The world of fiber arts encompasses so many different talents, skills and information to learn.  There is always something new  to be learned or discovered!  Walnut Farm Designs started as a way to support my fiber arts hobby and has been a serendipitous combining of my agricultural heritage, skills and interests, while giving me a way that I can share the joy of fiber arts with others.

I worked for years with a special group of people and amazingly talented boss, at a farm and garden center across the road from the 11 generation dairy farm that I grew up on, selling seeds and flowers and it instilled in me a love of flowers and growing things…..along with the fact that I don’t like to have to go to the grocery store often, so I want to grow as much as I can!  So, when I got into fiber arts, I definitely wanted to grow and experiment with every natural dye plant that I can!  I have always felt that I do not understand something fully by just reading about it, and do not fully understand until I have done it myself.  So, what you see here, is a wonderful learning experience as I explore the parts of fiber arts that most interest me, and if anything here can help promote your interests and learning, then I am thrilled.

So in addition to growing natural dye plants I have been exploring natural dyes and fibers that cannot be grown myself because they are grown and sourced from all over the world.  The world is such an amazing place, full of the most amazing things to discover and learn from.  As much as I love wool and could go on and on extolling the virtues of different wool breeds, it is not always winter and cold!  The hot, humid summers really get to me more and more as I am working around our little farmette, and I have grown more and more interested in flax, hemp, cotton, ramie and other plant fibers to spin, knit or crochet very cool, lightweight tops for when the humidity and heat is at its worst and I am sweating more than I’d like to be!

So, you will see that I sell seed for growing and processing your own flax.  Growing and processing my own flax allowed me to really get to know flax.  Flax by itself is perfect for weaving, but I don’t weave, so I have been very interested in blending flax with other fibers to give more softness or silky-ness to my handspun yarns for next-to-skin summer tops.  I have had several undyed and dyed plant fiber blends blended for me, as I explore what makes a handspun yarn blend that I enjoy spinning, working up and wearing.

Currently I sell on Etsy, with only a small selection of things available on Amazon, so everything that I offer for sale online will be in my Etsy shop.  We are working towards a small retail shop on our farmette, but the process of meeting zoning requirements is proving to be quite a long, time-consuming process, and we are dependent and hamstrung by the slow speed of that process.

I am working towards and hoping to provide more educational information on this site that I have gleaned over the past few years, as a resource for myself and anyone else.  My goal is to keep it pretty succinct and straightforward so the main information is there and can be taken in quickly to get you on your way.