2023 Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival

Brian Cooley’s fiber “story” is a true example of the value of SVFF training classes, after he started coming to SVFF to support his future wife (Festival Chair Bethany). Each year, Bethany would sign Brian up for a class to help fill classes and fill his schedule so he would not be bored, but the one class that really took was crochet. Since that 2-hour course, Brian has been an active hobby crocheter and has now started teaching beginning crochet in different venues, and has recently added courses on how to build grid level patterns that will work for common techniques like corner to corner crochet. Brian’s biggest flaw is he is bad about posting pictures to his Ravelry account after completing a project.

Dorothea Pierce has been knitting for over fifty years and spinning for over thirty. Her absolute favorite thing to do, EVER, is teach people how to spin and knit. She has taught 3 days spinning workshops, five-minute knitting tutorials, and everything in between. She owns a yarn store in Hardy Virginia (near Roanoke) and hosts the Skein Away Fiber Retreat at Smith Mountain Lake in the spring and fall of each year. IN her spare time, oh wait, she doesn’t have any! But she sure does have fun!!

Heather is a TKGA-certified Master Knitter, Tech Editor and Knitting Instructor. She is the VP of Education on the board of directors for TKGA, the editor of TKGA’s monthly K2TOG newsletter, and a Co-Chair Emeritus of the TKGA Master Hand Knitting committee, as well as a member of the Cast On magazine editorial committee. She has been designing knitwear and teaching knitting for well over 15 years. Her designs have been published in Cast On magazine and Knitscene, as well as Knitty and elsewhere. Designing items that tickle her fancy, she loves designing socks, lace shawls, and Fair Isle, among other things. She also teaches up and down the east coast as well as nationally (and online!), and her focus is on giving knitters the skills and confidence needed to perfect their knitting and to knit complex or intimidating techniques. Heather resides in the Charlotte, NC area. When she is not knitting, designing, editing, or teaching, she can be found sewing, spinning yarn, reading, or in the outdoors camping and hiking with her family. She can be found online at www.heatherstorta.com.

Kim Garver, educator knitting techniques/restorer of vintage sock knitting machines – fifteen years dedicated to teaching others in the fiber community. Qualifications: Fostering skills to enrich lives and learning, through the fiber arts community, is a continuing and integral part of my business. I am an internationally known sock knitting instructor and have a long history of teaching in the Fiber Arts field. I have been conducting workshops and teaching various “olden way” methods for 15 years. My successes in the Fiber community are the success of my students, it is a gift God gave me and one I fully embrace. I’ve taught workshops throughout the mid-west and eastern regions of the United Sates for different organizations and fairs relegated to the fiber community. I have conducted live international webinars for the last three years and have a number of students who have travelled from Japan, Germany and England to attend my in-person workshops. I am flattered to be a world-renowned educator for vintage style techniques and machines.

Jen Parroccini is a designer, grader, and consultant. She works 1:1 with knitters and designers to ensure that garments fit as intended on ALL bodies. As a designer, she gravitates towards lightweight, wearable pieces with fine finishing. Jen lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with her husband, daughter, and puppy.

Jolie has explored a wide range of needle arts after learning to cross stitch at age four. She designs, teaches, spins, and stunt knits in the Atlanta area where she demystifies the obscure. She has served on the boards of Atlanta Knitting Guild, North Georgia Knitting Guild, Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance, and Center for Knit and Crochet. She has published in PLY, Spin-Off, and Cast On. Her cleverest unvention is a method for working stockinette-based laces reversibly. You can view her experiments at jolieaelder.blogspot.com and YouTube channel “Jolie knits.”

M Theresa Brown is a career artist whose long art career embraces many areas of the Arts. She studied printmaking and color work at East Carolina University which led her to explore the fiber arts. Using many similar skills and accumulated knowledge, she evolved as a hand painter, felter and ecoprinter on natural fibers. She uses natural dyes and low impact synthetic dyes and merges them into unique, beautiful designs on silk, wool, paper and even leather. She turns her transformed work into artisanal clothing, accessories and art. Her articles and designs in the fiber arts have appeared in international publications such as "No Serial Number" and "Belle Armoire". She has created many “How to “ Dvd’s and ebooks in the visual arts in conjunction with the national art chain, Jerrysartarama . She has been an instructor at many fiber art shows including Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Southeastern Animal Fiber Fest, Carolina Fiber Fest, Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival, Michigan Fiber Fest and many upcoming new venues. She and her artist husband, Stephen Filarsky reside in rural NC with their alpacas, chickens and family dogs!

Margo Lehman is a visual artist working predominantly in oil and felted wool. A lifelong doodler and crafter, she feels at home in both the worlds of fine art and craft and is happiest when she gets to combine the two. Her artworks, both in paint and in fiber, have been shown throughout the US and have won many awards.

Melissa Weaver Dunning is a hand-weaver, spinner and knitter with over 40 years of experience working on antique equipment to recreate 18th and 19th century home produced textiles. She began her textile study with Scottish master weaver Norman Kennedy in 1980, and carries on this rich tradition in her own teaching. Melissa is an avid tartan and linen weaver, a compulsive knitter and a lover of wool who enjoys sharing her passion for weaving and spinning with students. She is also a ballad singer, specializing in the ballads and songs of Ireland, Scotland and England from before Napoleon’s time.

Liza Q. Wirtz, better known as Q (aka the Chief Feline), runs multifaceted fiber-arts business the Foldout Cat from her home studio in Alabama with the frequent and welcome assistance of her partners and the help of a fluctuating number of cats. Having spent several past lives in other occupations–including bookseller, lawyer, and professional singer–Q now works fulltime towards earning her living as an artist and a creative. Q teaches freestyle weaving, art-batt carding, and basic experiential spinning with the same philosophy that infuses her praxis: create from your heart, make what gives you joy, and put beauty into the world. She wholeheartedly believes that everyone's an artist and that giving people access to fiber-arts tools and learning lets them prove it to themselves. Q also makes and sells one-of-a-kind art batts built from the Foldout Cat's unique Batt Buffet, hand-dyed microbatch yarn and fiber, handspun yarn, finished fiber-arts items, and simple fiber-arts tools. She has taught, vended, or both at fiber events in multiple states, including Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Sami Yuhas is the founder of Good Water and Co., a mother-daughter team based in State College, PA, producing waxed canvas, as well as naturally-dyed and hand embroidered project bags and accessories. An instructional designer by day, her passion is the study of “women’s work” and fiber arts and the reproduction and preservation of historical fashion and textile periodicals. She first joined the SVFF community in 2020 and has been a proud vendor ever since.

TJ, aka the Peahen, is part of the dynamic spinning and spindle making duo The Spanish Peacock. She has been spinning for almost 20 years and finds true joy inspiring and teaching others about the art of spinning with a supported spindle. When she's not spinning she's creating content for her blog, vlog, and podcast.