Common Threads Fiber Arts and More
with Shawn, Jeanette & Elena

Shawn Hoefer, Jeanette Larson and Elena Augustine have been working together for more than eight years as Common Threads Fiber Arts and More. It's a synergistic studio with Jeanette weaving, crocheting and spinning, Elena dyeing, spinning, crocheting and knitting, and Shawn spinning and crafting fiber arts tools and more out of wood.

How it came together is quite the story. Jeanette's grandmother taught her to crochet when she was eight. Her aunt taught her to weave when she was twelve. These crafts she set aside for many years as she explored other fields including dairy management, horse training and racing, costume design, dance, performing and vending at Renaissance Festivals, and journalism.

Shawn had taken a different track by studying fine arts including watercolors, pastels, acrylics, calligraphy and some woodworking before deciding the life of a starving artist was not for him and switching to computers. He attended several years of college learning computer languages. When he found out that he'd have to stay in school forever to keep up, he switched again and combined what he knew at that point to become a graphic designer and webmaster.

As a graphic designer Shawn met Jeanette when they worked at the same newspaper - she as managing editor and he as production manager. They discovered that they both had a passion for living simply and buying a farm together seemed only natural - as did raising goats. Goats led to guardian llamas. Guardian llamas, though, produced fiber...

Shawn likes to say that he learned to spin accidentally, while covering the Wool Festival at Taos for the newspaper. The spinning lesson stuck and he left the show with several drop spindles and about a pound of fiber. Jeanette thought it was cute and offered to crochet up the yarns that he spun but she didn't want to spin... at least not until she found out that she could crochet faster then he could spin and she had to learn to spin, too. When Jeanette started spinning yarn, she realized that her yarns would also be fun to weave.

Elena, meanwhile, watched Shawn spin and Jeanette return to weaving with more than a little amusement. After graduating from high school at sixteen and college at eighteen, though, she realized that what she wanted to do was be a shepherd and fiber artist and as the other children moved away to pursue other careers, she stayed and learned to spin and weave and knit and dye.

After three years of spinning and weaving and crocheting and dyeing, Jeanette found a new loom she wanted to try and convinced Shawn to build her one. and one for her friend and maybe a carved weaving hook which looked like a crochet hook and if he could carve crochet hooks he could try knitting needles and maybe turn a drop spindle and it grew from there.

Today, Shawn stays in his woodworking studio where he turns drop-spindles, nostepindes and crochet hooks and carves knitting needles and builds TriLooms. Jeanette's studio is just upstairs and she's often found weaving and spinning. Lena's studio is at home, near the sheep and goats and rabbits that are her charges, and it is there that she spins and dyes.

Eclectic? Perhaps. Fun? Certainly. Boring? Never! Visit us at www.laffing-horse.com

DIRECTIONS: Common Threads Fiber Arts and More is located in Meadowcreek Valley about four miles west of Fox, Arkansas. To get there travel to Fox (we like taking highway 66 to highway 263 on the other side of Timbo, but that road is a bit steep and has a few sharp turns. Highway 9 will also take you to highway 263 and itŐs only 1/2 mile longer). Once in Fox, turn onto Red River Road between the old Post Office and the new Post Office and follow the road, keeping left all the time, about four miles to our studios. The entrance is marked by a large, triangular, raised stone flower bed and signpost. We look forward to seeing you!