So, who is this Fearless Leader Woman?

You know when I decided to make the CLF become more than a joke, I never really thought about talking about myself. I'm, believe it or not, kinda shy. Fine, go ahead and laugh, but really it's pretty easy to be brazen in a podcast or in writing, I don't have to see you face to face, or worry really about what you think, most of the time, because well, I'm hiding behind my laptop.

So, now that we're a year and a half old...I thought I might tell you a little about me, just like I did in the CLF book, and I only did that because my friends at home bothered me to do it.

GRIN....See I told you I'm not really all that "Fearless".

First off, I'm Laurie Wheeler and I live on Camano Island in Washington State. I have two fabulous kids, a great hubby, a dog, six cats, and sadly no more fish. But, come spring I'll get some more and we hope that there are no more odd accidents that take out my fish population.

I've crocheted since I was a small child, and almost 8 years ago I became a handspinner. I love to make things for myself, my kids, my friends, oh heck, I'd crochet for anyone anywhere!

I'm the superintendant for my local fair's Fleece and Handspinning Division, the Stanwood Camano Fair is a fabulous community fair, and I love our department. The people and projects are motivating from year to year. We transformed the once a year experience into a once a month meeting in Stanwood WA where we were are supposed to be spinning, but lately for some strange reason everyone is CROCHETING!!! LOL...

In fact, Martha, our Queen Bee (she just crowned me baby queen last year) has made 8 items out of the Crochet Liberation Front First Ever book, and she is a novice crocheter. All of the lads and lasses involved in our group are so very talented, and we all do more than spin and crochet, we also weave, card weave, twine, embroider, lucet, felt, needle felt, knit in a million ways, and enjoy demonstrating to the public.

This group of people inspired me in many ways to go forward with the CLF as something MORE.

Besides my family and fiberarts persuits, I've been all over the world. I went to university in England, worked in Africa and Europe, was married, worked and lived in Bahrain (in the Middle East), and done all kinds of bizarre and crazy things.

Right now besides the CLF, I'm currently working to save our local library on Camano Island. It is only a pilot project that ends in 2010. Due to the poor economic situation our country is facing our library board is reluctant to have a levy on the ballot. For which I don't blame them, but we still need the library to be permanent. So a very committed group of Camano Islanders have gotten together as a friends group to raise the necessary money to keep our library premises flourishing.

I am committed to this, because the Camano Island Library is my office. Like over half the population on Camano Island, I can't get anything other than dial up for internet service. The phone and cable companies will not bring those services to our areas claiming there is not a large enough popluation base. Many of us now use the library to meet our internet service needs.

I for one am so grateful that I have become a Patron of the Library, donated a copy of the First Ever Book, and will be donating more money in the future, because boy do I get a bang for my buck!

So, fellow CLFers, if you didn't really know who I was before, now you get a picture of who I am. A little wacky, a little crazy, adventurous, and well a fiber geek, but hey it's all good. I'm not so sure I'm fearless though, I think I just do things even when I'm terrified.