Kate Painter holds a PhD in agricultural economics, but her farm-based business is driven more by her passion for fiber arts than her knowledge of economic theory. Kate is teaching her daughters to knit, carrying on a family tradition from her Scottish heritage.

Kate became enamored with life in the country when she was a teenager and her father used a layoff as an opportunity to follow his dream of becoming a farmer. “I thought it was a great adventure,” she remembers. “We had cattle, horses, and a hay and grain operation in eastern Washington. My biggest purchase as a 12-year old was a milk cow!” As an adult, Kate and her husband, Charles Knaack, purchased a small farm in Whitman County so Kate could have a sheep operation.

Both Kate and Charles worked at Washington State University, until they became parents. Then Kate’s career aspirations shifted. She explains, “When I had my two little girls, I thought if I could make a few hundred dollars a month, I would be able to stay home with my kids while they were little.” She continues, “I had all these sheep fleeces and thought I would start a little hobby business — a mail order company with a catalog.” That was in the mid-1990s and in her first year she had about $6000 in sales. Last year she had over $150,000 in revenue, mostly made up of small orders.

While Kate still sells the fleeces from her flock of sheep through her website, they now account for only a fraction of total sales. Paradise Fibers offers knitting and spinning supplies from all over the world, along with yarn, needles and fibers for spinning. Interested shoppers can also buy a wooden spinning wheel straight out of Rumplestilskin, or intriguing-sounding tools and accessories like whorls, swifts and niddy-noddies.

Kate attributes part of her success to the computer knowledge she gained working as an economist. “When websites came along it was natural for me to put my catalog online,” she explains. “I started putting pictures of my fleeces on the web, and realized that people love the feeling that they are looking at a farm, with pictures of the animals.” While it is time consuming, Kate does send samples of the fleeces through the mail so customers can touch them and see how they spin. However, she is amazed how many people are willing to make purchases just from looking at a scanned picture. She asserts, “You develop a reputation being on-line with mail order. It’s important that people know you are trustworthy.”

A web-based business works well for someone who needs the flexibility to look after animals. Kate briefly tried having a store, but found it wasn’t workable during lambing season when she needed to be home. Besides, all of her growth was coming from Internet sales. “I can’t believe how many new customers I get, six to ten a day, all from the Internet,” she remarks. “It’s a very specialized market. My biggest expense is advertising in magazines to let people know I am here. The Internet is amazing. The problem is you really have to be a jack-of-all-trades to do the marketing and the business end; I am always juggling.”

Kate’s basement is lined with tidy shelves of color-sorted fleeces and yarns. She has found it is not economically feasible to spin her own fleeces for sale as yarn, but she has found other ways to make creative products. Kate buys leftover fiber from large yarn production companies and mixes them with other fibers – mohair, yak down or silk – to create unusual, luxurious blends for hand spinners, which she calls “microblends.” Given their uniqueness, Kate’s microblends bring in the most money. Kate imports interesting fibers from across the globe for hand spinners, like leftover silk from sari production in India. “People have been going crazy over it,” she explains, “and there is enough margin I am able to wholesale it through stores.”

Kate occasionally hires someone to help with shipping, but most of the work she does herself. Her best friend developed and produces her hand-dyed wool line, called “Rhapsodies.” Eight ounce rounds of coiled fleece are dyed a harmonious assortment of colors with evocative names like Monet’s Garden, Harvest Sunset, and Winter Solstice. Kate leaves most of the farm work to her husband, who fortunately enjoys feeding animals, keeping up the fences, training border collies, and maintaining pastures.

While her sales are impressive, Paradise Fibers is not making Kate wealthy. “For years and years – and to some extent to this day – I feel like I subsidize my business by not making a living wage,” she says. ”Sometimes I get discouraged. But as I tell my kids, there is a lot more to life than having lots of money.” For Kate, the time that she has with her family and the experiences they share living on a farm and raising animals and their own food is well worth it. She comments, “I am pretty independent and I would rather buy my clothes at the Goodwill and drive an old car for the tradeoff of doing whatever I please. In this country it is pretty easy to live frugally if you are not picky, and I would rather have free time. I think it’s good for kids to grow up with less and realize that resources are limited.”

Paradise Fibers dedicates two percent of its profits to promoting fiber arts, particularly among Native artisans. Kate has sent yarn, fiber and household goods to Navajo weavers. She recently sent a spinning wheel to India and collected donations of over 200 pairs of knitting needles to send to Ecuadorian knitters. Kate also supports handcrafters from around the world, buying products like handcrafted knitting needles from Nepal that are carved from rosewood and bone in the shape of frogs, owls and elephants.

Kate notes that there has been a resurgence of interest in knitting and hopes that it will continue. Certainly Paradise Fiber’s website offers much encouragement to those who are considering exploring the textile arts. In addition to supplies, there are books and patterns for sale, knitting and spinning videos to rent, helpful hints, an online newsletter, a calendar of related events, and even a quarterly trivia contest. “It’s my hobby, and I just love anything to do with the traditions and old textiles,” says Kate with a smile. Walking in the pasture with her fuzzy flock of brown and white sheep close at hand, Kate seems content with the life she has woven out of her passions for farming and fiber arts.