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New class informatin will be available during Spring '09, check back often for updates. Below are a list of the classes held in 2008, an example of the quality of education we will maintain in 2009. Class Descriptions & Schedule Please note, there are Morning and Afternoon Sessions, don't double book yourself. Class Sessions I 9:00am - 12noon in the Madaras Conference Center or Oasis
The 'Class Registration Form' is available. [Click Here] Ready to print and fill out. |
| Class Sessions I | |
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We are sorry to say this class has been cancelled. Sarah cut a tendon in her hand, had to have surgery and is unable to knit or crochet! We'll entice Sarah to teach next year. Thank you to all who were so gracious to switch classes. Learn to make 'yarn' from various fabrics, then integrate it with other fun yarns in this interesting project. Switching back and forth between knit and crochet techniques, students will create a small ornamental bag with fabulous texture and color interaction. The techniques are suitable for larger projects such as totes and shawls so you're bound to 'get frivolous' more than once! |
Share the joy of creating fabulous fiber art! Each student will design and create their own 3-dimensional fiber flower during a wet felting process. Morning Glory, Hibiscus, Pansy........which bloom will your felting fingers grow? This wet felting technique utilizes Merino and Churro wools as well as other fiber embellishments to bring these 'forever in bloom' fiber flowers to vibrant life. Skill Level: Open to All |
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Same Fiber, Different Yarn 9:00am - 12noon Develop the skills and confidence to make yarns suitable for different projects; knitting, weaving, felting and others. When we learn to spin, we often spin 'the same ol' yarn' regardless of the fiber we are spinning. In this class, students will learn to let their wheel do the work by changing speeds using their whorls not the treadle speed, and experimenting with different methods of drafting. Using the same, well prepared roving, you will learn to make different yarns; fine, medium, bulky, smooth and yarns with 'planned slubs'. Skill Level: Advance beginner through Intermediate |
Painted Rovings 9:00am - 12noon "Have you ever lusted after the beautiful rovings that are all the rage now, only to decide you can't afford the accompanying price tag?" This class is for you! With simple formulas and basic graphing of color ways, you can create the luscious rainbows for woven and knitted scarves. The half day class will cover; fiber classification, structure and selection. Identifying color pathways to give a predictable end result. Dye types, selection, mixing and production. Setting, designing and suggested uses. Because 'hands on' is what makes this a fun class, we'll create several different rovings of wool, silk, mohair and other fibers including some unusual blends. You'll have lots of spinnable samples! |
| Class Session II | |
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This class will provide you with tips and tricks for spinning lace weight yarn in a variety of fibers provided by Jill. Learn to maintain consistancy in spinning and plying. Finishing yarns and using lace weight yarns in knitting, crochet and weaving will be discussed. Increase skill and confidence in spinning and using lace weight yarns. Skill Level: Basic spinning skills
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| Class Sessions III | |
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Creating an 8" x 10" piece of art upon a canvas base, we will needle felt a landscape design using alpaca fibers. Implementing a single felting needle to 'paint' sun and sand, desert and sky or whatever landscape elements you prefer. Grass or rocks, cactus or mountain; trust your inner vision and create natural surroundings with alpaca roving and embellishments. You may bring a sketch or a photograph, preferably one you took yourself, as a starting point for your design. Skill Level: Open to All |
Learn to wet felt around a small object, then cut part of the felt away, creating a bezel that reveals your 'treasure' beneath. Further embellishment possibilities will be presented using beads and decorative stitching. We will finish the brooch by stitching on a pin back so you may wear it right out of the classroom! Have fun, take home a completed piece of wearable art and the skills to create more. Skill Level: Open to All |
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Kumihimo & Wire Crochet 1:00pm - 4:00pm Bracelet Create a multi-strand bracelet with a combination of techniques. Strands will be made using Kumihimo braiding combined with wire crochet and beads. Margo will provide all the materials for this very inventive class, just bring your size F metal crochet hook and the know-how to do a chain stitch. A wonderful opportunity to learn the the art of Kumihimo braiding and create a lovely piece of wearable art. Skill Level: must be able to crochet a chain stitch |
Hand Painting Yarn or Warp 1:00pm - 4:00pm Learn a fast and easy way to dye fibers using fiber reactive dyes. With the fiber of your choice, you will 'hand paint' a skein of yarn or a warp, then heat set the dyes using the microwave. Participants will take home painted yarn or warp of their own material and design along with the skills necessary to do the task at home. So, bring your skein of yarn or a warp (weighing not more than 4 oz.), put on some 'dye' clothes, grab your rubber gloves and get ready to have a colorful time with Robin. Skill Level: Open to All |
| Class Session IV | |
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Here is a wonderful chance to try your hand at basket weaving! Create a lunch pail style country basket with a handle, suitable for carrying small objects (jam, soap, etc.). Great for gift giving! Joyce will provide all the materials needed to complete the plaited basket, just bring a squirt bottle, a towel and a pair of kitchen scissors. Skill Level: Open to All |
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Teacher Biographies |
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Rita Blocksom Rita Blocksom is a career educator whose twin passions for the Southwest and for art quilts provided the impetus for her relocation to Arizona and her transition to full-time teaching of quilting arts to students of all ages. Rita discovered a second passion, needle felting, that perfectly fits her many moods. She says, 'When seeking serenity, the simplicity of this endeavor carries me away, allowing my sprit to repair and replenish itself. On the other hand, when I need to let it all hang out by physical expression, the poking of that single unthreaded needle provides a cathartic release. I can poke and poke to release my restlessness and regain focus, while at the same time making art by using a single needle. Rita holds a B.S. in Education with extensive graduate work in the field of Special Education and Creativity, and was a certified K-12 teacher and author of several books and numerous articles for professional publication in the field of education.
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Not Just a Blank Canvas
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Sally Hall and Susan Thompson A wonderful Mother and Daughter teaching team and owners of Spirited Hands Studio, offer 25 years of combined experience in the felting arts, provide classes for students eager to improve their understanding of the Magic of FELTMAKING. Both are accomplished felting women who have stretched the boundary of wet felting and created some of the most wonderful sculptural |
Forever in Bloom Wet felting Techniques  |
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Jill Holbrook |
Spinning for Lace:
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Joyce Jaden Joyce, owner of Jaden Ventures, LLC in Tucson, Arizona and former director of the Tucson Chapter of The National Association of Women Business Owners, has returned to her first love, the arts. Joyce, a self-described "emerging artist," makes functional and fine-art weavings, from seagrass baskets that hold potted plants to mixed-media abstractions that can be hung on a wall. Her expertise, willingness to share her techniques and love of the arts make Joyce a wonderful teacher. She maintains a working studio in Tucson where she loom weaves fabric, hand weaves baskets and teaches.
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Tea for Two Gift Basket
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Michelle Johnson Michelle is the owner of Laughing Cloud Studio in Prescott, Arizona. Michelle has had an on-going love affair with fiber as an early art form, since she discovered it in the early 80's while attending the Kansas City Art Institute. During these 20 plus years of creating complex cloth and turning a myriad of ideas into wearable art, wall art and home decor accents, the passion is still alive. Michelle says, 'I love color and texture and it feels fabulous to touch the raw materials while creating them!' She works intuitively, dyeing, felting and weaving with natural fibers. The outcome is sometimes surprising but always challenges her to create the next piece. Michelle's works have been shown in International art-to-wear competitions, juried art festivals, galleries and boutiques across the U.S.
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Treasure Brooch
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Margo Nickel Margo Nickel brings many years of millinery experience working behind the scenes of the diverse and demanding New York theatre, film, runway, and dance worlds. Margo was also the head milliner for the Arizona Opera, and her own designs have been featured on Good Morning America. Now residing in Tucson, Arizona, Margo teaches millinery classes to enthusiastic students. Margo has also found a place among the fiber artist of Arizona, she is currently working handspun & commercial yarns into Kumihimo Braiding techniques and now combines the Kumihimo with bead and wire crochet to produce lovely and unusual wearble art.
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Kumihimo & Wire Crochet Bracelet
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Robin Pascal |
Handpainting Yarn or Warp
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Pam Ramsey Pam Ramsey is the owner/operator of La Plata Farms, a premium wool operations located in the southwest corner of Colorado. Pam has over 23 years experience teaching spinning and dyeing, felting, needle felting, fiber processing, sheep and wool management, fiber selection and grading in venues throughout the Southwest. Pam has taught at many national venues and conferences including; Sheep is LIfe, Back to the Wassatch Festival, Taos Wool Festival, Estes Park Wool Market, SOAR, HGA Convergence, Pagosa Fiber Festival Wool festival of the Southwest, Colorado Wool Festival, IWC and many more. With over 300 hours of teaching sessions at the farm along with over 75 accredited workshops in the last 10 years, Pam has the experience to provide her students with quality workshops.
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Painted Rovings
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Elaine Ross Elaine learned to spin in 1985 on a very old spinning wheel found in her husband Rick's Grandmother's Morgantown, W. Virginia attic. Two years later Elaine and her husband bought a small farm in North Carolina and acquired a some horses and Angora Goats. Over the next couple of years they added; two sheep, a llama, an alpaca and two minature donkeys just for the fun of it. In 1989 Elaine took her first weaving class. With all this fiber on her hands, she joined Mary Stowe at Yarns, Etc. in Greensboro, NC and introduced weaving and spinning equipment into the shop. She has taught spinning at the Greensboro Arts Center and at the Sawtooth Center for Creative Arts in Winston-Salem. In 2004 she sold her interest in Yarn's Etc., found homes for all her animals then packed up for a move to Saddlebrook, north of Tucson,AZ in February 2005. Elaine is an active member of the Tucson Handweavers & Spinners Guild and current President of the Arizona Federation of Weavers & Spinners Guilds.
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Sarah Sammons When Sarah was 15, her Mother gave her several skeins of oatmeal colored worsted yarn, a pattern for a Chanel-style cardigan in Stockinette Stitch and two knitting needles. Mother worked to refresh Sarah's right-handed knitting skills, and insisted she would have fun, and the sweater would be a wardrobe basic she would love to wear. Two years and a lot of nagging later, she finished the sweater. It was dull and she hated it. Sarah, managed to 'lose' the sweater after only a few wearings. Although Sarah taught herself to crochet and took weaving classes in college, she did not knit again for about 15 years. When Sarah retaught herself to knit, she worked Continental style and used circular or double pointed needles so she could knit from any direction. Sarah seldom utilizes schematics, is happy to try a variety of stitches and rarely uses other people's patterns and refuses to make anything that is strictly Stockinette. Most of things she designs are in several yarns, fibers and colors, often combining knitting and crochet for interesting textural effects. Because Sarah is far more interested in the creative process she finds herself overwhelmed by UFOs. Untold baskets of yarn fill her home and she is always finding some new and exciting bit of fiber which sings to be stitched to another. |
Let's Get Frivolous |
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