spiel here, but if you haven't already, go read the portion of "Mythopoeia" above to get the gist of what I'm talking about.

Knitting entered the picture when I was in middle school, shortly after I had learned to crochet, and while I enjoyed both crafts, my frustrated first attempts at intarsia and the relative ease (for me) of crochet led me towards making with a hook instead of two needles, and I stuck mostly to crochet until after college.

When I moved to Maryland for grad school, I found a knitting pattern for a vest that I absolutely loved, so I decided just to go for it and make my first knitted garment. While that vest was not perfect, I learned a great deal about knitting and gained a lot of confidence. That was the beginning of the end—my deep dive into the vast and varied world of fiber arts. After completing my first few projects, I started having ideas for knitwear items that I couldn't find patterns to match. Sometimes, these ideas came to me almost as revelations, and my wife will joke about the way I talk about hearing the yarn speak to me, telling me what it wants to become. I dove into learning the design and pattern-writing process, and published my first pattern in the summer of 2018. 

Not long after, as I explored the world of indie-dyed yarn and became acquainted with more and more yarn dyers, I thought how fun it would be to be able to dye the yarn I was knitting with. I was inspired by the variety and complexity of colors that hand-dyeing could achieve, but it would take several years before I would be able to experiment with dyeing my own yarn, mostly due to limitations of space and time. Then, in the summer of 2023, I decided that the time had come, so I bought some yarn, a few burners, and some pots and started experimenting. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to dye with natural dyes. I was drawn to the centuries-long natural dyeing traditions from various cultures around the globe and the magic of transferring color from the world of nature onto textiles.

Now, I find myself in a place the provides the space and time needed to begin the endeavor of turning this passion for natural textiles into a livelihood. I'm so glad you've found my little corner of the internet, and I hope you'll come along for the ride, so we can enjoy the beauty and wonder to be found in the world of fiber arts together.