Karen: I grew up in Colorado. My grandparents were sugar beet farmers. That's where I grew up. I lived there until I got married, and then we moved to Wyoming. But in that time in Colorado, we lived at a little subdivision, but it was out in the country, and right behind us was a big old barn, and they raised sheep. That was my connection to sheep. My grandfather. Nobody had sheep, but they had wool. And it was like a baa, baa, black sheep. Have you any wool? And this farmer, I said, “Could I have some of that wool?”  I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I went to the library back then you had to go to the library, and I found a book on how to wash wool. Isn't that just crazy? So I did it. 

And my mother, she's passed away since then, but she could not believe what I was doing. I was taking this dirty wool, and I had big, big buckets, and I was washing it and laying it all over the grass. And so then I ended up with this beautiful white wool, and I put it in bags, because then I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know anything. I knew a little bit how to crochet, but I have, I think, an inborn love of fiber. So that was my first experience just washing wool. It sat in our garage for years and years, and then finally, I think, when I went to college in Fort Collins, I took a weaving class and I took a spinning class in the summer. So I was kind of a little hippie girl back in the 70s, and I learned how to spin wool on a spindle, and dug that wool out, and I was carding it and spinning it. And then I took the weaving class. I learned a little bit of all that. So I always had that desire for fiber. 

And then, you fast forward, and we moved to Wyoming. And the first thing, I mean, I fell in love with Wyoming because of its open space. And we started off in New Castle, and in New Castle we had children, and I still loved fiber, I couldn't help myself. I knew a little bit of some crafting things. But then I got really, really drawn into the Montessori natural toys and natural things for your children when I was a young mother, and so I was making dolls. I was using the wool to stuff dolls and things like that. So. I still had that desire. And then I saw, somehow, a spinning wheel on sale in Australia, and I ordered it. I don't even remember how, I don't even remember how I found out that this lady was selling a spinning wheel, and I contacted her and was able to send her money. I don't remember the details of that, but I got a spinning wheel, and then we moved to Buffalo. And the move to Buffalo really set the path towards the mill. 

Because I already had a spinning wheel. I ended up moving next to a neighbor who knew how to weave and spin, and so she taught me really how to spin. She helped me set up my first loom. So that kind of stuff. I just started loving that and started studying the history of the state of Wyoming and the whole Basque culture fascinated me. So when we moved to this area, we spent many a weekend just traveling around, being, embracing this part of the country and that wool history of this area was starting to, you know, kind of ferment in my heart, and I wanted to know more. And so I was very drawn to that, and I didn't know what that was going to lead to. But, I guess the fiber just kept drawing me. 

When my children—I have seven—when they all grew up and went off to school, I started to really think about, what am I going to do next? And so I was going to have a store, and I was going to have all those natural products and all that fun stuff. And then I had a good friend at that time, and we hauled a bale of wool to Canada. And then that started the journey. We got, we bought a bale of wool from a rancher here, and we put it in the back of my old station wagon, and we drove all the way to Canada. Up past Calgary, for crying out loud, had to go over the Canadian border. It took us, like, six hours, because nobody could quite figure out what was in that bale. Dirty wool. I mean, it was, it was interesting. I don't know now if we would even have gotten over the border, because we didn't have to have a passport or anything. 

But we fell in love with that little community, that fiber mill, and that just.. So we took that, we brought it back, and we want to have one of those here in Wyoming. So suddenly, it starts going full circle. And I feel like the mill was always in my heart. And I didn't even know it from way back when I was just a kid washing wool in my backyard. So, you know,  in all the stories that kind of continued with that, you know, the getting all that wool back after nine months. We got boxes of white yarn, and then it was like, “What are we gonna do with that?” So I had a neighbor who had a barn, and she had some sinks in that barn, so we dyed it in that barn. We dyed all the wool by ourselves, and then we sold it, you know, farmers markets and stuff like that. 

And the story just kept on going. It was like it was a snowball idea, and it just kind of kept rolling down that hill. And it got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and suddenly I'm doing something I never, ever intended, that I never thought. I thought more that I would be—which I still love—just the artisan doing these amazing things. But I'm too scattered. I can't stay focused on just one thing I like. I like to weave and knit and crochet and felt. I know how to do all of those. None of them well, none of them well. I don't do any of them well, but I know how to do it all, and I'm enjoying it all. But I'm never going to be the master at any of those things, because this is what I'm doing.

Nancy: Just one closing question. This has been wonderful. Thank you. First of all, okay, to learn about you and your story is amazing. First, how long has the mill been open?

Karen: The mill’s been open since 2007. So we are going on close, getting close to 20 years. Yeah, we're getting close. And, you know, the last 10 years have seen massive growth in it, and I think the next 10 years will be even more. So I am trying to step away from it more. And, you know, do those little things you want to do when you don't have near the energy that you used to. One more thing though, I want to say about Wyoming. So as a child, traveling through Wyoming to visit grandparents in Washington State, I loved the state. I couldn't wait, always, until we crossed that border, because then I could imagine, you know, you'd look out on those prairies, and there's not a, you know, there's a fence, but there's just, it's just wide open, and it just keeps going. And so Wyoming and wool were in my heart, and I didn't even know it.

Note: The transcript above has been condensed from its original audio recording to improve the flow and readability of the story.

All photos taken at Mountain Meadow Wool by Misty Brodiaea Springer.