 Shirley Browsky
Shirley Browsky is a Shepherd, Master Spinner, weaver, and dyer who
creates her fashions literally from the ground up. Using the fibres from
her sheep as well as silks, mohairs, novelty yarns, and, with her sound
knowledge of yarns, colours, design and weave structures, she creates
specialty handwoven skirt, jacket and coat fabrics. Her work has been
exhibited in Ottawa, Kingston, Guelph, Toronto, Philadelphia and Washington,
D.C. Her one-of-a-kind garments have been sold to clients in San Francisco,
New York, Memphis, Atlanta, Japan, Germany and across Canada.
See: www.canaanmohair.ca. |
 Marianne Heggtveit
Marianne (Mandy) Heggtveit has been weaving for over 30 years and specializes
in creating functional fashion items, home accessories and custom yardage for
apparel and interiors. Although some pieces are woven in small series of up
to six, every individual item is unique and is never reproduced.
In collaboration with Dini Moes, Heggtveit co-authored in 1993 No Common Tread,
a handweaving sample book that sold around the world from North and South
America to Japan and Australia and has since become a collector’s item. |
 Ann McElroy
Ann McElroy is a felt maker and felt teacher. Using ancient and modern
techniques, she creates the fibre and the form at the same time. She uses
wool and silk to craft one-of-a-kind vessels and hats. Her vessels are
often embellished with cut work and beads. Ann also uses nuno-felting and
Japanese-dye techniques to make unique scarves and wraps for indoor and
outdoor use. She also uses needle felting -- the newest felting technique
-- to create flower and animals pins and felt balls for our feline friends.
The very popular felted soap will also be available again this year. |
 Mary Morrison
Mary specializes in textiles for the home. Whether it is table linens,
cushions or a wall decoration, Mary uses colour to create an attractive
palette to add something special to every object. “Even tea towels need
not be dull and uninteresting. It is a pleasure to be surrounded by colours
that help to lift your spirits.” she says. |
 Laurie Harkin-Chiasson
Laurie has been weaving for over 10 years and has won several awards for her weaving. She also has over 25 years of experience as a Basket weaver. Laurie continues to add skills and techniques to her weaving repertoire with kumihimo (Japanese braiding), pine needle basketry, tatting, miniature weaving, felting, spinning, paper making, hand Bookbinding and historical weaving techniques/re-creations. |
 Judith Rygiel
Judith Rygiel creates hand-painted and hand-woven silk scarves and stoles.
She draws her inspiration from nature and from her research into 19th century
textiles. A master weaver, textile historian and dye specialist, Judith
hand-paints her warps to create complex colour arrangements. She has operated
a weaving studio for more than thirty-five years, and has written and taught
courses in weaving, spinning, dyeing and textile-history. Recently she
curated an exhibition of early 20th century Acadian wedding textiles. |
 Jan Scott
Jan has a BA in fine art and art history as well as 3 years of commercial art. She has a love of texture. She has a large collection of looms, and more recently she has added a couple of spinning wheels including a diminutive grate wheel! She has been teaching classes through the SCA and OVWSG on topics from silver point drawing to warp weighted looms, but she really enjoys the simplicity of the inkle band loom.(its also more portable than a viking loom!) |
 Rebecca Cairns
Rebecca Cairns has been a member of OVWSG since 1997. She enjoys spinning as well as other small fibre crafts such as naalbinding and knitting. Her interest in naalbinding grew from her contact with a historical recreation group. Her naalbinding skills are self-taught, with the help of online videos. In addition to the many artifacts she has produced with the naalbinding technique (mitts, hats, slippers, puppets, etc), her interest in the history of the craft has led to extensive research into its origins and its evolution and influence on related yarn crafts such as knitting and crocheting. Rebecca welcomes the opportunity to bring this now-obscure technique to a wider audience and “infect” them with her enthusiasm for naalbinding. |
 Elizabeth Watt
She is a master spinner and has even tot a dyslexic to knit! This shows both her patience and perseverance. She is a wealth of knowledge on topics of spinning, knitting and dyeing. She can also weave (check out her collection of non –slipping shoe laces!) Her class at distaff days 07 was vary lively as the group learned how to knit titbits. If you have always wanted to make that perfect yarn just right for that special project or you have an obsession with textural fibers maybe spinning is just the thing for you to try! Sign up quickly the classes are small to allow greater opportunity to learn. |
