2021 Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival

Welcome to your Happy Place! My name is Anja Caldwell. I grew up in Germany, where I got introduced to the wonderful world of handwork in elementary school. My maternal grandfather was a gentlemen's tailor and owned a clothing store in Northern Germany, my paternal grandmother was a master seamstress, my sister is a textile engineer. I first lived in the US in 1990 as a Fulbright graduate student, and came back to stay in 1997, this time for love. After a professional career as an architect, with a focus on sustainability and green (school) building, I opened my first studio in Potomac in 2016. It was a 50th birthday present to myself, and my "doily" reward for sticking it out as a working mom in a technical and still very male domain for so long. Today, after so many years of making and designing, I dare call myself a fiber artist, with lots of passion and patience for teaching beginners. In my studio we mix hygge and friendship with the traditional handwork techniques of knitting, crocheting, embroidery, sewing, felting, weaving ... - and much more. I fear that these fiber techniques and skills, still mastered by the older generation, are at the verge of going extinct. I have set out to change that! Slowing down and mindfulness is an art all by itself. These days that needs practice and discipline, but is so very good for all of us. When it comes to kids activities, I consider glue and glitter crafts the bad "G" words. I believe in teaching the "real deal", not a fast craft that lands in the trash. We make heirlooms and "grandparents charmers" and learn real skills. My best days are when I get a beginner hooked on a fiber art - and I can combine old techniques with fresh, clever design ideas. And if you don't quite know what you want to make yet, I can help you with that too. We have an extensive library of pattern books and magazines on hand. Whatever fiber art you want to explore - come on in! I can hardly wait to meet you, and see what we can create together. Knit warmly, Anja S. Caldwell (aka "Miss Fiber Arts Lady")

Cindie Bennett is primarily a crochet instructor and designer. She has taught at many fiber festivals along the east coast. Cindie is a Certified Crochet Instructor through Craft Yarn Council. She has published multiple crochet designs into popular crochet magazines. You may follow Cindie at www.instagram.com/cindiebennettcrochet and www.facebook.com/cindiebennettcrochet

Dixie Faries lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, Efrain, two spoiled cats and four squawking birds. She has been as been knitting and crocheting for more than 50 years. The real turning point in her skills came about once she discovered knitting conferences, taking classes at every opportunity both in the U.S. and overseas. This broadened both her understanding of the craft and her abilities to tackle new and unique projects and techniques. Currently Dixie has both Knitting I and Knitting II Instructor Certification from the Craft Yarn Council.

Jean Elizabeth Glass has been playing with beads and fiber in one way or another for 30 years. She was brought to knitting by friends who told her that she could knit with beads thus marrying two wonderful crafts and making her smile. She loves to share her passion with anyone who is interested and has generously shared her knowledge during demonstrations and teaching classes at DFW, Vogue Knitting Live, Stitches, The Fiber Festival of New England, and many other shows. #BetterWithBeads

M Theresa Brown is a professional portrait artist, printmaker and fiber artist whose long career embraces many areas of the Arts. Her years of printmaking and color work led her to explore the fiber arts. Using many similar skills and accumulated knowledge, she has evolved as a hand painter and ecoprinter on natural fibers. She uses natural dyes and low impact synthetic dyes and merges them into unique, beautiful designs on silk, wool and leather. She then transforms the hand dyed or ecoprinted fabric into artisanal clothing, accessories and art. Her ecoprinted fiber work has appeared in international publications such as "No Serial Number" and "Belle Armoire". She and her artist husband, Stephen Filarsky reside in rural NC with their alpacas, chickens and family dogs!

A native San Franciscan, Mary Gildersleeve began designing shortly after teaching herself to knit at the age of 8. Knitting and designing were her constant activities throughout undergrad (BA Journalism), grad school (MBA Marketing) and family life until, in 1997, she went “professional” and established By Hand, With Heart…traditional hand-knit designs with a modern twist. Gildersleeve’s designs have been published in Knitters, Cast On, Interweave Knits and a lace design was featured on the cover of the Second Unofficial Downton Abbey Knits. She has two books published: Great Yarns for the Close-Knit Family: over two dozen hand-knit designs inspired by a dozen fantastic family read-alouds and In His Image: Nurturing Creativity in the Heart of Your Home. She is still designing, teaching knitting, and generally loving her (albeit hectic) life in Northern Virginia, 50+ years after first learning to knit.

Patty Williams is the owner of Aker Fiber Farm. She began working with fiber arts as a young girl with her aunt and mom. She learned how to crochet, wash fleeces, and card wool along with tying her shoes. She began Aker Fiber Farm part time after leaving the Army with her husband in Virginia. They then purchased the flock that had been supplying their fleeced and moved everyone to New Hampshire where Patty added Shepherd to her resume. Aker Fiber Farm has evolved into a Farm to Yarn Company providing flax to linen and fleece to yarn to customers fall over the US and Canada. Patty began teaching fiber arts without even realizing that was what she was doing. Always wanting to share her passion she taught friends how to crochet and knit while in grade school, high school, and the Army. Today she travels up and down the east coast teaching workshops and giving lectures on Shepherding skills, flax, linen, spinning, fiber prep, and knitting. Her favorite students are folks that; “never thought they could”, as Patty believes everyone CAN!

Peggy grew up outside of San Francisco, CA and learned the art of knitting and crochet from her grandmother. She relocated to the East coast and now Peggy lives in NVA with her husband and children. She knits daily and works with other creative fiber avenues. After getting her Masters at Austin Peay in Tennesse, she taught in the classroom in the late 90s but family/work life balance took the wheel. She is coming back this season to teach a fun knitting style that also takes a bit of concentration: Double knitting. You can find her on Ravelry as Pegdog.

Liza Q. Wirtz, better known as Q, teaches freespirited weaving, art-batt carding, and exploratory spinning on her herd of wheels through her fiber-arts business, the Foldout Cat, based at her home studio in the Huntsville, Alabama area. Q has been weaving and sewing in the SAORI tradition for several years, and she dyes, spins, and cards with the same philosophy in mind: create from your heart and put beauty into the world! When she’s not teaching or creating, Q bakes and sings (separately) for pleasure and very occasionally practices estate-planning law, particularly for artists and other folks whose lives involve "specialized stuff." Q lives with a fluctuating number of cats near her beloved partners, Fiber J and Maker J, in Madison, AL. Find her as FoldoutCat on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest or on her website, foldoutcat.com.