I worked for many years in the computer field, building and repairing systems, installing networks, providing technical support, building web sites, and managing others who build them too. I left the workforce when maternity leave coincided with the big dot.com crash of 2001.

The job market was terrible, so I decided to dedicate myself as a Stay-At-Home-Mom. I found it very difficult to step from the 60-70-hour work weeks of the dot.com bubble to 24-hour a day mothering duties with nothing to show at the end of the day but eighteen dirty diapers. I started submitting knitwear designs in 2002 to provide the kind of project-oriented direction I had been used to previously.

In 2005 I enrolled in the Museum Studies certificate program at the University of Washington Extension Services. I never finished my anthropology degree, but I thought this program might, with my other work experience, allow me to volunteer or work at a museum, especially in a textile department. The program took me much farther than I imagined: Selbuvotter is a direct result of my certificate.

In 2011 I republished a classic volume, Norwegian Knitting Designs. This work was originally published in 1929 and remained in print until the author’s death in the 1970’s.