MY JOURNEY | My Site 3

Kate Bio – sort of (2022)

I first touched fiber at age 8 making pot holders and selling them. Does that sound familiar?
I began knitting as a young nun. Yes, I went into the convent at age 18.
- It was here I learned I did not like patterns. I wove two sweaters in two years. The raglan sleeve on my first sweater was about 4 feet long, which I did not notice.
I moved on from the convent after 6 years.
I left from NYC and stayed there for 12 years. I went to nursing school and worked as a nurse at the VA Hospital.
I took a three year break from nursing and worked in sales and marketing for a medical supply company. Doing craft shows came naturally to me. I returned to nursing with the birth of my son.

I began working with stained glass in 2010. I designed stained glass mobiles( kites) and sold them at craft shows. Each mobile (kite) had its own design. I loved flying kites as a child and adult and this was my inspiration. I have an essential tremor and in 2017 it was no longer safe for me to work with hot solder. It was difficult to give up this endeavor which I loved.

I learned Kumihimo braiding in 2011. It was being taught at one of the craft shows I attended. I began to make bracelets to sell at my craft shows. I constantly followed fashion trends and the Pantone colors to design my bracelets. In preparing for this talk, I realized I have few pictures of the bracelets. My passion for fiber was not in the bracelets.

In 2011, I met Pam Pawl, weaver extraordinaire, at a friend’s studio building. Pam had her weaving studio set up there. I showed her my bracelets and she said, “You can join the Philadelphia Guild of handweavers”. Of course my reply was, I don’t weave. The rest is history.
In 2012, I had knitted a very far out scarf. I wore it to the Guild and was told “that is very Saori”. I googled Saori and found there is a teaching studio in Phila. Since patterns were not involved, I began taking classes. I loved it. When it came to warping, I realized I could not thread the heddles with my tremor. I went back to the Guild and asked, what am I to do? The response was, get a rigid heddle loom and I did. And it was perfect.
I started knitting scarves for my craft shows. They were popular, but like my bracelets, they were not my fiber passion. I have no photos of my scarves.

My Fiber Passion was ignited in 2020 during Covid lock down.
Pam Pawl moved to Florida, about 8 yrs. ago. It was not easy losing my mentor.
At the end of 2019, Pam setup a six week zoom workshop called the Path. It was designed as a vehicle to explore your creativity. Of course I signed up. We took pictures of things that inspired us, used words to describe them and wove our inspiration. We did about 4-5 weavings during the six weeks; it was quite intense. My weaving passion was ignited. There are no scarves/bracelets in my future. Pam offered Path 2 and Path 3. Path 3 was based on sound (Cicadas and Desert reflections).

I have taught classes
- How to Photograph Your Jewelry
- How to Setup an Etsy Shop
- How to Zoom Step by Step with a manual

My goal during Covid has been to focus on learning zoom and Coordinating online events to unite the fiber community

I am working on an interactive map of all fiber art guilds I can identify in each state.
- This was a result of the HGA Panel on Guild collaborations and partnerships. I was on the panel with Gigi Mathews.