Welcome, my name is Wheat Michaline Carr, and to cover the three most common question people seem to have:
No I was not born in field,
Yes, that is the name on the final birth certificate
Gender is Female.
Attitude is Native New York Metropolitan

For the past 20 something years, I have been sharing my life with a wonderful man usually referred to as “TheHenry” – neither of us remember the exact date we met but it was one of those moments – long story goes with that-neither alcohol or computers were involved-but gadgetry certainly played a part.

Within the Needle Arts Business, I am a wearer of several hats, all closely related – or at least universally bound by string, and as such I have been writing “on-line” for about 20 years or so about string things.

In other words, if it uses any form of string, handwoven or spun, felted, hooked, prodded, embroidered, quilted, and beads (a form of lumpy string don’t you know”) or braided. Strictly as a passion, I am particularly enraptured by Japanese (Kumihimo, TakaDai, etc) and PlySplit Braiding. I can Knit (but generally choose not to since so many are so much better at it than I want to be) and of course, a passionate love of Crochet for more than 50 years. Some might consider me something of a technogeek thanks to my background in telephony and communications (about 45 years) and computers (maybe 30) and more recently “the Internet and the World Wide Web” (approximately 25 years I can document)

• Hat number 1: Wandering Wolf Design, publisher of independent patterns
  which more or less speaks for itself, however we also do some distribution for Independent designers and book packaging.
• Hat number 2: Product Development – with a concentration on working with certain publishers and product manufacturers to develop projects and such to support the use of specific materials and tools. (FWIW, I only use ones I like – life is too short ot work with shoddy materials and tools)
• Hat number 3: Designing Author Development – working with emerging and established designing authors to either help them correct or better yet avoid the normal number of faux paxs comment to all
• Hat Number 4: Small Business Consultant - acting as an advisor to a select group of clients (usually no more than 25-30) who own “string related” retail businesses as something of a marketing and small business advisor. These are existing and “start up” planning stages and some exisiting, were clients since start up.
• Hat Number 5 and the oldest relates to integrated voice data systems particularly in Tele-Messaging, live operator services, and telephony which rather interestingly evolved into “the Internet and the web” so in 2007, we will be taking YARNandTHREAD.net beyond just an ISP for our group and expanding it unique perspective to Retailers and others in the Fiber Arts distribution channels.
• Hat Number 6 – For far too long I have been away from actively “designing” and sometime in 2007 will once again market some basic technique projects under our product line: Frantasy – a division of our Wholesale Company – Wandering Wolf Design.

Business is always business and having made most of the mistakes, I can often help others to avoid them

Over the coming year I hope to share more about each of these and of course our other ventures as part of this blog-a-venture.

The common goal is to create an atmosphere that protects and benefits each designer/author – I am really excited about the changes and emerging opportunities that today’s market challenges are creating.

The Blog-A-Venture Continues…

Wheat