Knitting's Got Her Goat
Published Wednesday, April 23, 2008
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MSGT Leah Thomason shows off her latest hobby, and some of her favorite new furry friends. Watch »
View a pair of Leah Landwehr-Thomason’s angora mittens and you’ll also meet one of her goats.
“When I’m selling something, I like to say ‘This is from MaryAnn,’” Landwehr-Thomason said. “I like to keep it an animal thing.”
That animal thing is Landwehr-Thomason’s start-up fiber arts venture, Galary of Arts by Leah. With the help a few trusty goats, Landwehr-Thomason shears, spins and knits the sweaters, bags and mittens she sells at shops across the state.
Landwehr-Thomason’s knits are not her first foray into the arts world. A few years ago, the 20-year Air Force veteran began painting rocks she found near her home along Swan Lake. Before long, she started to see potential in items retrieved from the dump — a pair of skates and a small wooden sled, for example — and started painting them, too.
Landwehr-Thomason didn’t get into knitting until she bought four goats in November — a move that surprised even her. She said she’d planned to purchase sheep but after finding goats more managable, walked away with a different animal than expected.
“Usually I would build the barn first, get the fence ready and bring (the animal) home,” she said. “But for the first time in my life I did something spontaneous like that.”
Landwehr-Thomason keeps her goats — MaryAnn, among them — in a small barn on her property, also home to a couple of horses. Goat hair grows about an inch a month, she said, and a good shearing takes off about 40 pounds.
Photo by Jeff Hage
An unsheared goat poses for a photo.
“Like any animal, they’re much easier to work with if they trust you,” she said.
Landwehr-Thomason spins from an upstairs room in her home, a space filled with knitting supplies, past creations and current projects. She calls spinning therapeutic and says it becomes second-nature after a few lessons.
“It’s easy when you learn to do it — just like riding a bike,” she said. “Once you get there it’s not easy to forget.”
Many of the items Landwehr-Thomason crafts end up in the hands of family or friends. Others make their way to specialty stores in the Twin Cities or to the trade shows and demonstrations Landwehr-Thomason visits now and then.
One pair of mittens has made it as far as Colorado, where Landwehr-Thomason’s work will be judged for entry in the National Veterans Creative Arts Festival. Anyone treated in a Veterans Affairs medical facility is eligible to submit a piece of art for competitions at the state level, with top finishers competing nationally. Landwehr-Thomason’s mittens won Minnesota’s contest, and if all goes well at the national judging in Colorado, the spinner could be on her way to the Festival in California.
Yet Landwehr-Thomason says her work is less about recognition and making money than providing fulfillment for both herself and others.
“It’s just stunning that you can take something that you made and people want it,” she said. “I love the idea of knitting something for someone.”