It was 11 years ago at a Navajo Weaving workshop led by Sharie Monsam (left) at Fiber Factory in Mesa, Arizona that Caroline first started becoming acquainted with this corner of the fiber arts. Pictured are Caroline and her mom Jutta Engelhardt setting up a warp which is often considered the most difficult part of dressing a loom to start weaving. The Navajo rug that my mother-in-law started on this night was finished prior to her return to Germany, it sits on her couch to this day.
Just the year before, Caroline and I found ourselves in Harveyville, Kansas, where she attended Yarn School with Nicole Lohr. The following year we again headed into America’s heartland of Kansas for another go at Yarn School. Critical mass about all things fiber was taking hold.
By 2010 Caroline inherited a counterbalance loom and the die was cast. From May of that year, it would take until July before Caroline was ready to start weaving. The loom, by the way, was an ancient mess that required Caroline to look far and wide for information about how it worked. I wrote a short snippet back then which can be read by clicking here. Caroline’s guild member Bernie was instrumental in walking her through the warping process and several sets of towels were eventually woven on this loom.
Books, videos, tutorials, joining fiber guilds, attending conferences, joining workshops, visiting museums to explore exhibits regarding the history of the craft were on our schedule for the next decade. Caroline’s interest has few limits and certainly, geography is not one of the constraints if there are any. The ethnic history of what the peoples of the earth have explored with cloth is of profound interest to my wife. In her search for complexity and the novelty of finding things beyond the extent of her knowledge, Caroline too has a similar drive to learn more and is nearly on the constant lookout to extend what she knows. She has her own antilibrary that is considerably larger than my own but then her ravenous appetite to read is greater than my own too.
Through the various organic and synthetic fibers, yarns, methods of weaving, knitting, making lace, spindles, carders, and a multitude of other interests she’s worked through the uncertainty if she’d still be interested in all of this tomorrow. Turned out that she’s as deeply affected by her curiosity to know more today as ever. With that background, she finally came to the conclusion that gifting herself a treasure wasn’t so unreasonable anymore.
With some arm twisting of assurance that she could spoil herself without feeling guilty Caroline had her eye on a special 50th-anniversary cherry wood loom from Schacht out of Colorado. This “portable” loom is known as the Baby Wolf and while Caroline obviously sits on the left, Carma Koester on the right is the owner of Fiber Creek in Prescott, Arizona, who ordered this beautiful piece of engineering that Caroline is likely to use for the rest of her life. As soon as fabric starts to emerge from the loom I’ll be sure to share more photos of the first thing she makes.