Find Your Ideal Arts Teacher for Lessons Online

Laurie lives and works at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. As a child she was fascinated by all things fiber, particularly when visiting Colonial Williamsburg. She learned to spin first, on a spinning wheel built by her grandfather. Spinners hang out with weavers and spinning became the entry drug as she developed her fiber habit.

Emily Wohlscheid is the fiber and metal artist behind Bricolage Studios. She works from a cooperative studio in Kalamazoo, MI and specializes in highly textural fiber batts and jewelry incorporating fibers and fiber themes. Through classes and workshops, Emily shares her knowledge of spinning, fiber preparation, and dyeing throughout the country.

Alex McClay lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio as an interdisciplinary artist, an instructor in Printmaking at the University of Cincinnati and the 2022 Artist-in-Residence at Tiger Lily Press. She graduated with an MFA in Studio Art from the University of Georgia in 2021. She received her BFA in Studio Art from the University of Cincinnati in 2014.

Hi! I’m Sophie Laffey, a UK-qualified educator with over 10 years of experience working with children aged 5 to 10 across both mainstream and alternative learning environments. I hold a BA (Hons) in Learning and Teaching from the University of Northampton (2016–2017), and a Foundation Degree in Learning and Teaching (2014–2016).

Elizabeth Whitton is a mompreneur who turned her love of wool into a thriving family-run needle felting business called Felted Sky. A self-taught needle felter, she has a knack for designing beautiful small projects that she has turned into a line of needle felting kits suitable for beginners.

Roiana Buckmaster lives in Mt Pleasant, TN, working a small farm with her husband to build a registered flock of Icelandic Sheep. She was given knitting needles at age six (to keep out from underfoot), embroidery at ten (to sit still) and plunged into the rabbit hole of the fiber arts world from there.

Amy Putansu is an artist and educator living in the craft-rich culture of western North Carolina. She produces handwoven textiles that incorporate dyeing, stitching, and other textile techniques as art pieces for residential and corporate settings. She earned her BFA in textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1995.

IBé Bulinda Crawley, the 2024 Virginia Historic Preservation Awardee, demonstrates the power of storytelling in the artist’s book titled 11033, produced at Women’s Studio Workshop 2022. Born in Danville, Virginia her most recent artist’s books produced 2024 at Penland School of Craft in North Carolina, with the support of Crafting the Future, further documents the role of women as…

Gigi Matthews is on the board of the Handweavers Guild of America with a focus on sustainability. She is a handspinner whose recent work uses reclaimed and recycled materials as well as rare breed (endangered) wool. As a herbalist she has a soft spot for plant fibers! Her keen interest in fibers and materials is a result of decades of world travel.

Chris Aslan was born in Turkey and was raised there and in war-torn Beirut. After school, he spent two years at sea, and then lived in Central Asia for 15 years. First, was Khiva, a desert oasis in Uzbekistan, where Chris established a UNESCO workshop reviving fifteenth century carpet designs and embroideries, and becoming the largest non-government employer in town.