Ogema woman turned passion for fiber into a business
BY ARRIELLE ECKHARDT
THE STAR NEWS
Jane Hansen of Ogema has had a lifetime relationship with textile fiber that started when she was a young girl being taught how to knit by her grandma. Since then, Hansen has never lost her appreciation for fiber and has now turned it into a business and lifestyle.
Before turning her love of fiber into a business, Hansen was an architect in Chicago. Hansen made the big move to Northern Wisconsin in 2000 with her husband Chris Wallner and the two of them purchased the 40 acres of land that is now known as Autumn Larch Farm.
When the couple first moved to their new home, there was about 6 acres of open land that Hansen wanted to try to utilize. To do so, she started a garden and a few years later she started raising chickens. Eventually Hansen realized that she wanted to raise an animal that produced more than food products and that is when she started raising feeder lambs in 2009.
“Sheep were a natural choice for me,” stated Hansen when talking about choosing to raise sheep. Given her lifetime love of fiber, raising sheep just made sense. Shortly after working with the feeder lambs, Hansen decided to buy a breeding stock of Coopworth Sheep in 2012 and started harvesting wool.
From there, Hansen started her business selling wool products that include yarn, roving, felt handbags, felting wool, knitted handbags, and much more. All of Hansen’s products are their natural color or dyed with only natural dyes. Hansen also sells non fiber products like soap, eggs, and vegetables.
Aside from running the farm and her business, Hansen is also a board member of the Three Rivers Fibershed that is an affiliate of the main Fibershed that was established in 2010 by Rebecca Burgess.
“The basic concept of it is local fiber, local labor, local dye,” Hansen stated when explaining what exactly Fibershed is. Their main purpose is to educate people about the importance of utilizing local materials in hopes of maintaining the ecosystem and community health.
Many people do not focus on where they are getting their daily products from or what those products are made of, and the members of the Fibershed community want nothing more than to help fix that problem and encourage people to use local and natural textiles.
Hansen also promotes the use of fiber by opening up her property to the public for the Fiber Fun at the Farm event. This event takes place from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. every 3rd Thursday of the month. This event is a great opportunity for new and old fiber lovers to get together and continue to learn from one another.
Jane Hansen of Ogema has made her lifelong passion about fiber into a business of raising sheep and harvesting the wool.
Sheep graze on the field of Jane Hansen’s farm near Ogema.
