October 18th, 2026
Karin is my wife and she is an artist. Specifically, she is a natural fiber artist. By this I mean that she likes to work primarily with natural fibers (wool, flax, cotton, silk, etc.), although she will use manmade materials if absolutely necessary. She knits, weaves, dyes, crochets, spins, sews, felts, and prints. I am certain that she can do almost anything with fiber. Karin has probably 65 years of experience just with knitting. Her oeuvre (to use a fancy artsy kind of word) is extensive and eclectic. Her work is consistently excellent. She is a perfectionist, at least with regards to her craft. Fiber arts are her passion and her gift.
It is interesting to have an artist as a partner in life. After 42 years of marriage, I’m starting to get used to her way of doing things. There were warning signs early in our relationship. When I proposed to Karin all those years ago, I asked if she wanted an engagement ring. She did not. Karin wanted a spinning wheel, in particular a traditional Ashford wheel. We were living in Germany at the time, and I think her wheel had to come all the way from New Zeeland. She has used it ever since she first laid hands on it. Her spinning is her meditative practice as well as part of her art. It’s almost Gandhi-like.
Sometimes, people tell me how nice it is that Karin has a hobby. The word “hobby” is grossly inadequate. A hobby implies that the activity is just a pleasant way to fill up a person’s spare time. Karin’s fiber arts are much, much more than that. An artist is largely defined by their work. Their art is what they do, but it is also who they are. Think of it this way: would somebody ever say that Frida Kahlo had a nice hobby?
An artist is always bubbling with ideas for new projects. Unfortunately, the artist does not have the time, the energy, or the money to do everything that they want to do. It can be difficult for an artist to take care of the mundane tasks in life that have nothing to do with their passion. The urge to experiment with new things sometimes crowds out other thoughts and concerns. An artist is often a person who is endlessly creative but can never find their car keys.
Art comes in a multitude of different forms. I had a friend once who earned his living driving truck. However, his passion was playing blues guitar. He was phenomenal at that. He had a job and a family, but his true love was the blues. His basement was partially filled with guitars, amps, speakers, sound mixers, and other paraphernalia. He joked about having G.A.S. (Guitar Acquisition Syndrome). He spent a lot of time and money on his music. He composed songs, then played and recorded them. He was part of a band that did local gigs. He inspired me to try my hand at the bass guitar, and I still fumble around with it. However, I was always on the peripheral of his musical world. I could only enjoy his art from a distance.
It is the same way with Karin’s art. Her creations are beautiful, but I don’t understand how she makes these things. Her fiber arts have their own particular rules and nomenclatures. Take her weaving for instance. Karin has several looms. She has an eight-shaft floor loom, an inkle loom, a rigid heddle loom, and a table loom. She just started today on preparing a warp for her floor loom. She has already woven a variety of projects on her loom (towels, runners, scarves, etc.). Karin tries to explain her work to me, but I get lost in the jargon. Warp and weft. Treadles and heddles and shuttles, oh my! She asks me about the colors she wants to use. I can respond to her about that. The technical aspects of her weaving are far beyond my comprehension and will likely remain so. I love what she makes, but I admire her work from afar.
Her dyeing projects are even more arcane. Our basement has one wall devoted to shelves that contain her pots and pans and cauldrons. She has glass jars filled with various mordants and dyes. Many of her dyes come from native plants: e.g. goldenrod, walnuts, blood root. She has a propane burner to heat up her dyes. She has an old school Nesco roaster to warm the fibers in dye for long periods of time. As far as I can tell, dyeing fiber is more of an intuitive kind of work than a science. It is akin to alchemy. She knows what colors she wants, but the variables in the process make it impossible for her to know what she will actually get. The result of every attempt is a surprise to some degree. I think that is part of the fun for her.
People have asked me if Karin sells her creations. The answer to that is “no”. On rare occasions, a person will be so taken by one of her scarves or shawls or whatever that they spontaneously offer to buy it from her. However, she never actively sells anything. She would have to sell her work at an exorbitantly high price to just break even. So, she gives it all away. Her art is not her way to earn money. That is liberating in that she can do what she wants when she wants.
Karin has a craft studio in one of the bedrooms. It’s packed with all sorts of stuff. I seldom enter the room for fear of messing it up. Granted, it always looks like a grenade went off in there, but Karin somehow knows where everything is. Woe to me if I move anything from its rightful place.
The rest of the house is also her craft studio. Her Spinolution Echo wheel and a huge basket of roving occupy part of the living room (yes, she has two spinning wheels). Her floor loom and all of its associated equipment partially fill another room. Most horizontal surfaces in the house have yarn and/or some unfinished project lying on them.
I could go on like this, but I suspect you get the picture by now. Karin also online with numerous international fiber groups, and she goes to meet with her knitting friends a couple times per week. Her art satisfies her emotional, social, and creative needs. It’s her life.
And it is also mine.
