Interview with Teresa Kukowski 2018
Teresa Kukowski owns Hollyhock Alpaca Creations, a fiber art business featuring alpaca yarns, handmade gifts and other fiber products. More information about Teresa can be found at www.hollyhockalpacas.com or https://www.facebook.com/HollyhockFarmAlpacas/
1. Please tell me a little bit about yourself and why you and your husband decided to purchase alpacas?
I had meat sheep when I was a kid and learned to knit at about age 10. I always wanted to be able to knit something from an animal I had raised. Fast forward to 1999, I first heard of alpacas and brought up the idea with my then-fiance. After we were married, in 2002, we got our first alpacas – 2 bred females, who gave birth to their crias (babies) that fall. We continued to raise alpacas until 2015 when we moved.
2. Can you tell me about alpaca fiber and what makes it unique?
There are 2 breeds of alpaca:
Suri alpaca has long dreadlock like fiber. It is very silky and shiny. It has fabulous drape and makes great shawls and scarves
Huacaya alpaca has more crimp and memory. It makes a great yarn for hats, mittens, sweater or socks.
Alpaca is warmer than wool and generally has less barbs and feels less scratchy.
3. Raising livestock of any kind is a lot of time and work. What do you spend your time on now that you have shifted your focus from raising animals to creating and selling fiber art?
My real love was always creating and working with the fiber. I still get mostly raw fiber, so I sort and grade the fiber for the different end products. Some I send to be spun into yarn, which I dye and use for knitting and weaving projects. Some I send to be made into quilt batts which I use for needle felting into insoles and pre-felts. Some I use raw to felt into dryer balls and felt around bars of soap.
4. What got you interested in fiber art?
My mother is very crafty/creative. I learned to knit and sew as a kid, and I soon was knitting mittens and sweaters. After we started raising alpacas, I learned to spin and weave on the triangle loom and peg loom. A few years ago we purchased a needle felting machine and I use it to make big pieces of felted fabric which I can cut into insoles, journal covers, or pre-felts. I can also needle felt alpaca fiber onto silk scarves to make unique, wearable art.
5. What are some of your more popular items?
I sell felted insoles and dryer balls to wholesale customers and both are very popular. At fiber festivals my hand dyed yarn and dyed felting fiber are popular. I also knit and felt hats and mittens which are big sellers at craft shows and fiber festivals.
6. You are an instructor at the Fosston Fiber Festival in Clearbrook, MN this fall. What can you tell me about your needlefelting workshop?
In the class, students will learn how to blend dyed alpaca fiber to create new colors and then use that fiber to needle felt the image of the flower. The background will be a pre-felted piece of alpaca/wool blend. Using special needle felting needles, the flower picture will be ‘painted’ onto the pre-felt background using the alpaca fiber. The resulting felted picture will be ready to frame.
7. Is needle felting something that anyone can do? What tools are needed to get started?
Anyone can do needle felting, but the needles are really sharp, so parents need to supervise children. Getting started with needle felting requires only a few inexpensive tools: a foam block to protect your work surface, felting needles, felting fiber in various colors and a piece of pre-felted fiber to create your picture on. One could easily get started for under $20.
8. Do you vend at other fiber festivals?
I have vended at Shepherd’s Harvest and the Fall Fiber Festival in Hopkins for many years. I also vend at several craft shows each fall from the area north of the Twin Cities to my neighborhood near Braham.
9. Are there any new (or new to you) fiber techniques you hope to work with in the future?
I would like to make needle felted fabric and use it to make a garment such as a vest, poncho or ruana. I’ve just started to experiment with attaching needle felting to ready-made garments as accents for yokes or pockets or on the back of jackets.
10. Is there anything else you’d like to add about yourself or your art?
I think you covered the bases!
1. Please tell me a little bit about yourself and why you and your husband decided to purchase alpacas?
I had meat sheep when I was a kid and learned to knit at about age 10. I always wanted to be able to knit something from an animal I had raised. Fast forward to 1999, I first heard of alpacas and brought up the idea with my then-fiance. After we were married, in 2002, we got our first alpacas – 2 bred females, who gave birth to their crias (babies) that fall. We continued to raise alpacas until 2015 when we moved.
2. Can you tell me about alpaca fiber and what makes it unique?
There are 2 breeds of alpaca:
Suri alpaca has long dreadlock like fiber. It is very silky and shiny. It has fabulous drape and makes great shawls and scarves
Huacaya alpaca has more crimp and memory. It makes a great yarn for hats, mittens, sweater or socks.
Alpaca is warmer than wool and generally has less barbs and feels less scratchy.
3. Raising livestock of any kind is a lot of time and work. What do you spend your time on now that you have shifted your focus from raising animals to creating and selling fiber art?
My real love was always creating and working with the fiber. I still get mostly raw fiber, so I sort and grade the fiber for the different end products. Some I send to be spun into yarn, which I dye and use for knitting and weaving projects. Some I send to be made into quilt batts which I use for needle felting into insoles and pre-felts. Some I use raw to felt into dryer balls and felt around bars of soap.
4. What got you interested in fiber art?
My mother is very crafty/creative. I learned to knit and sew as a kid, and I soon was knitting mittens and sweaters. After we started raising alpacas, I learned to spin and weave on the triangle loom and peg loom. A few years ago we purchased a needle felting machine and I use it to make big pieces of felted fabric which I can cut into insoles, journal covers, or pre-felts. I can also needle felt alpaca fiber onto silk scarves to make unique, wearable art.
5. What are some of your more popular items?
I sell felted insoles and dryer balls to wholesale customers and both are very popular. At fiber festivals my hand dyed yarn and dyed felting fiber are popular. I also knit and felt hats and mittens which are big sellers at craft shows and fiber festivals.
6. You are an instructor at the Fosston Fiber Festival in Clearbrook, MN this fall. What can you tell me about your needlefelting workshop?
In the class, students will learn how to blend dyed alpaca fiber to create new colors and then use that fiber to needle felt the image of the flower. The background will be a pre-felted piece of alpaca/wool blend. Using special needle felting needles, the flower picture will be ‘painted’ onto the pre-felt background using the alpaca fiber. The resulting felted picture will be ready to frame.
7. Is needle felting something that anyone can do? What tools are needed to get started?
Anyone can do needle felting, but the needles are really sharp, so parents need to supervise children. Getting started with needle felting requires only a few inexpensive tools: a foam block to protect your work surface, felting needles, felting fiber in various colors and a piece of pre-felted fiber to create your picture on. One could easily get started for under $20.
8. Do you vend at other fiber festivals?
I have vended at Shepherd’s Harvest and the Fall Fiber Festival in Hopkins for many years. I also vend at several craft shows each fall from the area north of the Twin Cities to my neighborhood near Braham.
9. Are there any new (or new to you) fiber techniques you hope to work with in the future?
I would like to make needle felted fabric and use it to make a garment such as a vest, poncho or ruana. I’ve just started to experiment with attaching needle felting to ready-made garments as accents for yokes or pockets or on the back of jackets.
10. Is there anything else you’d like to add about yourself or your art?
I think you covered the bases!
Interview with Kathy Belt 2018
Kathy Belt, when she's not living in the present, has been living in the past for over 30 years. She's always been interested in string and string theory (not the physics type). To that end, she has learned embroidery, tailoring, quilting, spinning (on drop spindles, top whorl spindles, charka and supported spindles), has crocheted for 30 years, tatted for 20 and in the last 15 years has added sprang, the lucet, loop braiding, finger weaving, nalbinding, netting, and knitting to those things she can talk about intelligently. Because both her father and her husband were in the military, she has traveled extensively (37 countries so far) and moved frequently (house number 36).
In her spare time, she belongs to a Medieval Re-enactment group (The Society for Creative Anachronisms), vegetable gardens, hunts and fishes, and loves to read (especially books with foot notes).
1. How long have you lived in the Park Rapids area and what brought you back from all your travels?
I’ve been here 20 years. My husband and I moved back to help with my father when his health was failing and stayed because we liked it so much.
2. Where did your interest in fiber arts start?
When I was about 8, my grandmother taught me to embroider and my mother made all my clothing.
3. What is your current fiber art passion and what would you like to learn in the future?
My current passion is knitting. I don’t want to learn anything else at this point, my knowledge base is so broad, I’m trying to narrow it down, focus more on two or three rather than broad base of experimentation.
4. In your workshop, you explain fairy and folk tales as they relate to fiber art, particularly spinning. How has our perception of these stories changed as our society’s change to industrial production changed? Do you think that hinders our understanding of the moral underpinings to these stories?
Because society became so automated, we became distanced from the actual labor involved. This reminds us of history as well as revisualizing the hard work.
In the old days, everyone had to work from sun up to sun down just to exist comfortably. Today, the hard labor isn’t there, this changes our existance.
Often, fairy tales and stories include a moral about making a deal with the devil in order to have help with work or to get ahead in some way. This can be an actual deal with some type of spiritual or magical being or a proverbial moral break in order to achieve the goal. In cultures around the world, stories like these are used to teach morality and the consequences of our actions.
Many of the phrases we use today have their context in folk tales, “pop goes the weasel”, “too many irons in the fire” have a historical context that our ancestors would have recognized readily.
5. What other ways do you combine your interest in fiber and your interest in history and historical fiction?
Every year I go to the second grade in school and teach. Fiber art and history has become part of my daily vocabulary. I also am involved in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronisms*) and have gotten into that more heavily on a Kingdom-wide** level. I teach fiber art, herbs and food-related topics and helped form the farmers guild within the local Kingdom.
6. How rich is the history of fiber art tradition in the northern Minnesota area?
Every time you turn around, there’s someone with Scandinavian influence, It’s everywhere, every back road has sheep or fiber animals, county fairs focus partly on fiber. It’s everywhere if you look for it. Museums feature fiber art although it is not often recognized as art or for the technique but may be known more for family connections to particular items (nalbound hats or knitted mittens in traditional designs).
7. Can you give some resources where people could learn more about the historical context of fiber arts?
Google on the internet for particular topics but locally, joining the SCA leads to many fiber artists willing to teach for free. Or go to an SCA event, take classes. The weekend of July 14-15 at an SCA event there were 60 classes in three days. Classes included making beads, spinning, weaving, black smithing, copper smithing, advanced embroidery and many more.
Fosston Fiber Festival in Clearbrook is a good resource, the Sustainable Sheep and Fiber Community of Northern Minnesota (SSFC), Creative Spirit Fiber Festival in Bemidji, Pine to Prairie Fiber Arts tour, Weavers Guild in Minneapolis, Monique’s in Park Rapids, Prairie Fibers in Fargo, Jack Pine Spinners and Weavers Guild in Bemidji.
8. Are there other events where you will be teaching this year or other ways people can learn more about you?
I will be at the Beltrami County Fair August 10-11 at the SCA area, behind the 4H building. I will have fiber, be modeling my Elizabethan outfit with hoops skirts of reeds. I’ll also have other fiber tools. I do weed walks and various other workshops throughout the year and am available to teach. I can be reached through the SSFC website or the Osage Sportsman’s Club osagesportsmansclub.com
Thank you for taking the time to tell me a little more about yourself.
*SCA- The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. Our "Known World" consists of 19 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world. Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which may feature tournaments, arts exhibits, classes, workshops, dancing, feasts, and more. Our "royalty" hold courts at which they recognize and honor members for their contributions to the group. Taken from http://www.sca.org
**SCA Kingdom includes 4 states and Canada)
More information about Fosston Fiber Festival in Clearbrook, the vendors and workshops at fosstonfiberfestival.com
In her spare time, she belongs to a Medieval Re-enactment group (The Society for Creative Anachronisms), vegetable gardens, hunts and fishes, and loves to read (especially books with foot notes).
1. How long have you lived in the Park Rapids area and what brought you back from all your travels?
I’ve been here 20 years. My husband and I moved back to help with my father when his health was failing and stayed because we liked it so much.
2. Where did your interest in fiber arts start?
When I was about 8, my grandmother taught me to embroider and my mother made all my clothing.
3. What is your current fiber art passion and what would you like to learn in the future?
My current passion is knitting. I don’t want to learn anything else at this point, my knowledge base is so broad, I’m trying to narrow it down, focus more on two or three rather than broad base of experimentation.
4. In your workshop, you explain fairy and folk tales as they relate to fiber art, particularly spinning. How has our perception of these stories changed as our society’s change to industrial production changed? Do you think that hinders our understanding of the moral underpinings to these stories?
Because society became so automated, we became distanced from the actual labor involved. This reminds us of history as well as revisualizing the hard work.
In the old days, everyone had to work from sun up to sun down just to exist comfortably. Today, the hard labor isn’t there, this changes our existance.
Often, fairy tales and stories include a moral about making a deal with the devil in order to have help with work or to get ahead in some way. This can be an actual deal with some type of spiritual or magical being or a proverbial moral break in order to achieve the goal. In cultures around the world, stories like these are used to teach morality and the consequences of our actions.
Many of the phrases we use today have their context in folk tales, “pop goes the weasel”, “too many irons in the fire” have a historical context that our ancestors would have recognized readily.
5. What other ways do you combine your interest in fiber and your interest in history and historical fiction?
Every year I go to the second grade in school and teach. Fiber art and history has become part of my daily vocabulary. I also am involved in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronisms*) and have gotten into that more heavily on a Kingdom-wide** level. I teach fiber art, herbs and food-related topics and helped form the farmers guild within the local Kingdom.
6. How rich is the history of fiber art tradition in the northern Minnesota area?
Every time you turn around, there’s someone with Scandinavian influence, It’s everywhere, every back road has sheep or fiber animals, county fairs focus partly on fiber. It’s everywhere if you look for it. Museums feature fiber art although it is not often recognized as art or for the technique but may be known more for family connections to particular items (nalbound hats or knitted mittens in traditional designs).
7. Can you give some resources where people could learn more about the historical context of fiber arts?
Google on the internet for particular topics but locally, joining the SCA leads to many fiber artists willing to teach for free. Or go to an SCA event, take classes. The weekend of July 14-15 at an SCA event there were 60 classes in three days. Classes included making beads, spinning, weaving, black smithing, copper smithing, advanced embroidery and many more.
Fosston Fiber Festival in Clearbrook is a good resource, the Sustainable Sheep and Fiber Community of Northern Minnesota (SSFC), Creative Spirit Fiber Festival in Bemidji, Pine to Prairie Fiber Arts tour, Weavers Guild in Minneapolis, Monique’s in Park Rapids, Prairie Fibers in Fargo, Jack Pine Spinners and Weavers Guild in Bemidji.
8. Are there other events where you will be teaching this year or other ways people can learn more about you?
I will be at the Beltrami County Fair August 10-11 at the SCA area, behind the 4H building. I will have fiber, be modeling my Elizabethan outfit with hoops skirts of reeds. I’ll also have other fiber tools. I do weed walks and various other workshops throughout the year and am available to teach. I can be reached through the SSFC website or the Osage Sportsman’s Club osagesportsmansclub.com
Thank you for taking the time to tell me a little more about yourself.
*SCA- The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. Our "Known World" consists of 19 kingdoms, with over 30,000 members residing in countries around the world. Members, dressed in clothing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, attend events which may feature tournaments, arts exhibits, classes, workshops, dancing, feasts, and more. Our "royalty" hold courts at which they recognize and honor members for their contributions to the group. Taken from http://www.sca.org
**SCA Kingdom includes 4 states and Canada)
More information about Fosston Fiber Festival in Clearbrook, the vendors and workshops at fosstonfiberfestival.com
Interview with Linda Johnson-Morke 2018
Linda Johnson-Morke owns Bekaz Fiber Works and is a member of Anoka Fiber Works and the Natural Fiber Alliance.
Linda was born in Stoughton, WI to parents who were proud of their Norwegian heritage. This coupled with an enthusiastic interest in fiber has woven the following tapestry of life. Taught by her mother to knit at 5 years old, knitting led to spinning which led to sheep and rabbits. Felting led to different sheep, trips to Norway and Mongolia and a passion for understanding why wools felt differently. Being an engineer by training and curious by nature resulted in many years of fiber experimentation as an outlet for her creativity. A 10 year hiatus from the corporate world led to a line of fulled wool products sold both wholesale and retail. A shepherd for more than 30 years, Linda has shepherded Navajo Churro, Border Leicester, Cheviot, Hampshire, Karakul, Finnish Landrace, Icelandic, Texel, Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) and Tunis sheep. Her current flock consists of Icelandic & BFL crosses and Karakul sheep. Linda currently lives on a farm in Isanti, MN and enjoys sharing what she has learned through classes and lectures.
1. Please tell me a little bit about yourself and why you decided on the breeds of sheep you are now raising?
I’m an engineer by training, mother of 4 beautiful children, wife and shepherd who loves her sheep and creating useful items with their wool. I chose breeds due to felting ability and hardiness and beautiful colors of fleeces. I love natural colors.
2. What can you tell me about the importance of wool to Vikings and early peoples and how they used it?
The sheep ensures the sustainabiliyt of the Vikings, meat, milk, horns, wool, clothing, sails for their ships, the sheep were really the Vikings’ Walmart.
3. Is felting unique to wool? What allows wool to felt?
Felting is not unique to wool, most animal fibers will felt, some more than others, usually inner coat that has the scales and allow the fibers to felt. Fiber takes on water, swells, scales cause a directional fricitonal effect (DFE), which allows the wet fiber when it’s agititated to move in one direction more than another. This allows the fibers to form an entanglement. In needle felting, any fiber can be felted, polyester, nylon. But only natural fibers from animals can actually make felt on their own. Needles entangle the fibers on their own because they have barbs on them, natural fiber from animals when wet will move, without the use of that equipment.
Diapers are made of non-woven materials are needle felted. Even thin things, many reusable bags are made from a manufactured fiber, like fabric but not in reality, not a woven a fabric, can tell from texture.
4. What got you interested in fiber art?
I guess I didn’t know it was fiber art at the time, I started knitting when I was 4 or 5, my mom taught me. I got bored with synthetics, I started spinning. Once you start spinning, you get sheep. Then you have lots of wool and have to do something so I started felting.
5. What products do you offer for sale from your flock?
I offer the sheared fiber, washed and unwashed, felted items, anything from rugs to horse pads, to slippers, boot liners insoles, mittens, hats, felted fleeces (like a sheep skin but animals still alive).
6. You are an instructor at the Fosston Fiber Festival in Clearbrook, MN this fall. What can you tell me about your workshop?
It is a lecture and a demonstration with question and answer session about how important sheep were to the Vikings and the process of making fulled woven cloth, called wadmal.
7. Do you vend at other fiber festivals, where can people meet you or find more information about your workshops and products?
I do a limited amount of festivals at this time, I’m still working outside the farm. I’m at Shepherds Harvest, Lake Elmo and I have items and classes at Anoka Fiber Works year round.
8. Are there any new (or new to you) fiber techniques you hope to work with in the future?
Yes, I’m very excited about a class to learn to weave and work on a warp-weighted loom, which is what the Vikings used originally to make wadmal.
9. Is there anything else you’d like to add about yourself or your art?
The only thing that I’d like to say is that life is about learning. We are all part of this planet and we can learn a lot, about this life and sustainability. What do we really need to survive and do we have those skills?
Thank you for taking the time to share a bit about yourself.
Linda was born in Stoughton, WI to parents who were proud of their Norwegian heritage. This coupled with an enthusiastic interest in fiber has woven the following tapestry of life. Taught by her mother to knit at 5 years old, knitting led to spinning which led to sheep and rabbits. Felting led to different sheep, trips to Norway and Mongolia and a passion for understanding why wools felt differently. Being an engineer by training and curious by nature resulted in many years of fiber experimentation as an outlet for her creativity. A 10 year hiatus from the corporate world led to a line of fulled wool products sold both wholesale and retail. A shepherd for more than 30 years, Linda has shepherded Navajo Churro, Border Leicester, Cheviot, Hampshire, Karakul, Finnish Landrace, Icelandic, Texel, Blue Faced Leicester (BFL) and Tunis sheep. Her current flock consists of Icelandic & BFL crosses and Karakul sheep. Linda currently lives on a farm in Isanti, MN and enjoys sharing what she has learned through classes and lectures.
1. Please tell me a little bit about yourself and why you decided on the breeds of sheep you are now raising?
I’m an engineer by training, mother of 4 beautiful children, wife and shepherd who loves her sheep and creating useful items with their wool. I chose breeds due to felting ability and hardiness and beautiful colors of fleeces. I love natural colors.
2. What can you tell me about the importance of wool to Vikings and early peoples and how they used it?
The sheep ensures the sustainabiliyt of the Vikings, meat, milk, horns, wool, clothing, sails for their ships, the sheep were really the Vikings’ Walmart.
3. Is felting unique to wool? What allows wool to felt?
Felting is not unique to wool, most animal fibers will felt, some more than others, usually inner coat that has the scales and allow the fibers to felt. Fiber takes on water, swells, scales cause a directional fricitonal effect (DFE), which allows the wet fiber when it’s agititated to move in one direction more than another. This allows the fibers to form an entanglement. In needle felting, any fiber can be felted, polyester, nylon. But only natural fibers from animals can actually make felt on their own. Needles entangle the fibers on their own because they have barbs on them, natural fiber from animals when wet will move, without the use of that equipment.
Diapers are made of non-woven materials are needle felted. Even thin things, many reusable bags are made from a manufactured fiber, like fabric but not in reality, not a woven a fabric, can tell from texture.
4. What got you interested in fiber art?
I guess I didn’t know it was fiber art at the time, I started knitting when I was 4 or 5, my mom taught me. I got bored with synthetics, I started spinning. Once you start spinning, you get sheep. Then you have lots of wool and have to do something so I started felting.
5. What products do you offer for sale from your flock?
I offer the sheared fiber, washed and unwashed, felted items, anything from rugs to horse pads, to slippers, boot liners insoles, mittens, hats, felted fleeces (like a sheep skin but animals still alive).
6. You are an instructor at the Fosston Fiber Festival in Clearbrook, MN this fall. What can you tell me about your workshop?
It is a lecture and a demonstration with question and answer session about how important sheep were to the Vikings and the process of making fulled woven cloth, called wadmal.
7. Do you vend at other fiber festivals, where can people meet you or find more information about your workshops and products?
I do a limited amount of festivals at this time, I’m still working outside the farm. I’m at Shepherds Harvest, Lake Elmo and I have items and classes at Anoka Fiber Works year round.
8. Are there any new (or new to you) fiber techniques you hope to work with in the future?
Yes, I’m very excited about a class to learn to weave and work on a warp-weighted loom, which is what the Vikings used originally to make wadmal.
9. Is there anything else you’d like to add about yourself or your art?
The only thing that I’d like to say is that life is about learning. We are all part of this planet and we can learn a lot, about this life and sustainability. What do we really need to survive and do we have those skills?
Thank you for taking the time to share a bit about yourself.