Snow

This Is Me: Catrin Schwab

‘Heart-Core’ snowboarder (as Anne-Flore Marxer would put it), rockt. beanie manufacturer and mum Catrin Schwab shares her passion for the white gold

Interview by Anna Langer, photo by Daniel Roos

I’ve always been in the mountains. My mum was a ski racer and my dad an extreme alpinist. I think I picked the right parents…

As soon as I was able to walk and talk, I wanted to learn how to ski. And did it too. When I was 13, I also tried snowboarding – but threw the board right back into the corner, as it didn’t work right away. A couple of years later my sister’s boyfriend, one of the first snowboarders in Austria, took me out again and I got the hang of it immediately.

From that day I was hooked and have been since.I can’t think of anything better than drawing your line on a wide open field of fresh powder. Swimming with dolphins maybe… When I started snowboarding it was still pretty easy to find untouched mountains as dreeriding was not yet that popular. This was my kingdom, my freedom. And it still is, as there’s always a little patch of untouched somewhere – if I have an hour to go up between being a mum and crocheting beanies. Pure joy. I’ll hike up my hill, sit down, face the sun and the whole world is good. Followed by a fun run in the sparkly white is pure bliss.

When I started snowboarding it was still pretty easy to find untouched mountains as dreeriding was not yet that popular. This was my kingdom, my freedom.

One day my friend Karo showed me how to crochet at a beach and not much later, back in the mountains, my friend Resi showed me the way she does it.I’ve always wanted to know how to do that and should have learnt so in school as an Austrian girl. But I was vehemently fighting for equal rights back then and rejected handicraft classes with the other girls but went to the boys’ woodworks classes instead. But I figure that life teaches you what you need and so crocheting came back to me too and I love it. It’s like meditating and I think about how every beanie spreads some more colour among the people! I’m just sitting there, fully immersed in myself and my kids enjoy just having me sit and be happy for a while…

I met Klenny and his partner Resi snowboarding in Hinterglemm, Austriajust when I started crocheting and they launched their label rockt. And since they liked my beanies, I started doing more for them to sell. I would never have thought that spreading joy among others could be that easy! The fact that people like the beanies makes the whole thing even more fulfilling for me. It closes the circle and I enjoy it.

If I had one wish, I’d wish for endless love and everything that entails. If I love and respect myself, I become conscious and if I am conscious, I can be aware of my body and feel what’s good for me. And being aware of that makes you become one with nature ….