It's no wonder to me that I craft things others deem unusual. What else would a physics major-turned archaeologist-then a licensed high school mathematics teacher do in her spare time but something, um…different? Being a rather practical gal, I like to find new purposes for items that have lost the ability to perform their original function. (My kitchen curtain rods are an old shovel and a hoe...yeah, you can add gardener to my titles.)

A book introduced me to the idea of using wool sweaters for a variety of useful things. A couple of months later while wearing a wool sweater (pieced from several others) standing in a thrift store line, (shouldering my first wool purse) and holding about five bulky sweaters to purchase, a woman asked if I would be willing to make items to sell. Gee, you suppose it was all the wool that tipped her off? I thought “Eureka! There are people who are passionate about this like me?" My company, ReWoolables, was born in a cashier isle.

The craziest item I've made thus far is a set of ‘fish’ that my son ‘caught’ and strung on his fishing line at that height of an icy Hoosier winter. I hunt garage sales and thrift stores for unwanted sweaters. Felting them at home, I let the colors and the shape of the sweaters guide me to their new lives. Not just the wool is repurposed; the liner of a purse could be an old table cloth. Often the sewing thread and other notions come from estate sales. Not much in a ReWoolable item is new.