It will be overseen by Gabi van Tassell (aka “Texas Gabi”), a well-known Lone Star state weaver, teacher, pattern designer, small business owner (Turtle Loom and Bluebonnet Crafters) and creator/inventor of pin looms of hexagon and pentagon weaving methods.

She was born and raised in Germany and surrounded by “very crafty family members” who practiced knitting, sewing, crocheting, embroidery, spinning, and weaving!

“It’s absolutely significant I had that background. I was blessed being surrounded by crafters and growing up with it. It’s not just that you learn a skill, but you see the value in it,” she says. “I grew up in homemade clothes and our home decoration was 98% homemade. My grandfather, mother, great aunt…I always thought ‘This is what I need, how can I make it?’”

To make something with your own hands, she adds, makes it even more special.

But that background didn’t mean she initially thought about pursuing crafting professionally. Van Tassell holds German college degrees in both Animal Science and International Business Management. Though she says she “didn’t feel in the right place.”

So she interviewed with France’s Phildar Yarn Company who were looking to start yarn stores near where she lived at the time in Germany. But without financial resources, it wasn’t possible. She still knitted and sold projects to pay for her studies.

Many years later, her then 13-year-old daughter asked her about running a craft business. So, van Tassell got her started on an Etsy business. It dovetailed with her own efforts.

Accompanying her daughter to a weaving lesson where she was working on a big floor loom, there was a Grandmother’s Flower Garden quilt, and van Tassell wondered if she could create the design, but with weaving. Not finding a loom she wanted, she created and patented her own pin looms. As for her design process, she calls it “pretty all over the place,” but finds inspiration on Pinterest pictures, especially in quilt designs that she can recreate in weaving.