About

Hi, I’m Sarah! A maker, student, and small business owner based out of Idaho, USA. I am so happy you’re here! My goal with PRC is to provide high quality and affordable fiber supplies to creatives. I want to fuel people’s creative fires and get them excited to make beautiful fiber art!

I started Pine Rose and Co (PRC for short) when I was 16 back in 2017. My family and I raise angora goats for their mohair fiber and a town near us began renaissance faire where we vended our fiber products. I have always enjoyed making and selling things, so my mom asked me if I’d like to make anything for the faire. So, I decided to make flower crowns! I made so many and I didn’t sell nearly enough of them. This led me to opening an etsy shop and listing them there where I also made my polymer clay accessories and jewelry available.

At 17 years old I was pitching to boutiques across the US to carry my handmade clay jewelry. I built a website and slowly started leaving etsy. I was making jewelry as my job and to start filling up my college fund. Fast forward to Christmas and I got a tapestry loom from my parents which totally changed the game. Growing up on a fiber farm and attending fiber festivals my whole life had resulted in me having a huge fiber and yarn stash, perfect for tapestry weaving. I started making more tapestries than I could keep, so I started selling them alongside my jewelry.

It’s now spring of 2019 and I start college in the fall, I had some business decisions to make. I decided to keep supplying boutiques with my jewelry, slow down my tapestry making, and add fiber supplies to my shop. This was a big turning point, turns out a lot of makers liked the fiber I used!

A couple of months later and we are nearing fall when I received an email inviting me on a fully expense paid trip to New York city to learn about running a small business by Nest and Hermes. I was 1 of 16 chosen out of over 600 in the USA, I was 18 years old. I didn’t think it was real!! But it was and during my third week of college I was on a solo trip to NYC! I had never flown by myself, I was still getting the hang of college, and here I was in the heart of Manhattan hailing cabs and overlooking the empire state building with other artisans learning about business. I was so young and finally felt that what I was doing was real and had value. That’s when I knew this is what I wanted to do, I was working my dream job. It was an incredible and educational experience that I’ll never forget.

While trying to juggle my business and college classes I found that I couldn’t keep up with both the jewelry and the fiber, again decisions had to be made (looking back I really should have hired some help, oops). I stopped taking on jewelry orders much to the boutiques’ dismay and started channeling my energy into the fiber side of my business. I found what I loved and what I wanted to offer in my shop. I made connections with suppliers and different rural women’s’ co-ops which gave me such a sense of purpose, knowing my shop was helping other women across the globe.

I would go home on the weekends to pack orders and bring fiber back to my dorm on campus to make yarn packs in the evenings. I was learning how to handle business and college while being away from my shop when the pandemic hit. I went home for spring break not knowing that I wouldn’t be back on campus with classes for two years. Turns out when everyone across the world is stuck at home and need something to do, fiber arts were a popular choice!

I began indie dyeing yarn that summer (2020) and my business grew even more. My university required online classes to be an option with the pandemic, which in turn allowed me to stay home and continue to dye yarn.

The next year (2021) was a blur, we thought 2020 was bad. But this year was the worst for our family in every way, I won’t go into details, but it was pretty horrible. Come august and my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. Come September me and my sister were off to England for a semester abroad. I had been planning for this study abroad since before the pandemic, and everything was working out for it to finally happen. My sister and I wanted to stay home (although we would have had to live on campus for our classes now) to help our mom, but she wouldn’t let us…so off to England we went!

My mom was going to pack orders as they came while I was away but with her cancer everything changed. I didn’t want my shop to be a burden and have all my inventory taking up space. So, I ran a bunch of sales and my clients all rallied together and basically cleared me out! It was a whirlwind, and I was so blessed to be able to afford my next two semesters of college and have everything set. I was rather burnt out by the time I left so I decided to keep my shop closed until summer 2022.

England was amazing and I would love to move there someday for a time! Came home for Christmas and mom was doing better but absolutely wiped from the cancer and all the treatments. Then off to college for my spring term, which was not that fun in comparison to England, but I got through it haha. Over spring break, I found out about summer study abroads and ended up attending a five week one in Viterbo, Italy!! What a crazy couple of weeks, I learned so much. This resulted in PRC’s reopening being pushed back a bit, but I think it was worth it!

Now we are here in the timeline, summer 2022. PRC is being reopened and having written this about section it gave me the opportunity to reflect on PRC’s past. Wow, so much has changed and happened. PRC has grown so much, I have grown so much. It has taken an incredible amount of hard work, drive, family support, and resilience to make it this far. I am so incredibly thankful for the doors it has opened, the opportunities I have been given, and the connections I have made.

Thank you for supporting my small business, I hope you know you are helping to make dreams come true!

Sarah xx