Homespun E19 | Kristin Nicholas

hi everyone welcome to Homespun where creativity and Community come together I am your host Misty Don and today I'm joined by Kristen Nicholas Kristen is a textile artist and a true creative she spent years in the yarn industry as a creative director and has now explored many different creative passions along the way and is here to encourage others to try new things and consider failure part of the learning opportunity so let's dive into this amazing conversation with Kristen as she talks about her love of color and where she finds her inspiration Kristen thank you so much for joining me today I really appreciate it can you give people who are maybe not familiar with you just a little bit about your background uh yeah sure so I live in Western Massachusetts on the Vermont line on a sheep farm with about 400 sheep and my husband and my daughter um we we've had sheep for over 40 years now so we've birthed a lot of babies and um I've been a maker H I learned to embroider and crochet and knit when I was a kid and then I was so into it for years and years and years I made all my clothes I'm a child of the 60s and the 70s so um I made everything like I would stay up late the night before school and I would make an outfit and wear it that day I was super involved in 4 um and I went to um they they had this thing called Club Congress in Chicago I was the state winner for I was grew up in New Jersey and I was a state winner and then I went to college for textiles and clothing at University of Delaware um went then on an exchange program to Oregon State and Coralis and met my husband Mark he was from Massachusetts and um then I finished at University of Delaware and I went and I got a graduate degree in textiles and clothing at Colorado State University in Fort Collins so that's how it all started you know yeah so I mean it sounds like you had a love of creativity from early on can you pinpoint maybe what started that for you uh yeah I can totally pinpoint it was my um well I'm one of five girls I'm the eldest and there was four of us in five years and I don't I seriously do not know how my mom did it you know and uh she used to just throw these craft kits in front of us um back in the 60s there was something called Sunset craft kits and we all we got them and we'd work on them in the summer and um my grandmother was from Germany she had come over in the early part of the uh 20th century and she and her mom were huge uh crocheters tatters Quilters seers and uh we were very close with her she helped raise us and um so she taught me to abroader I think was the first thing I learned she had all beautiful pillowcases all you know all hand embroidered and beautiful quilt she had a quilting Club um they all spoke German and we would come well they would switch between German and English okay uh when they were talking about my mom or us it would be in German and then English so we always knew what was going on with Graham and um then uh so so she taught me to crochet and my mom taught me to knit when I was nine on a car trip but I didn't really like it um because it it was harder than crochet it was you know two needles as opposed to one yada y y right and so but then when I went to college um I would always like to have something to you know do with my hands as you can see hands hands and um so I taught myself to knit uh so that when I was commuting between a long you know like four-hour commute I knitted and I learned to knit my first sweater I started out with an Icelandic yolk sweater of course and um so that's how I got hooked on knitting and you know I it's been I mean stitching knitting all kinds of crafts have pretty much been my passion my entire life I love that and I think that's so evident I mean even looking at your home behind you filled with these beautiful handmade treasures and you know one of the things that for me I find so inspiring about what you do is you don't put yourself in this creative box you do so many things and for me I tend to get hyperfocused on one thing to the point that I often forget that I have other creative hobbies and so I I'm I'm curious how you continue to cultivate those different passions um well I mean it all kind of goes back to color I love color and I I guess I'm curious about how other things are made I really love decorating my home and all the things that go into it and making things for my home and um so like for instance right now I'm really into Ceramics so I I do a lot of that's what I'm doing mostly um selling Pottery at the farmers market um but my career at selling things started when I when I was a kid I made bean bag frogs oh fun and I sold them at the sidewalk sales in downtown Dober and so I've always kind of been sewing sewing or making things and selling them U my niece says why do why do you guys as my sisters and I always have to make it into business we do we like okay you know because we like to make so much and then what do you do with it you know exactly at some point you have too much for just yourself yeah yeah I mean you can give it away but at some point they don't even want it anymore so um but I guess I'm curious and I'm also really interested in art history of art um how artists use color I mean I've Illustrated a bunch of books um done oil painting I you know it it's like you see something and you think maybe I could do that yeah and then at some point you get you get interested enough to buy all the supplies and start looking for everything that needs to go into it I mean that's how I got into Pottery I was buying too many pots and I was like and they were expensive because they were all handmade American and I was like okay I gotta learn how to do this myself so I have a tendency to bring everything into a business and that's how I Y ended up in the yarn business for like years you know years and years and years so yeah so you were you the creative director ctor is that correct of okay that's that's what I thought so can let's share a little bit about that because you spent a a long time in the yarn industry yeah like more than a couple decades um so I went to graduate school at Colorado State in a tech got a textile degree and um when I got out it was 1981 and at that point you know hand knitting and Yarn Crafts they EB and flow but at that point it was on a tra Factory up and I read this article in this publication that was for business um it was called knitting times and they interviewed a couple um yarn company owners and I said oh that's like right down my alley so I got out of school and I started um you know like sending resumés and all as you do right and somehow through a series of events I ended up working for this very small yarn company in LOL Massachusetts that made its own mohare had a Mill and it was called Elite specialty Yarns and was very very small I think we had like 10 employees but then there was another division that had this Mill so it was trial by fire because I really didn't know what I was doing but I you know I knew I could see what they needed in order to become successful and at that point they were doing cone jarn for Weavers hand weaving was big back there in the early 80s but they wanted to segue into that so I helped them build into that and um you know the rest is history it was a long time going but we we ended up growing really big and um you know it was still a small business though I love that and I I like that you shared about the EB and flow of you know you know yarncraft in particular but I think that applies kind of across the board in the Craft Space they all have their moments and so with that in mind you've been in the industry a long time is there something that you see that's on its way up oh man um gosh well crochet yeah but um you know I don't know when this video is coming out but Taylor Swift and that in that crochet dress going to really pump up the crochet thing I think knitts are looking to learn crochet um that not a lot of knitts and crocheters are a little bit different some do both but um because it's two sticks with knitting and there's you follow all these patterns like color work and cables and everything little bit different than crochet where you've got one hook and yarn and um I'm not the greatest crocheter I mean I did crochet stuff for you guys but um I'm known for knitting um and but I like to do it all so yeah figure it out ex exactly well and I agree I think I I've seen a ton of of crochet trending and and also embroidery I think both of those both of those mediums are really growing and you know I I recently in my my Instagram feed I had video after video of all these just darling little uh little details that people are adding to make their clothing their own and I just love it so much I'm like oh just those little touches of you know personality that can shine through is one of the things I love most about craft and um and being able to do what we do and so I'm I'm excited for more of that and more people to to share their personality through what they're making and I think like with embroidery it it's so accessible because um you know you just need a little bit of floss a little bit of thread a needle you don't even need a hoop and you can to it and it's so free um I've written a few books on Embroidery in my past life um and I was you know my problem is I'm always a littlee of the curve in what I'm interested in and then do a book and then it's that's not a problem they say oh if it doesn't do good oh it's too early you know and then I see the trend go but by then I'm old news you know problem in publishing it's a little bit different now with the internet and like you guys you know you can see a trend digital resources yeah yeah so any I do love embroidery totally um let's see well here's a pillow but I've combined um like beautiful that's knitting with embroidery yeah that it's just gorgeous so you know going back to that love of color how do you get or where do you find your inspiration for color combinations and things that you you want to try and put together where where are you looking for inspiration um well I guess the best place for people to start um is just go outside and look if it's summer look in the garden and you just see how it works uh but you've got to observe it and now it's like so innate to me that I just do it but um I've I've taught a bunch of color classes and um it's I think I did a little thing for you guys on your YouTube on color with knitting and it's just playing with it just playing with it and you can have things that fail but with knitting or with crochet rip it out try again um right another way really good way to start is if you have a local Museum or get a chance to go to a you know a big museum look at what the artists do because so much of um you know art is color yes absolutely so you know that that's what I would say is just keep your eyes open and with phone take a picture of what you like and then you go back to it right almost kind of curate your own palette in that way you know what are the things that speak to you and then you can kind of figure it out I love that so one of the things I noticed in a a video that I watched of you and I think this is probably 10 years old now but um you shared about how the Winters where you live can be quite harsh so so bringing the color into your home and I just loved that thought so much so let's go back to farm life because we just touched on that a little bit at the beginning but you live on your a farm that's over 150 years old correct and so it's been a working farm well our house is over it was built in um 1751 wow so it's old and so it's New England you know there's a lot of old houses and it's it's a wood house it's got three fireplaces it's an old cape and um Cape means it's like one and a half stories um and then there when we we bought this 20 27 years ago and um it was sort of overgrown and my husband's the farmer I'm not the farmer I I'm the assistant but you know that's his passion you know I've got the textiles the color he's got animals and farming and the whole agricultural life and so we've brought this place back but we also we use our sheep um like right now they're doing rotational grazing so we we set up the fences we bring a flock in they eat the grass when it's done move the fences they're electronet so they move yes they're electrified so that the coyotes can't get in and well supposedly they can't get in um but we to help with that we have three great purines guard dogs awesome yeah they're giant loves and so they keep the animals at Bay um but like Mark's got a landscape trailer and he we just load these sheep into the landscape trailer and take them to the next place and so there I think there's five different blocks this summer all different places so he has to go check them every day to make sure everybody's okay and um yeah it's it's it's a ton of work not I can imagine you know it's it's just um but but it's our life it's his life it's my life it's my daughter's life and um like we we feel good because we're feeding our community we sell our meat at the farmers market and so we're raising these really good animals making really good beautiful uh meat to sustain our community so I love that that's that's really wonderful and honestly it my husband has had this this like yearning I guess for a long time to raise sheep and we don't have enough land currently but I'm thinking I might need to bring him for a visit because he would probably just be over the moon to see what you are up to up there which is just incredible so you're you're raising all these sheep and sharing them with your do you also harvest the wool for your yarn do you you process it so I was in the yarn business for 16 years and I knew all the Mills I knew you know I knew that mostly we bought mohare we would buy it from Texas um and I knew all the work that went into just making the yarn and over the years like our Mill we ended up selling the machine we got rid of all the machinery and it went to Guatemala and South America it's just so hard for Mills to make it these days and um so a lot of the textile industry moved overseas and now there's these small little Mills that are processing wool but frankly I've moved on with that part of my life as far as want to be in the yarn business and um so we we actually sell our wool and there's some people people that spin it for themselves that have a line um some of the junky wool is actually this is cool um there's such a thing as wool pellets that are used for mulch and fertilizer and so some yeah some of the the bellies and you know the back where they poop that gets processed and made into these P pellets and they're just basically starting out and um will be sold to gardeners so um and a lot of it because our sheep we reclaim a lot of pastures which means we're putting them into areas where there's a ton of Burrs there's a ton of weeds there's all kinds of things which in the in the wool world is called vegetable matter and vegetable matter is very bad because you don't don't want that in the wool huh well you don't want it in the machines so so our wool really isn't the greatest but that's how we got into it Mark was into animals I was into wool I was a spinner and uh you know I wanted sheep and so we got sheep and he really took off with the Sheep that's for sure so I've done a lot of that kind of stuff over my life but right now we're selling it to other people that do stuff to you know I love I love that I think you know it's it's amazing to continue to figure out how to make it work within your life and where you're at in that phase and and totally admirable so very cool so let's talk again about how you've built this kind of creative practice that's continued through your life and and maybe share with us how you would encourage others to try new things and to continue to learn new crafts well the thing that I think is the most important is just trying to keep pushing yourself to learn new things because if you say you're a cro crocheter but you want to learn to embroider just by that little Act of learning to embroider you're going to start thinking about your crochet differently same thing if you're a quilter and you start adding embroidery onto it you start thinking more um just in a different way and it makes your mind more Curious and it sort of broaden your world as far as textiles go and it it just makes it more fun you know learning something is fun it's frustrating but it's fun and when I started learning Pottery um I quickly became obsessed because it was so different than knitting and crochet but what it did to my my um my knitwear design and my crochet was it made me start thinking 3D Ceramics is 3D and knitting a lot of times is is flat or you know crochet so you take these things you learn and then you bring it back to your original craft or whatever and it just starts to explode so I encourage people to really just try something new I mean go take a glass blowing glass you never know what's going to happen you might be making beads and putting them on stuff you know I have to say I I had the opportunity to take a glass blowing class and I loved it yes yeah so we try often especially since we create in one specific field you know yeah so heavily for what for what I do for work um we try really hard to take kind of a creative retreat at least twice a year and try something completely different and new and so one of those we got to do a glassworking class and it was the coolest I just could not believe that we could take you know these little Pebbles of glass and and you know work them into this beautiful um you know I just I have a bowl that we made and I yeah and I you know I I look at that and I still can't believe that I made it and I think there's something that's so fulfilling to throw yourself into this new process this new new Step that maybe you haven't taken before and especially with a guiding hand to help you through it class and the hot you know exactly that's maybe not one you want to step into alone but um to have these these you know Master Artisans that were willing to to give their time for this class to to share that process with me was just like the coolest thing and so that's that's one thing I'm passionate about in what I do yes I get to create and it fulfills me and I love what I do but I also love that I get to share it with others and I and I think that you have a similar path in that regard so can you talk about how you came to teaching and and sharing what you've learned with uh the world um so I would say that I started teaching when I was like 14 13 wow just friends well no we had a 4 group oh that's right yeah my mom started a 4 group because she uh she had been um what they used to call a home economist um back in the day in it was the 50s and she had learned about 4 and so when I think I got to be about 11 or 12 she decided that girl scouts wasn't doing it for us it was it just wasn't we weren't learning enough so she let's start a 4 Club so uh we started this 4 Age club and you know it was all ages welcome and the older kids you know as it grew would teach the younger kids and we met every week in the basement of a church it was this it was called the tasty basters so we did sewing and we did cooking I love that yeah it was cute and um so that's when I started teaching you know and sharing and sharing and now I love that I can teach um when I get the opportunity on the internet because my reach is going so far A little weird because you don't hear from people you know yeah um you don't have that face Toof face oh this is fantastic sure I'm I'm frustrated but um you know it's it's rewarding to me and it's helpful for the students and you never know when you're going to really put somebody on a path that's going to Excel and just change their life I mean I used to run creative Retreats at my house um and they were people would stay in b&bs and they'd come here for the day and I did it for I think 10 years and um finally it just got too much understandable and um but I mean I had one woman Judy Rudolph she came to a creative Retreat and a couple years later she called me up and she said I'm moving to your area because you changed my life because she found it so um interesting and so full of life and um she's become a you know a friend for years so the other cool thing is when you teach you meet all kinds of people and you never you're GNA meet your next friend you know it's um and it's just like the love of of doing things together and and making things and encouraging thing encouraging people is really nice oh I agree and there's just something really special about having a group of people that you can be creative with you know being able to enjoy that process and I think that's why 4 is such a powerful program for uh for kids early on um and you know to I've talked to a lot of people and you see how influential that was for so many creatives in their lives and to be able to have that opportunity and so I think it's important you know as we do have these teaching opportunities that are online to still facilitate some of those those inperson opportunities to to find people who you have things in common with because I think for kids especially um I can remember feeling as this really creative child like I didn't necessarily have a place I wasn't super into sports I wasn't you know I didn't necessarily fit those boxes and luckily I was surrounded by creative women in my life but I didn't have a lot of creative friends and so I you know maybe if I had had 4 AG maybe that would have been right you know a an earlier step to some self-acceptance in who I was as a person because I think it can be difficult to feel like you know you're the sort of free spirit that doesn't fit that usual mold and wanting to be creative and play and try new things and and not be afraid of you know failing and just pulling out all the yarn you know so to speak on that creative process is is really healthy and beautiful and I hope that we can continue to find a way to have creative Retreats if you ever decide to do those again I want to come I want to see your beautiful home and farm but um the worst part had to clean it all and right yeah we have like we have gosh six dogs and eight cats and you know chickens and sheep and and manure and straw coming into our house every day it just is like oh foret yeah but that's part of the authenticity of it I mean right like I I feel like for me I would just be so honored to be immersed in that life for a few days so I I think that's really cool so Welling invitation if you want to bring your in and um he can look at the Sheep Mark will give him a tour and and uh we can play with color oh I would love that I would love that so much well is there anything else that you would just share to people who are maybe on a similar path or you know curious about diving into uh pursuing their creative passions maybe for a career or or or not just to continue to cultivate it what would you say for a word of encouragement to them just try it you know the Nike slogan just do it I mean there will be I mean I have had so many failures just so many failures but you can't get discouraged because through every failure you learned something and then you use that later and um you know I used to want to be a surface designer I thought oh I can design Fabric and I learned Adobe Illustrator and I learned all this stuff and then I put my stuff on spoonflower and and you know I've probably made $10 over a zillion years so but I learned it and I I sort of you know I realize that you're not going to be successful at everything but that might not be the point that might be you just notched up another thing that you can then use in another part of your life so exactly just one step along the path right yeah yeah yeah yeah and it always comes back you know it you'll like maybe you join a club you know a community club and they'll say does anybody know Photoshop and and you can offer that skill yeah absolutely yeah so I guess that's what I'll say I love that so we didn't dive into you have incredible books that you've written so let's talk a little bit about some of the books that you've published and and just share part of that with us okay so um let's see well I stacked them up there awesome so yeah I think I I've done 12 different books some of have been translated into other languages um so I started with knitting books and um then um did a few embroidery books uh I did a book called 50 sunflowers to nit crochet and felt which oh cool yeah it's out of print but you can get it on Amazon and that one was the one that got translated into most languages it's so funny you know you never know what goes around the world um and the most two recent books I did were um one was called crafting a colorful home and um crafting a pattern home and they were all they're about all different crafts and how make things for your home make a colorful home and the first one tells the story of how we found our home and how I decorated it and then um the second one is more about more pattern adding pattern and color and everything and both of them go into talking about how to use color in your home um so those are the last two I've done and I'm not really interested in doing any more I feel like i' I've said what I want to say yeah and um you know my last knitting book was called um what was it called color by Kristen and I called it my it's my magnum opus you know that was I I gave it to the knitting world the other thing is you know publishing is so difficult you guys know this um and it's just so hard to get your word out there's so many books published so now I do a newsletter um on my website that I send to people and I feel like that's a nice connection because um I tell people what's going on in the farm and what I'm doing creatively and then I give them information about what I'm finding in the internet world that I feel like they can learn something from sure and bring it to their work so that's my platform right now um and it it's not as much work and I can keep doing you know helping Mark and and doing this Stu other stuff on the farm because a book it's a lot of work two years yeah then it comes out and that's another year and it is so much work so I just like I just said okay forget it h i have to say Kristen I'm I'm incredibly inspired by your ability to to gauge where you're at and to Pivot along the way I I think that's a really admirable quality especially in the creative field and to just be able to say this has been a joy at at this point and now I I feel confident that I can move on and I think that in and of itself is a a great lesson to all of us to uh to be able to honor the things that we've done along the way but not hold them so tightly that it it limits where we can go next so I really appreciate all that you've shared there yeah the other thing is though it if I meet people like I go to a I don't know meeting oh you're the Knitter that's how I'm always that's how I'm known in the community as the Knitter and um it's hard for people to actually you they Peg you as something and they don't think you have anything past that so I find that a little bit frustrating you know unless understand that Splash but um yes I'm a Knitter but I also do other things so right don't limit yourself basically I I love that and it's a good reminder too that like we don't need to limit ourselves and we also don't need to view people as this onedimensional thing and so being able to to uh be excited when someone tries something new and and continue that in our own life as well so I I really appreciate that that thought so where could people find your newsletter if they want to hear from you and see what you're up to okay so my website is www. Christen Nicholas KR i s t i n n i c o l.com and if you go there a little thing will will pop up and you can sign up for my newsletter perfect it's not you know it's once a month sometimes once every two months depending sometimes it'll be twice a month but um I only try to send it when I feel like I have something relevant to share with people I love that and is there anywhere else that you uh share if people want to follow along with what you're up to uh yeah um on Instagram um and so I do photos there um I also have so that's Christen Nicholas and then our lamb website is len Glenn Farm on Instagram um it's lydeen Glenn farm and um I'm not really I don't check Facebook my pictures go on Facebook but I'm not big on Facebook so that's all right or you can email if you like what I do send me an email I love to you know get a pat on the back absolutely I love that so much well Kristen thank you so much for being here with me today and sharing your you know just a little bit of your background Your Love of color and and your creative journey I truly appreciate it oh thank you Misty thank you very much for asking me oh anytime well I will see you later have a wonderful day okay take care you too bye bye