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.
Terry Mattison is an award-winning spinner and weaver who claims dyeing is her first love! She has over 30 years as an industry professional, matching color for clients nationwide. She works with both synthetic and natural dyes creating her own unique weaving designs in her studio in Washington state.
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Tammy Jordan says - I'm a fourth-generation fiber artist who enjoys sharing my passion with everyone I meet. I’ve written for Ashford’s The Wheel magazine and taught at festivals throughout the US. My teaching style is fun, creative, and interactive. When not teaching, I'm writing for my local newspaper and caring for critters.
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Kristi Kistner raises fiber animals (Angora goats and sheep) in Southwest Oregon. She is a lifelong learner with a background in the sciences, enjoying all facets of animal husbandry and fiber processing. Kristi has received and continues to pursue expert training in FAMACHA and fecal testing. She is a spinner and crocheter, processing the wool and mohair from her animals from shearing to finished products.
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Margaret Stump has been weaving on pin looms for over 40 years. She is the author of three books: Pin Loom Weaving, Pin Loom Weaving To Go, and Adorable Beasts; 30 Pin Loom Woven Animals & 4 Playscapes. In addition to her books, she has published in national magazines including Handwoven, Easy Weaving with Little Looms and Yarn Australia.
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Una Walker has completed her Advanced Oxford Punch Needle training and has been teaching punch needle for the past 10 years. She has taught at Estes Park Wool Market, Toas Wool Festival, Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, Black Sheep Gathering, Fiber in the Forest, Stitches West and SoCal. She teaches with both patience and an attention to detail, that combined with her easy-going sense of humor results in a fun and rewarding experience for all. Una thrives on problem solving and she loves working with beginners.
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Teresa Waldo combines her passion for teaching with her passion for crafting. She is a retired elementary and special education teacher and has taught adult crafting classes for ten plus years. Teresa has been knitting since age five and has fallen down other fiber related rabbit holes (spinning, weaving, crocheting) in the last 20 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 leave with a new skill. Teresa has taught various knitting, spinning, little loom weaving, and crocheting classes in shops around the Pacific Northwest and at regional conferences. She resides in Auburn, Washington and is a member of NwRSA, Arachne Guild, Moonspinners’ Guild, Yarning for Community, and Covington Knitworms.
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Judy Taylor has been hooking rugs and teaching rug hooking for nigh onto thirty years. Her rug hooking book series has won the eLit Book Awards, Foreword INDIES and Chanticleer Book Awards. Rug hooking is one of the most versatile and useful ways to use leftover yarns from other projects! You can view her work at www.littlehouserugs.com.
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Diane McKinnon is an avid weaver and spinner who especially enjoys seeing her students discover their own potential as they have fun with fibers. Diane studied weaving during college. She did additional color, textile, and weaving studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. Attending conference classes, working in a weaving shop, and doing production weaving increased her skills and knowledge. She teaches at The Black Sheep Gathering, NwRSA Annual Conference, Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival, and holds regular fiber classes in the Thistle Patch Fiber Studio at her home. She was honored to be selected as an Invitational Artists for 2012 Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. Diane is an enthusiastic spinner as well and she uses her collection of looms to weave her special yarns into unique hand-woven items.
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Heidi Leugers has over twenty five years of needle felting experience. She has sold her wool creations through her zero-waste business, Reclaimed Wool, to specialty retailers across the USA since 1998, including The American Folk Art Museum in New York, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Timberline Lodge, New Seasons Market, and Chihuly Garden & Glass. She can also be found at OFFF in the vendor area, and online at www.reclaimedwool.com.
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Lisa Ellis is a freelance knitwear designer, owner of a wholesale pattern line and traveling knitting instructor in the Pacific Northwest. Lisa has two publications with Leisure Arts, is a contributing designer to more than a dozen other books and magazines and has written numerous articles on knitting techniques. Lisa's passion is taking knitters to the next level. Lisa is a native of Washington state, currently living in Gig Harbor.
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Sivia Harding has been producing beautiful knitting patterns since about 2002. She loves to play with shape, color, and texture and is known for her work with beads. She has been widely published in books and collections, including Jared Flood’s Wool People series, Clara Parkes’ The Knitter’s Book of Wool, The Knitter’s Book of Yarn and The Knitter’s Book of Socks, and on Ravelry as Sivia Harding Knit Design.
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Anna Anderson is from the Northwest part of Montana. She lives with her husband on a hobby farm where several rescued fiber animals reside. Besides the rescue group,she raises Pygora and Angora goats.
Anna has been involved in the fiber art community since 2006 and has taught classes since 2010. She enjoys sharing her skills and passion for fiber arts in the fun and unique classes that she offers.
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Michelle Andrus is a seasoned animal raiser, farmer, and skilled crafter based in Northeast Washington where she and her husband run Andrus Farms LLC. They specialize in raising and breeding alpacas, llamas, sheep, and goats for fiber production. Michelle is also an accomplished spinner, knitter, and weaver, and enjoys using raw materials to create beautiful and useful items. At the farm, they offer a variety of services and products including farm tours, breeding, workshops, plant starts, fresh produce, eggs, and handmade items for sale. Michelle's personal philosophy revolves around leaving the world a better place and enriching the lives of others by sharing knowledge and experiences and spreading kindness to all. Her biggest passion is for all things "Homegrown and Handmade.
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Besides running her small family sheep farm, and being half of the Bellwether Wool Company, Linda Hansen brings her skills as a music teacher as well as a livestock and fleece judge to sharing her love of fiber arts. She is a weaver, spinner, dyer, felter, knitter, basket weaver and quilter, and as taught husbandry and spinning both privately and in workshops.
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Rose Covert is a constant maker and an artist who creates in many directions. Her paintings, sculptures and woven works have been displayed throughout the Pacific Northwest. Most recently Rose has been engaged in woven sculptural work made of plants growing within a 30 mile radius of where she lives. As a member of the Columbia Basin Basketry Guild and a childhood educator, Rose moves seamlessly between student and teacher, learning from the materials, the process and the people she works with.
As a teacher Rose is drawn to engagement and embodiment, beginning by exploring the mediums and materials we’ll be working with then using our senses and intuition to get a feel for what we’ll be making. Her teaching style has an emphasis on the magic and play of making, using questions and conversation as a way to encourage connection and imagination.
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Dr. Ened McNett is a veterinarian with a special interest in small ruminant medicine. I raise Clun Forest sheep to provide locker lamb and wool to my community and dairy goats for personal use. I am also a lover of fiber arts especially drop spindle and weaving.
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Christine Anderson learned to spin and knit in 4th grade and has appreciated fiber animals ever since. She started a raw milk dairy farm in 2007 and provides milk for her local community. She is an avid cheesemaker and has studied cheesemaking around the world.
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Tammi Paul and her husband operate a small farm near Shedd, Oregon in which they raise Simmental cattle along with registered Saanen and Lamancha dairy goats. Tammi's passion for making goat milk soap and cheese came from her frugal nature and excess gallons of goat milk. She started experimenting with goat milk soap recipes while she was raising her children and operating the farm and soon it became a passion which then extended to a business venture. Her favorite outlet was local farmer's markets but she soon procured contracts with Made In Oregon stores as an outlet for her handmade artisan goat milk soap. That passion then led to adventures in cheese making, both soft and hard pressed cheeses. Over the past 15 years, she has taught goat milk soap making and artisan cheese making in many parts of the northwest including at past OFFF events, specialty fundraising events, local 4-H groups, private classes and the Pacific Northwest Culinary Center. Finally, one of the unique aspects to Tammi's teaching is that participants in her classes will learn about sourcing materials locally and at a fraction of the cost...all while having a great deal of fun!
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Julie Drogsvold has been raising fiber animals since middle school. Her college studies focused on Secondary Education and costume design. Raising fiber naturally led to spinning and weaving and then into teaching. Julie’s ranch, Tangled Yarn Farms, nestled in the Sky Islands of southern Arizona, specializes in Navajo heritage Angora goats, Angora rabbits and heirloom cottons. Her teaching style reflects her love of natural luxury fibers and joy in learning.
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Shelia January has been a knitter since she was eight and growing up on a farm in Oregon. She became a spinner 21 years ago and now collects spinning wheels as well as yarn. She designs knits and has taught spinning and knitting at retreats, shops, conferences and fiber festivals worldwide. Her writing and patterns have been published in books and magazines.
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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), and loves using interesting techniques to make small objects 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, and Twitter; she’s PDXKnitterati on all platforms
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Lauralee DeLuca has been spinning and felting and making part of her living off her fiber skills since the 80's. She loves the unending possibilities that fibers present and is constantly exploring new options.
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