Karen Bovard-Sayre is the sole proprietor of NeedleLaceArts–she is the CEO, CFO, CIO, Head of Marketing, Design, Production, Order Fulfillment, etc.

Karen is also the sole proprietor and known as The ShuttleSmith, the tatting-related business that encompasses her tatting design, teaching, and publishing body of works. She published her ‘Fun with Split Ring Tatting’ series of books under her previous name of Karen Bovard.

Karen grew up as a farmer’s daughter in rural Nebraska. She can’t remember a time when she didn’t either have a needle or some type of fiber in her hands. She grew up sewing, embroidering, knitting, crocheting, doing macrame. It wasn’t until she was in her teens that her maternal grandmother taught her to tat. Tatting took her through her college years as it was very portable and inexpensive to do. It wasn’t until she was married and a working girl that she started learning needle-made lace techniques and it seemed as if she had come full-circle in her fiber art journey.

It needs to be disclosed that there are certain fiber arts that Karen has not/will not indulge in: Bobbin Lace, Quilting, Beading, Spinning, Weaving to name a few. Keep in mind that these are all art forms that Karen would LOVE to do. But these techniques require a large amount of time & materials to do properly. Instead, Karen has decided to devote her time to the perpetuation of Tatting and the four needlelaces of Romanian Point Lace, Teneriffe/Sol Lace, Filet Lace, & Carrickmacross Lace.

Karen lived most of her life in Nebraska–growing up in northeast Nebraska a ‘farmer’s daughter’; living, raising her family & working her adult life in Omaha, Nebraska as an Electron Microscopy Technologist. She is now ‘retired’ from her profession and is living in Grand Junction, CO to explore her ‘other’ passions of travel & motorcycling.