Meet the Instructors
We are proud to offer weekend workshops from a diverse lineup of fiber educators, teaching on a wide range of fiber art topics.
Read a little more about our teachers below.
Anna Anderson, from Superior Montana, is the owner of Calico Farm Fiber Art and the Wooly Rescue. She enjoys sharing fiber art tips, techniques and inspiring creativity in the classes she loves to teach.
Casey Newman is a naturalist and a botanical print and natural dye artist who incorporates nature into her work in a variety of ways. With a masters degree in ecology and an interest in fiber arts that began in childhood, she loves that natural dyeing blends both science and art. She is known for explaining the “why” of natural dyeing in clear, easy-to-understand ways, while embracing the unexpected - the magic, if you will - that occurs when co-creating with nature. Casey’s botanical printing work is centered around northwest native plants and she is inspired by living and working at Cedar Dell Forest Farm on the outskirts of Gresham, OR. There she raises a small flock of Shetland sheep, grows a variety of dye plants, wanders the woods in search of treasures, and teaches classes for curious and creative people of all ages.
Diane McKinnon has been an avid hand weaver for longer than she cares to admit. As a happy accident of the punch card based enrollment process, she studied weaving during college. McKinnon did additional textile, color, and weaving studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Attending fiber conference classes, working for two years in a weaving shop, doing production weaving, and teaching have increased her skills and knowledge over the years. She teaches regularly at regional fiber events such as The Black Sheep Gathering and the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival. She also holds regular fiber classes in the Thistle Patch Fiber Studio at her home just outside of Forest Grove, Oregon. McKinnon specializes in color and texture in her weaving. She often mixes many types of yarns and multiple colors, making each item unique. As the ‘keeper’ of over 50 looms, she is able to keep many different projects such as rag rugs, shawls, scarves, placemats, and dish towels, to name a few, going at once. Boredom is never a possibility. She loves the rhythm and structure that loom weaving offers. Within those seemingly restrictive confines, the endless possibilities of creating art seem to grow for her. McKinnon is also an accomplished hand spinner and she often uses her handspun yarns in her woven wearable creations.
Elise Webb began by working in a lovely local yarn shop where customers would come in and ask if anyone knew how to fix old precious sweaters. I said "yes" and more and more sweaters appeared. Soon enough I had more mending projects than I had time for, so I quit at the yarn store to mend full time! She and her husband have been working out of their home in Beaverton Oregon for over 4 years.
Ened McNet I am a veterinarian living and working in Oregon with a particular passion for small ruminant production and medicine. I love working with fiber animals and their owners to find solutions suited to their particular circumstance. I am also a shepherd with my own small flock of Clun Forest Sheep. I love weaving, watching sheep, walk-a-bout and spending as much time as possible with my spouse and brilliant toddler.
Hazel Spencer is owner, with her husband Randy, of Hazel Rose Looms, and has been making small weaving looms since 2000. She taught art, including weaving & other fiber arts, to all grades at the local K-8 school for 17 years. She has been teaching weaving on the internet and at her booth & at fiber fairs for many years. Making clothing & other useful items for the home is her favorite use of her hand woven fabric.
Janet Heppler has been a fiber artist for over 45 years. She is a weaver, spinner and dyer. Her business Nebo-Rock Textiles included her ranch where she raised award winning natural colored Merino sheep and Angora goats. She sold wool products and dyed her own yarn with both commercial acid dyes and natural plant and mushroom dyes. Down sizing, selling the ranch and eventually moving from Mendocino Co. CA to Woodland , WA 8 years ago, Janet became very interested in using and collecting mushrooms for dyeing yarn. Joining SW Mycological society, Oregon Mycological Society and NAMA furthered her knowledge of Mushroom ID. She has taught dye classes for the OMS, SOMA camp and various fiber groups in the Portland area. Being out in the woods collecting dye mushrooms and learning more about Fungi and sharing that knowledge is her big passion.
Judy Taylor has been hooking rugs and teaching the craft of rug hooking for three decades. She has written a series of rug hooking books and magazines (www.littlehouserugs.com), and has written articles for Rug Hooking Magazine, Black Sheep Newsletter, and SpinOff magazine. Anyone can hook an heirloom-quality rug with a simple tool and ordinary materials (yarn, T-shirt strips, wool strips, cotton strips, etc). In this class, students will learn the basics to get started in this versatile craft.
Kandi Dodrill is a farm educator and owns a 5 acre fiber farm with her husband, Mark, in South King County. They have a motley crew of fiber growing animals filled with personality on their farm. Since she is a farm educator, she gets to share different skills that she has learned over the years from crafting to soap making, fiber arts, cooking, gardening, and embroidery. She has been a Girl Scout, Boy Scout, and 4-H leader. Kandi loves teaching people to enjoy the process of art and crafts. Her current favorite craft is using fiber from her farm to make beautiful art.
Michele Lee Bernstein, PDXKnitterati, designs and teaches from her home base in Portland, Oregon. She loves designing accessories, especially if they use one or two skeins of very special yarn. She’s fond of texture (brioche, lace, entrelac, elongated stitches, assigned pooling), and loves using interesting techniques to make accessories sing. Her patterns are available through Ravelry and Payhip. Michele loves teaching knitters to be the boss of their knitting! She teaches at fiber festivals (Vogue Knitting Live, Red Alder Fiber Arts Festival, Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival), guild meetings, retreats, and local yarn shops. Her book, Brioche Knit Love: 21 Skill Building Projects from Simple to Sublime combines her love for teaching and designing, using simple accessories to take knitters from the easiest one color brioche through more complex brioche techniques. Michele blogs about knitting, food, and music at PDXKnitterati.com. You can also find her on Instagram, Facebook, Ravelry, YouTube, Threads, and Bluesky; she’s PDXKnitterati on all platforms.
Rio Wrenn is an environmental artist that has been working with the earth to garner colors and pigments as well as found objects to create abstract works in sculpture and textiles. For over 20 years she has created, exhibited, and performed locally and nationally. By 2013 she began teaching her processes and techniques to adults and children across the nation. In 2023, she published an inspirational memoir, 'Spirituality of Rust - A Sacred Language of Iron Though Art'. Always learning and exploring new ways to manifest with this earth is her passion. Connecting with community and sharing is her mission.
Rose Covert uses natural materials to weave sculptural forms. Using reimagined basketry techniques, Rose creates woven landscapes that twist and travel around themselves. Her work is evocative of the natural world they are created from. They hold an element of dance and movement in their shapes and pull the viewer in with their dynamic tensions. Rose grew up in Colorado but has been living in the Pacific Northwest for most of her adult life. She is a longtime Portland resident who has fallen in love with the rich plant life that grows here. Rose works entirely with plants that grow within a 60 mile radius of Portland, some of her work is comprised of plants she grows herself and the rest are from plants she either tends or harvests from on a regular basis. She finds inspiration in the natural world, the exquisiteness of elemental forms and landscapes, as well as the habitats the plants grow in. Her work is a continuation of the beauty of the natural world; her work allows us to bring the allure of nature into our homes. Rose’s process begins with planting or harvesting the plants her sculptures are made from and ends in exploration and design as she weaves the forms. Rose has been a member and board member of the Columbia Basin Basketry Guild since 2014. She has learned and continues to learn a wide range of weaving techniques and practices through her participation with the Guild. She is also a weaving instructor and teaches youth and adults through her involvement with a variety of organizations. Rose has been an attending artist at Frogwood, an artist collaborative event, located in Oregon and has been on the board of Frogwood since 2020. She recently was awarded a RACC Arts3C grant for her large scale woven den which was part of Terra Incognita, a land based art event. This has propelled Rose into the realm of large scale, experiential woven forms and public art.
Sarah Starr lives in Salem, Oregon. Exploring various art forms has been a lifelong passion of her – quilt design, rock tumbling, gemstone jewelry,photography…. At the start of COVID, she began experimenting with felting techniques. She’s been accepted as a vendor for several juried markets and art shows since then, including the Westminster Fine Arts Festival and, of course, Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. She makes a variety of 3D creations, from needle-felted wizards and dragons to airy, translucent bowls of stiffened fibers, and she needle-felts “paintings” of wool and silk. All of her designs are originals, many based on her own photographs. She also raises hypoallergenic kittens and two teenagers, neither of whom are hypoallergenic. Her family is mostly resigned to the random bins and bits of wool around the house.
Shelia January has been a knitter since she was eight years old and growing up on a farm in Oregon, following on the heels of learning embroidery and crochet a couple of years before. Knitting saved her sanity while attending college, while working for 28 years in the financial services industry, and finally while preparing to retire to her own farm in Oregon, where she lived with yaks, sheep, cattle, chickens, cat and husband. She became a spinner 18 years ago, has studied extensively in the US and Canada, and now collects spinning wheels as well as yarn. She knits and designs with her handspun yarn as well as with commercial yarn, and has taught spinning, dyeing and knitting at retreats, shops, conferences and fiber festivals worldwide. Her writing and patterns have been published in The Knitter’s Book of Yarn, Fiber Gathering, The Knitter’s Book of Wool, Spin-Off and Ply Magazine.
Tammy Jordan is a fourth-generation fiber artist who enjoys sharing her passion with everyone she meets. She has a fiber-arts business, Goldieknots Montana, specializing in Montana-grown wool, yarn, spinning fiber, and Made in Montana gift items. Prior to moving to Montana, she lived in Southern California and the Pocono Mountains where she was a former Humane Education specialist for the SPCA. Her teaching style is fun, creative, and interactive. When she’s not on the road teaching or in her studio creating, spinning, knitting, or felting, you can find her spending time with her dogs, sheep, horse, and other barnyard critters.
Tammy Vaughn is a national leader in all things Giant Angora, passionately dedicated to these magnificent rabbits and their extraordinary fiber, as breeder, fiber artist, and lifelong apprentice to the craft of spinning their luxurious wool. Tammy’s expertise spans the entire journey—from breeding and grooming to harvesting, spinning, and creating wearable works of art. Her dedication has not only elevated the quality of Giant Angoras but also expanded their visibility within the rabbit and fiber communities. One of Tammy’s proudest accomplishments is developing the Chestnut Giant Angora, now an officially recognized color by the American Rabbit Breeders Association (ARBA). Historically, Giant Angoras were only showable in white, limiting their appeal to breeders and fiber artists seeking natural color variety. Tammy’s groundbreaking efforts have opened the door to a spectrum of vibrant new colors, making Giant Angoras more accessible and exciting for enthusiasts around the world. This ripple effect has inspired a growing community of breeders and artists committed to raising and showcasing them. Tammy’s passion for education and mentorship shines through her work. She loves sharing her extensive knowledge about raising, showing, and utilizing Giant Angora wool. Her journey—from feeling overwhelmed at her first shows to becoming a confident, award-winning breeder and fiber artist—fuels her desire to inspire others. Whether spinning yarn, designing fiber art, or helping new breeders navigate the world of rabbits, Tammy brings her contagious enthusiasm and wealth of experience to every interaction. Join her in discovering the beauty and versatility of Giant Angora wool—one spin of the wheel at a time!
Teresa Waldo combines her passion for teaching with her passion for crafting. She has taught elementary and special education for 30+ years and adult crafting classes for 15+ years. Teresa has been knitting for 50 years, spinning for 20 years, weaving for 5 years, and crocheting for 5 years. Teresa loves sharing her excitement for anything fiber related with others and has a keen ability to break a skill down into manageable steps. She makes sure all her students are successful and that they leave with a new skill. Teresa has taught knitting, crocheting, weaving, and spinning classes in shops around the Pacific Northwest and at regional conferences and festivals in Oregon and Washington. She also writes and publishes patterns. She resides in Auburn WA, but can most likely be found teaching at A Little Knitty in Milton, WA.
Tricia Wattenburger I am a self-taught knitter (and you-tube taught), a wife, and mother of three. I firmly believe that it's okay to make mistakes in our knitting, but it's important to learn how to fix them. I love teaching people new skills, and seeing the magic of knitting through others' eyes.
Wendy Emo* was immediately intrigued with the variety of fibers available to spinners when she started spinning in 1982; her first sweater from handspun included wool, camel, and dog fibers. Wendy organizes and often leads the Spinners’ Study Group (Clatsop Spinners and Weavers Guild), exhibits at Bold Art Gallery (Long Beach, WA), helps out during fleece judging at fiber festivals, teaches spinning workshops, and once upon a time raised Rambouillet sheep. *Ph.D., teacher education, University of York, England.