Farm & Folk is a fusion of my work as an organic farmer and textile artist. Before I merged the two lifeways, I was a full-time farmer and homeschooling mom with all kinds of creative dreams. I loved my work as a farmer, but felt like I might burst if I wasn’t able to make time for creative explorations. So I began to change things around and prioritize time for it.
One of the first things I did was designate a creative space. I cleaned out an old outbuilding on the farm and turned it into a natural dye studio. It was crude but functional enough to get started with thrifted pots and pans, our old camp stove and other items I scavenged from around the farm.
I started my farm work early in the morning so I could escape to my dye shed in the hottest part of the afternoon, where I’d experiment with the magic of transferring natural dye colors to fabric. I did a lot of reading and research alongside the experimenting, and I stuck with this practice over the years. In time I became adept at the alchemy and learned how to create an inspiring palette with natural dyes.
Establishing a balance between farming and creative exploration felt very nurturing and fulfilling. By the end of each summer, I’d have a stash of beautiful naturally dyed fabric and, when winter settled in, I’d begin the work of making quilts from it. I took over our sunroom as my sewing studio and stayed up late making quilts when my kids were sleeping. As the kids became older and more independent, I was able to squeeze in more creative time here and there. I spent a few years slowly making hand-stitched quilts from my naturally dyed fabrics until I had a stack of them.
Over those years I was also slowly and rather secretly creating a website to perhaps, someday, sell the quilts. It took a lot of courage and vulnerability to finally launch the website and offer my quilts to the world, but in the fall of 2017, I mustered the courage to do it. Now several years into this journey, and many quilt sales later, it still feels like a dream each time I pack up a quilt and send it off to someone.
A couple of years ago, our youngest child decided to go to high school rather than homeschool, which suddenly left me with time to focus on personal goals. I felt inspired to begin farming natural dyes and went with it. I had been farming food for decades, but flowers and perennial dye plants were new to me. I learned as I went and enjoyed the process immensely.
With my kids off doing their own things, I found myself in this bittersweet place of finally being able to accept opportunities that came my way. I spent a year writing a book, Farm & Folk Quilt Alchemy, about natural dyes and quilt making; and after the book launched, I began traveling afar to teach workshops. I did well growing the natural dyes; came up with creative ways to market them; and packaged and shipped them off to folks all over the country. It’s been really fulfilling to bring my farmer-artist vision to fruition.
After my book was published, I found myself riding a big wave of success. In the excitement of it all I told myself I needed to make more quilts, grow and sell more dyes, grow my brand, and hire a team to help. But then the slowness of winter settled in and brought me back to my senses. I remembered how important it is to me to stay true to my vision of a healthy balance between farm work in the farm season and creative work in the slow season. I had to tune out the noise and pressure I was putting on myself to become more and take on more, and trust that staying small and stress-free was a more fitting version of success for me.
I’m still in the early stages of being a natural dye farmer so it will take time to figure out exactly which direction I want to go with it. For now, I enjoy growing the dye plants on a relatively small scale and shipping them off to the wonderful folks who appreciate them. I’m having a lot of fun designing and putting together seasonal natural dye kits and designing patchwork-related projects that coordinate with the dyes I offer on my website.
Many years ago, when my kids were very small, I was visiting with a friend and we were talking about home design. She brought up the concept of filling a home with handmade goods rather than mass-manufactured items; and when she said this, I realized that was the thing that made her home special. A short time later, I was in conversation with someone who pointed out that modern homes very rarely include workspaces because the modern world is focused on consuming not producing.
Both concepts struck a chord with me, so I began to set up workspaces in our home where the kids and I could get to work making all kinds of handmade things. These spaces were ever-evolving, so we were always set up to delve into whatever creative endeavor we were into at the time. We created fiber arts made from wool we sheared from our sheep. We did lots of papier-mâché and gourd crafts, wove baskets from reeds, and made dolls stuffed with cattails. At one point, the kids got into making leather pouches and shoes — and they were always sketching in their art books. If they needed something, I wanted them to think about how they could make it before they even thought about buying it. Making things became our way of life and our home life was centered around these workspaces, which I kept organized.
I had no shame in making any available space in our home a place to create, although I did dream of someday having my own proper studio. Our home and farm are both works in progress and in this current state of evolution I have two studios onsite — what a dream!
One studio is for my messier farm and dye works, and the other for making quilts and writing. Despite having the two studios, our living room remains a creative workspace as well and I often spend evenings there.
My quilt-making studio was formerly our chicken coop and my natural dye studio used to be our sheep barn. Both spaces have been fully renovated but hold a lot of sweet memories of farm adventures and my kids’ childhood. I designed the old chicken-coop sewing studio to be a warm passive solar space with big south-facing windows, since I work there primarily in the winter. Inside is a huge chest of drawers full of my naturally dyed fabrics that are ready to cut into and become quilts. All my quilts are born there, and this secluded warm place is also where I prefer to do most of my writing.
Both of my studios are heated only by wood stoves, so in the colder months, each morning begins by making a fire. My big barn studio is where I do all my natural dye work, including block printing fabrics. It’s also where I bring in the natural dye harvests to dry and cure. Once cured, the dyestuffs are packed up and stored as inventory on big wooden shelves. I built a packaging and shipping station in that studio as well to make shipping go more efficiently. It’s taken 20 years to get these spaces dialed in and I’m grateful to be in this place now where I’m set up for everything to run smoothly.
Everything I offer still passes through my hands — from the seeds I plant in spring, the plants I tend and the dye flowers I harvest in summer, to the kits I assemble, the packages I ship, the hand dyeing and the stitching of the quilts — and I genuinely find fulfillment in every step of every process.
I no longer have small children working by my side, but my two dogs Pepita and Frito follow along on every adventure — whether I’m in the studio or working in the field. It is special to have them always by my side.
I am grateful for this homegrown handmade life.
Farm & Folk is a fusion of my work as an organic farmer and textile artist. Before I merged the two lifeways, I was a full-time farmer and homeschooling mom with all kinds of creative dreams. I loved my work as a farmer, but felt like I might burst if I wasn’t able to make time for creative explorations. So I began to change things around and prioritize time for it.
One of the first things I did was designate a creative space. I cleaned out an old outbuilding on the farm and turned it into a natural dye studio. It was crude but functional enough to get started with thrifted pots and pans, our old camp stove and other items I scavenged from around the farm.
I started my farm work early in the morning so I could escape to my dye shed in the hottest part of the afternoon, where I’d experiment with the magic of transferring natural dye colors to fabric. I did a lot of reading and research alongside the experimenting, and I stuck with this practice over the years. In time I became adept at the alchemy and learned how to create an inspiring palette with natural dyes.
Establishing a balance between farming and creative exploration felt very nurturing and fulfilling. By the end of each summer, I’d have a stash of beautiful naturally dyed fabric and, when winter settled in, I’d begin the work of making quilts from it. I took over our sunroom as my sewing studio and stayed up late making quilts when my kids were sleeping. As the kids became older and more independent, I was able to squeeze in more creative time here and there. I spent a few years slowly making hand-stitched quilts from my naturally dyed fabrics until I had a stack of them.
Over those years I was also slowly and rather secretly creating a website to perhaps, someday, sell the quilts. It took a lot of courage and vulnerability to finally launch the website and offer my quilts to the world, but in the fall of 2017, I mustered the courage to do it. Now several years into this journey, and many quilt sales later, it still feels like a dream each time I pack up a quilt and send it off to someone.
A couple of years ago, our youngest child decided to go to high school rather than homeschool, which suddenly left me with time to focus on personal goals. I felt inspired to begin farming natural dyes and went with it. I had been farming food for decades, but flowers and perennial dye plants were new to me. I learned as I went and enjoyed the process immensely.
With my kids off doing their own things, I found myself in this bittersweet place of finally being able to accept opportunities that came my way. I spent a year writing a book, Farm & Folk Quilt Alchemy, about natural dyes and quilt making; and after the book launched, I began traveling afar to teach workshops. I did well growing the natural dyes; came up with creative ways to market them; and packaged and shipped them off to folks all over the country. It’s been really fulfilling to bring my farmer-artist vision to fruition.
After my book was published, I found myself riding a big wave of success. In the excitement of it all I told myself I needed to make more quilts, grow and sell more dyes, grow my brand, and hire a team to help. But then the slowness of winter settled in and brought me back to my senses. I remembered how important it is to me to stay true to my vision of a healthy balance between farm work in the farm season and creative work in the slow season. I had to tune out the noise and pressure I was putting on myself to become more and take on more, and trust that staying small and stress-free was a more fitting version of success for me.
I’m still in the early stages of being a natural dye farmer so it will take time to figure out exactly which direction I want to go with it. For now, I enjoy growing the dye plants on a relatively small scale and shipping them off to the wonderful folks who appreciate them. I’m having a lot of fun designing and putting together seasonal natural dye kits and designing patchwork-related projects that coordinate with the dyes I offer on my website.
Many years ago, when my kids were very small, I was visiting with a friend and we were talking about home design. She brought up the concept of filling a home with handmade goods rather than mass-manufactured items; and when she said this, I realized that was the thing that made her home special. A short time later, I was in conversation with someone who pointed out that modern homes very rarely include workspaces because the modern world is focused on consuming not producing.
Both concepts struck a chord with me, so I began to set up workspaces in our home where the kids and I could get to work making all kinds of handmade things. These spaces were ever-evolving, so we were always set up to delve into whatever creative endeavor we were into at the time. We created fiber arts made from wool we sheared from our sheep. We did lots of papier-mâché and gourd crafts, wove baskets from reeds, and made dolls stuffed with cattails. At one point, the kids got into making leather pouches and shoes — and they were always sketching in their art books. If they needed something, I wanted them to think about how they could make it before they even thought about buying it. Making things became our way of life and our home life was centered around these workspaces, which I kept organized.
I had no shame in making any available space in our home a place to create, although I did dream of someday having my own proper studio. Our home and farm are both works in progress and in this current state of evolution I have two studios onsite — what a dream!
One studio is for my messier farm and dye works, and the other for making quilts and writing. Despite having the two studios, our living room remains a creative workspace as well and I often spend evenings there.
My quilt-making studio was formerly our chicken coop and my natural dye studio used to be our sheep barn. Both spaces have been fully renovated but hold a lot of sweet memories of farm adventures and my kids’ childhood. I designed the old chicken-coop sewing studio to be a warm passive solar space with big south-facing windows, since I work there primarily in the winter. Inside is a huge chest of drawers full of my naturally dyed fabrics that are ready to cut into and become quilts. All my quilts are born there, and this secluded warm place is also where I prefer to do most of my writing.
Both of my studios are heated only by wood stoves, so in the colder months, each morning begins by making a fire. My big barn studio is where I do all my natural dye work, including block printing fabrics. It’s also where I bring in the natural dye harvests to dry and cure. Once cured, the dyestuffs are packed up and stored as inventory on big wooden shelves. I built a packaging and shipping station in that studio as well to make shipping go more efficiently. It’s taken 20 years to get these spaces dialed in and I’m grateful to be in this place now where I’m set up for everything to run smoothly.
Everything I offer still passes through my hands — from the seeds I plant in spring, the plants I tend and the dye flowers I harvest in summer, to the kits I assemble, the packages I ship, the hand dyeing and the stitching of the quilts — and I genuinely find fulfillment in every step of every process.
I no longer have small children working by my side, but my two dogs Pepita and Frito follow along on every adventure — whether I’m in the studio or working in the field. It is special to have them always by my side.
I am grateful for this homegrown handmade life.
