Northern Michigan Lamb & Wool Festival 2010

Teacher Bios

Celebrate our 11th annual festival with us:

September 24 - 26, 2010

Every year we collect a group of teachers who really know what they're teaching, and know how to present it to students. Here are their biographies, in their own words. Check out class descriptions to see details of what each class is about.

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Janine Diebel, Gaylord, Michigan

Janine lives in Northern Michigan by the Pigeon River with her husband and children. She learned to knit, crochet, and sew as a young girl, and in 1976 was inspired by her mother's heirloom great wheel to learn to spin. She has demonstrated and taught spinning, felting, and bobbin lace making at historic sites, fiber festivals, and schools for many years. In 2001, Janine and two spinning friends organized the White Pine Fiber Guild. During her workdays as a registered nurse, she steals spinning time by taking her hand spindles to lunch.

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Diana Eakin, Greenville, Michigan

I got started working with fiber because of a beautiful angora rabbit that my son had as a pet. I found out a lot by reading about rabbits and what a lot of work the angoras can be. I was bound and determined to have a pair of mittens from his fur. That started it all.

The next thing was the spinning of the fiber and buying a wheel and taking lessons and you know all the neat things that go along with a fiber obsession. I bought books and read and read. I bought fiber and started with a drop spindle and spun that way for a while. I joined a spinning guild and tried wheels and watched others and did a lot of hands-on learning. I bought a wheel and I took lessons at Greenfield Village from a delightful lady who taught me many things and some unique techniques. I have entered contests and have won ribbons that I cherish for the projects I have done. It is a delightful journey that is on-going.

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Julie Hurd, Bellaire, Michigan

Julie enjoys all textile arts but focuses on handspinning, weaving functional items and art to wear, and designing knitwear. She has been weaving and spinning for over thirty years. She began working with fibers as soon as she could hold a needle to sew, inspired by grandmothers who were dressmakers and a mother who sewed, knitted, and made rugs. Her very first creative efforts were garments crafted for dolls and teddy bears.

Visits to historic sites as a child instilled in her an interest in spinning and weaving that was finally satisfied with a gift of a loom and spinning wheel from her spouse. She now owns three floor looms: a four-shaft LeClerc Nilus (that first loom), a vintage four-shaft Norwood (made in Michigan of cherry), and an eight-shaft Schacht loom. She spins wool and silk on three Ashford wheels: a Traditional, a Traveller, and a Joy.

Her current projects include garments that combine handwoven fabrics with knitting and surface embellishments, textiles for her home, original designs for garments knitted of handspuns, and "teacup terriers," palm-sized dogs created from needle-felted fibers. She enjoys using natural dyes to color handspun yarns that are used in her "Antrim Autumn Series" of knitted, woven, and hooked pieces that feature the colors derived from plants and berries collected from her gardens and the fields around her Antrim County home. Julie enjoys attending guild meetings and workshops, fiber festivals, and weaving and spinning conferences. She is a member of the Lake Charlevoix Area Weavers Guild (Michigan) and the Handweavers Guild of America.

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Suzanne Pufpaff, Nashville, Michigan

Suzanne has been involved with natural fibers and fabrics most of her life, beginning with 4-H knitting and sewing as a child, then raising most of the different fiber animals at one time or another as an adult. She knits, spins, weaves, sews, felts and has been running a small custom carding operation on her ixfarm for the past se years. She also writes instructional articles on felting and knitting, which are sold in many shops around the country as well as being published in many of the trade magazines.

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Ruth Rushlow, Deford, Michigan

I am a basket weaver, handspinner, and I use my handspun to crochet and felt bags, hats, and rugs. I also make handmade paper. I began to weave baskets about 30 years ago. I gather and prepare a lot of the materials to incorporate into my baskets. I make cordage to weave from dogbane, milkweed, and various barks. I also make bone, antler and glass beads to embellish my baskets. I wanted some handspun yarn to weave into my baskets, so I began spinning about 12 years ago with a drop spindle. I now use a Jensen Tina II to spin with.

I live on a farm in a small town in the thumb (Deford) with my husband and two children. I work at Delphi in Saginaw as an assembly / machine operator. I truly enjoy gathering my materials as much as making the baskets. After working in a factory all day, it's nice to be outdoors in the woods. Most of my materials are gathered when we are in the process of cutting firewood.

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Bethany Shaltz, Boyne City, Michigan

Bethany learned to knit at age 5 (the usual interminable garter-stitch scarf, which her mom ended up finishing several years later!) and to spin on a a drop spindle at 8. She has demo'd spinning and weaving at festivals and other events, as well as taught drop spinning at Raven Hill Discovery Center and Northern Michigan Lamb & Wool Festival. She designs her own knitted creations using her drop-spindled yarn, and works part-time at Stonehedge Fiber Mill. Her true passions, however, are historical linguistics, drawing, and music. She is owned by a cat named Lion.

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Joan Sheridan, Lake Orion, Michigan

Joan Sheridan is a spinner, weaver, knitter and fiber explorer. Soon after learning to spin and weave, she opened Heritage Spinning & Weaving in Lake Orion, Michigan, and has been sharing her love for everything fiber-y ever since. She loves to "play" and is currently exploring the possibilities of translating complex weaving drafts into knitted and simple woven pieces.

Joan has taught at The National Needlearts Association (TNNA) conferences, at Michigan Fiber Festival, Conference of Northern Californian Handweavers (CNCH), and Spin-Off Autumn Retreat (SOAR), and has been published in Spin-Off, Craft, and Handwoven magazines.

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Jennifer Szubielak, Calumet, Indiana

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Betty Todd, White Cloud, Michigan

I have been dyeing mohair for more than 20 years. Dyeing became a necessity after exhausting all the natural colors that were available at the time, which lacked pizzaz and variety. I moved on to pot dyeing with acid dyes, and after several years of successful arrays of color decided to give the microwave dyeing a go. What a suprise and treat to an old pot dyer! Everything could be duplicated with less time and mess. I decided to store my pots in favor of using the microwave and have never looked back.

Colors from the palest to the boldest can be achieved with the least amount of effort in the microwave. After achieving some expertise in the field of dyeing, I decided to share my knowledge with others at craft shows by teaching dye classes. I have taught classes in the Fingerlakes Fiber Festival for more than 8 years and at the Northern Michigan Lamb & Wool Festival for more than 5 years. I have put on demonstrations at Michigan Fiber Festival. I use to paint as a young woman. Now the dyes are my palette and the yarn my canvas and the possibilities are endless.

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Amy Tyler, Interlochen, Michigan

Amy has a fine arts degree in modern dance from the University of Utah, a MS degree in kinesiology from the University of Washington, and a PhD in physiology from the University of Arizona. After spending seven years as an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, she left Omaha to return to her home state of Michigan to begin a new career as a fiber artist. She has been knitting and designing for 20 years, spinning for nine years, and teaching for over 30 years (dance, biomechanics, neurophysiology, motor learning, statistics, and fiber!).

Amy's fiber arts work is heavily influenced by both her fine arts training and her science training. Common to both is an appreciation for pattern recognition and composition. The result is her focus on texture, three-dimensional structure, and knitting techniques that require handspun yarns. Most recently, she has been exploring the use of slip stitch patterns in her knit designs; creating hats, felted bags, socks, shawls, and sweaters that use slip stitches to create textural effects with various yarns. Her recent spinning projects have been focused on creating combinations of yarns that are different but complementary, by varying fiber blends, yarn thickness, plying strategies, and colorways. Her fiber work has been published in Spin Off, Fiberline Magazine, and Knit Lit the Third. Her spinning and knitting work have been accepted to juried exhibits, and have won awards at both regional and national fiber events. She offers her knit designs and hand spun yarns under the business name Stone Sock Fibers.

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Linda Van Andel, Ellsworth, Michigan

Of all the fiber arts, Linda likes weaving to sew and spinning to knit. Linda began working with fibers when, at seven years of age, she sat next to her mother learning to make doll clothes on a small hand operated sewing machine. In her eighth-grade Home Economics class, when the others were making their first aprons, Linda was sewing a red corduroy jumper. Her Retail/Fashion Merchandising major at Syracuse U. included classes in clothing construction and tailoring, skills that she now applies on her own handwoven fabrics. Linda then worked for ten years as a sportswear buyer for major department stores.

All her adult life she has preferred to go to the fabric store for yardage to make garments to shopping for ready-made clothes. About thirty years ago she purchased a 22” Leclerc 4 shaft loom and began weaving simple rugs, pillows, and towels. She now weaves fabric for designing and sewing garments, and often works with fine silk and wool yarns that produce soft and supple fabrics suitable for her finely-tailored garments. More recently she acquired a 45” 8-shaft Colonial Leclerc floor loom to allow her to produce more complex weave structures, still weaving to sew.

Along Linda's creative path knitting became important; she especially enjoys knitting complicated or colorful patterned sweaters and scarves. This interest developed into a love of spinning and dyeing fibers to use when designing original knitted garments. Some of her recent projects include original garments knitted of her own handspun, plant-dyed yarns in her favorite autumn color palette. Now Linda spins to knit.

Linda especially enjoys the inspiration that being with others who share her interests brings. She belongs to a spinning guild, a weaving guild, and is a member of the Michigan League of Handweavers and the Handweavers Guild of America. She volunteers at various fiber events sharing her love of spinning and weaving with others.

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Thank you for making this yet another fabulous sheep and fiber year!

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