Looking at the World Through a Fiber Artist's Eyes

People sometimes ask where I find inspiration for my collections.

The funny thing is, I don't usually go looking for it.

It finds me.

Sometimes I'll finish a television series or walk out of a movie theater, get to my car, and immediately reach for my notebook because I know there's a collection hiding somewhere inside the story.

That's happened more than once.

I've sat in parking lots after a movie, filling pages before I even started the drive home.

Stories have a way of doing that to me.

I've always been that way.

My studio has notebooks.

My kitchen table has notebooks.

My nightstand has notebooks.

I always have a notebook and pen with me because I've learned that ideas don't wait for a convenient time. If they show up, I write them down before they wander off again.

Some ideas become collections almost immediately.

Others wait.

My Stardew Valley collection lived in my notebooks for nearly three years. Every so often I'd add another thought, another color palette, another little detail. The collection quietly kept growing until one day I realized it was finally ready.

Then there are collections like Andor.

Halfway through the season I already knew it wanted to become fiber. Instead of waiting until the story was over, I found myself excited for each new episode—not just to see what happened next, but to discover the next color palette, the next texture, and the next moment that deserved to become wool.

Watching the series became part of the creative process.

I've learned not to rush either kind of idea.

Some need years.

Some grow one episode at a time.

They'll tell me when they're ready.

One thing I've noticed over the years is that my collections almost never begin with color.

They begin with a story.

The colors come later.

Once I understand the feeling I'm trying to capture, choosing the fiber, the textures, and the palette becomes much easier.

The story does the hard work.

I've always loved making things.

Drawing was my first creative language. As a kid, I was happiest with a box of crayons in front of me. Today I still love learning new ways to create. Lately that's meant experimenting with alcohol markers and acrylic markers, but I don't think it's really about the medium.

I simply love learning new ways to make things.

Every new creative skill changes the way I see the world.

It teaches me to notice different textures, different color combinations, different ways that ordinary things fit together.

I don't try to recreate what I see.

I try to remember how it made me feel.

That's what eventually becomes a collection.

A movie becomes wool.

A favorite game becomes a color palette.

A quiet moment becomes something you can hold in your hands.

I don't think looking at the world through a fiber artist's eyes is really about fiber.

It's about staying curious.

It's about paying attention to the stories that move you.

It's about trusting that even the smallest spark of an idea might become something wonderful someday.

You don't have to know exactly where it's going.

Just write it down.

One day, you might find yourself holding that idea in your hands.