Going back to my roots.

I started making with my hands in 2013. My oldest child was two years old at the time and nap time lended itself to lots of quiet free time. Learning to crochet sounded like fun and as most fiber enthusiast will tell you, once you learn one fiber craft, you go down a rabbit hole and must learn them all. Over the years, I have learned to weave, knit, spin, and felt. Along with adding sheep to our homestead so I could have my own “spinner’s flock of sheep”.

I always felt like when it came to my love of wool and textiles, I was …..well…the black sheep. I didn’t know anyone else in my family who did anything in the fiber arts. It wasn’t until 4 years ago, January of 2020, that I found out my passion behind my love of making with wool was in my roots! That winter of 2020, I decided to research our family history and little did I know what I would uncover.

Click after click, I climbed up my family tree on Ancestry.com. I was enjoying finding out just who these people were in my family line. Where did they live? What was their occupation? How many children did they have? Then I got to my 5th great-grandfather on my mother’s side of the family and that’s when the goosebumps hit! Joseph Schwartz was known as a Master Dyer and a woolen mill owner, providing the communtiy with woven heavy woolen blankets. It still amazes me to think that 200yrs ago, my great-grandfather had a wool mill in the same exact community that I reside in today!

Fast forward to 2023, and my great-aunt on my dad’s side of the family shared a picture with me of my great-great grandmother Margie with her spinning wheels! A hardworking, faith-filled woman, raising lots of children in the Appalachian mountains, and apparently spinning as well! I am still in awe to have these pieces to my puzzle and to know that my love of wool and textiles is simply homespun in my roots.