Linda Shelhamer is one part New Age alchemist and one part country crafter with a fistful of sharp businesswoman thrown in.

Shelhamer grew up in Shepherd and Billings and was attracted to yarn, fabric and natural dyes from her early days. As part of the Shelhamer family, which founded United Tote, Shelhamer proved her business acumen as the CEO of the company after earning degrees in law and accounting.

While raising her two oldest kids and finishing her law school degree at the University of Montana, Shelhamer said she would often walk by a yarn shop in Missoula, longing to get inside the world of crafts but lacking the extra time.

"I'd walk by that spinning wheel and say 'When I get out of law school, I'm going to get one of those.' "

And she did. In 1983, Shelhamer and her husband, Billings artist Steve Haraden, bought a "farmette,'' a 10-acre place where they raised sheep for 10 years while Shelhamer worked at the family business.

A natural part of her attraction to fabric and yarn was Shelhamer's interest in dyeing. The Heights neighborhood where Shelhamer and Haraden now live is rife with plants, berries and bark and when it's not tax season, she gets to experiment with color.

A newly finished dye studio in their basement provides space for Shelhamer to simmer walnut bark or plum tree twigs, to draw out the rich colors she uses to dye her wool yarn. Shelhamer said when you're creating dye, anything is fair game. A friend even unknowingly planted a noxious weed, madder, in her yard to create a burnt orange color.

"I have my binges,'' Shelhamer said. "I'll walk around the neighborhood and see what the neighbors have cut down. Marigolds, if you get them right before a frost, make great colors. I'll ask the neighbors if I can cut down their plants when I hear a killing frost is coming.''

A sign in her studio reads, "May the wool of your sheep be long and warm.'' And when she's not doing anything else, Shelhamer spins wool into yarn for the socks and hats and shawls she knits. Her work is revered across North America, where Shelhamer often leads workshops at weaving and spinning conferences.

She is also an authority on the history of spinning and dyeing.

"Until about the 1800s, everybody used natural dyes. A lot of jeans are still dyed with indigo and the cochineal bug from South America is still used for red coloring. One of the first things they boycotted to the south in the Civil War was dye. That's why their uniforms were blue and gray because they could use their walnut trees for color.''

Shelhamer and Haraden began dyeing silk scarves several years ago, and Haraden is often seen sporting one of his artsy dyed silk ties around town. They use synthetic dyes to color the silk scarves.

"Silk is one of the easiest fabrics to dye because it takes the color so well,'' Shelhamer said.

One recent morning, the couple walked two students through the dyeing process. Three simple styles of creating color patterns were used. They include the hill and valley method, which involves squirting dye in shapes onto the fabric; the PVC resist, where you tie the fabric to the pipe with string and pour on dye; and resist with garbanzo beans, where you tie the beans to the fabric and pour on dye.

"I want students to play with color,'' Shelhamer said. "It's hard to make silk look ugly.''