Our Instructors

Julie Benac has been in the world of fiber arts since 2006, and has been in the cut and sew industry for over thirty years, holding a degree in fashion design from Ray College of Design in Chicago (now part of the Art Institute). She is a familiar face in sewing classrooms as well as inner city Detroit where she taught homeless mothers how to sew on industrial equipment. Now, she is bringing fiber arts skills into the light, teaching carding and fiber prep, as well as artisan yarn spinning at various festival around the Midwest. Julie enjoys trying different ways to marry fiber arts with sewing to discover new directions in clothing accent and design. She lives on Lake Erie in southeast Michigan with her husband Patrick, three children and a lot of looms!

Heavenly Bresser is the owner and founder of Heavenly Knitchet and is excited to share her love for knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving and all things fiber-related with the world. She actively teaches handspinning and dyeing classes at a local art center where she is a faculty member. She has also taught handspinning courses through Stitches events, Vogue Knitting Live and the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. Some of her areas of passion include the love of working with color, fleece, restoring spinning wheels and researching historic information. She has published works through Spin Off, PLY, tinyStudio, CreativeLife and more. Heavenly has made it her mission to help fiber artists of all levels to expand their knowledge about their craft and to try new things.

Melissa is an enthusiastic instructor who loves to share her knowledge of fibers and dyeing with others. Having been a yarn shop owner for most of the past twenty years she has taught many different fiber arts, including dyeing, wet felting, all manner of knitting, crochet and spinning. Formerly owning a flock of Corriedale and Corriedale-cross sheep pushed her towards dyeing to make use of all that gorgeous fleece! Her focus now is on dyeing under the name of Four Crows Fibers and selling online at fourcrowsfiber.com. Her yarns are also available at numerous Wisconsin shops in and around the Midwest.

M. Theresa Brown is a professional artist whose long art career embraces many areas of the arts. She studied commercial art and printmaking at East Carolina University, and those skills subsequently 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 and beautiful designs on silk, wool, paper and 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 contributed articles and blogs for online publications and created many how-to DVDs and e-books in conjunction with a national arts chain, Jerryartarama. Her e-books Art Marketing Success Secrets and Single Moms Guide to Making Money As an Artist were published as audio books and she is often a guest speaker on marketing for arts organizations. She has a line of instructional PDFs on ecoprinting techniques and is the first instructor to teach Ecoprinting on Leather in the U.S. She has been an instructor at many fiber shows including the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival, Southeastern Animal Fiber Fest, Carolina Fiber Fest, Kentucky Sheep & Fiber Festival, Michigan Fiber Fest, Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival, John C. Campbell Folk School and the Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance. She and her artist husband, Stephen Filarsky, reside in rural North Carolina with their alpacas, chickens and family dogs.

About twenty years ago I was making Mohair teddy bears when I heard of a craft called needle felting. I wasn’t sure how it was done but the little felted teddy bear head I saw was interesting, so I decided to take a three-hour workshop to see what it was all about. Little did I know how quickly this craft would become my passion and how it would start me on the path of creating wonderful things from wool and teaching others about this amazing process! It wasn’t long before all my other crafts went into the storage closet and wool overtook my craft room. Soon I was selling my felted creations at show. One day when I was buying wool at a shop, I was approached by the owner to teach a felting class. I was scared of the prospect but jumped in. Now, after fifteen years of teaching classes, I thoroughly enjoy sharing my love for felting with others. I continue to learn from others as well. I describe my felting style as whimsical and some of my favorite items are gnomes, dragons, mushrooms and animals.

Our classes will be taught by the tag team of Henry and Roy Clemes. A lifelong woodworker and small business owner, Henry has been building fiber art equipment for almost fifty years and drum carders for over forty years. Roy grew up working in his family’s woodshop and is the president of Lambtown Festival, the largest sheep and wool show in California. Together they have introduced many innovations to the fiber arts community and their equipment is known for being not only thoughtfully engineered but visually pleasing and durable as well. They regularly consult and instruct spinners, felters, fiber growers and professional fiber artists in the use of drum carders for fiber prep.

Linda Conroy is a bioregional herbalist, a traditional skills expert and a community organizer. She has been teaching for over thirty years and has studied at the Wise Woman Center and with the founder of the International College of Herbal Medicine. She is the founder of Moonwise Herbs, The Midwest’s Women’s Herbal and Mycelium Mysteries.

As a fiber artist, interior designer and certified ILR-SD Llama Fleece Judge, I have been involved with fiber since my first purchase of Forrester, my llama. Since then Forrest Ridge Llamas and Alpacas houses six llamas, two alpacas and one sheep for a variety of natural, eco-friendly fibers. My specialty is needle felted, dimensional, soft-sculptured animals and birds. Using my design for a horseshoe nail frame and copper wire feet, these critters come to life with expression and depth using 36, 38, 40 and 42 gauge felt needles and eco-friendly natural fibers. All my designs are one-of-a-kind and are inspired by nature and the driftless region surroundings. All fiber has a purpose and my passion is to work with natural fleeces and to be a part of a heritage culture of handcraft pieces of “fiber art.”

From childhood days tending fiber animals, Julie’s path spun a pattern of passion. Her college studies, blending secondary education with costume design, mirrored the artistic potential she saw in every fleece. Spinning and weaving became natural extensions of raising her “furry friends.” Soon, Julie found herself sharing her knowledge across the U.S., from Wisconsin’s sheepy fields to Oregon’s fiber flocks. Nestled in Arizona’s Sky Islands, her ranch, Tangled Yarn Farms, reflects this dedication, specializing in Navajo heritage breeds and heirloom cottons. Her teaching style, infused with love for natural fibers and the joy of learning invites students to follow their own creative threads.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who loved all things art. She grew up and did “grown up stuff.” One day she found herself on a small farm surrounded by sheep and llamas. Oh my she said, “Now I can try all things art stuff with wool.” And she did – and found that felting was fun and needle felting was the very best! The End.

Lori is a long-time fiber nerd, learning to knit at eight and never looking back. She lives on a sheep farm with her partner in southwest Michigan where she spins, knits, weave, and loves natural dyes. She picked up visible mending about seven years ago after collecting years’ worth of torn jeans, not able to throw them away but always looking for better ways to mend them. She continued mending her clothes, moving torn jeans from the mending pile to the ranks of pants she can wear with pride. She started teaching her skills in visible mending to other in 2022 and now regularly teaches visible mending classes at Kalamazoo Valley Community College, the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, local libraries and more.

Since 1985, Nancy has shared her love of weaving and fiber arts with hundreds of students through the Sheboygan Recreation Department; from beginners to advanced students, ages six to eighty six! She has also presented weaving programs for various guilds and teaches during the summer at Siever’s School of Fiber Arts. She has won several Merit Awards at the Sheboygan County Fair. In addition, she has won awards at WHI Annual Shows and MWA conferences including two Weaving for the Home Awards of Excellence from Interweave Press. Her work has been juried into the JMK Arts Six Counties Shows. She is a very active member and current president of the Sheboygan Shuttlecraft Guild and she was the co-chair of the 2005 Midwest Weavers Conference.

Robin Goatey is a toolmaker and student of folklore creating reproductions and re-imaginings of historic and prehistoric fiber arts tools. Focusing on the textile traditions of the Northern Roman Provinces, the Northern Isles, and Western Europe, he makes shuttles, heddles, looms, spindles, and whorls available to modern fiber artists. Robin teaches spindle spinning and small-loom weaving workshops in the United States. Follow him on Instagram @thedancinggoats and visit the shop at TheDancingGoats.ETSY.Com

I have been involved in the fiber arts world for most of my life, as well as raising sheep. The real start was when I had my first black lamb born. At the time, the price for colored wool was nothing: literally I would have to pay the shearer to take it. Instead, I decided to make use of the fiber. Being raised in a family that was makers, it was not that hard to come up with ideas on how to use the wool. But I was faced with the fact that the way was being taught was not what was written in books. With that knowledge, I decided to follow the old ways and refined my craft by doing and using my products. Now, it’s nothing out of the ordinary for me to be dressed in wool clothing while feeding the sheep that provided the fiber in the first place. I enjoy passing on the ways of generations past that have been passed on to me and showing people there is more than one way to do a certain thing and to stretch the boundaries of what they are capable of doing.

Jane Grogan lives in Madison, Wisconsin and fell into the “rabbit hole” of small, hand-held looms in about 1995. She has a goal of putting a small loom into the hands of as many fiber folks as possible!

Mary Jo Harris lives in the knitting mecca of Madison, Wisconsin. She has been a teacher all of her adult life and has formally taught knitting for about fifteen years at various sheep and wool festivals, fiber events and knit-ins. She teaches locally for Madison College, Olbrich Gardens and Sunset Yarns. She added chair caning classes to her teaching repertoire, designs knitting patterns and under her designer name of Jo Harris, and has written a book Double Knitting Inside Out, available through Amazon and Ravelry. As a member of the Madison Knitters’ Guild, she has an almost constant opportunity to discuss anything and everything knitting-related.

Years ago I taught myself primitive rug hooking which is an early American art. In my work I use both recycled wool material as well as new and turn it into a hooked piece. I want my hooking and kits to appear old, therefore I over-dye the wool and use different textures to help build the hooked pieces. My theme, texture and color of the rural landscape that emerges in my work is influenced by my family life on a large working cattle and sheep farm. I have been rug hooking since the early 1980s and teaching for over three decades. In addition making up kits for other rug hookers, I sell my own rugs and do commission pieces. I enjoy this art and have been able to share it with others through teaching, demonstrations and kits, I always look forward to making new friends through the shared love of this art form. Find her work at harwoodhookedonewe.com or Etsy.

Justine Heinrichs is a musician, teacher and fiber artist who discovered needle felting and has never looked back. “Felting is such a joy. I love the organic, yet magical nature of wool and the endless ways it can be manipulated. You can create anything from lifelike figures to fantasy creatures. The sky’s the limit. I have been obsessed with exploring the possibilities of felting and sharing the joy of creating with others. And. I love sharing my passion in workshops where I can empower others to enjoy felting too.” Justine was among the first class of Sarafina Certified Instructors for teaching the art of felting and in a 2019 competition won Best of Show with her Harris Hawk. She uses her 34 years of public school teaching experience to lead workshops that offer all participants the opportunity to succeed in this most forgiving craft. She has previously taught workshops at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival.

Pat became fascinated with great wheels early on in her long spinning career, and has studied them extensively. With her husband, Vic, she co-authored an article titled “Spinning Wheels in Wisconsin” for the Wisconsin Magazine of History, and was a long time coordinator for the Wisconsin Spin-In. She has given many demonstrations and workshops featuring great wheels and their offshoots. She has also explored a wide variety of great wheel spinning techniques and has discovered that great wheels have very few limitations and offer many advantages to present-day spinners.

Stefania has been a life-long knitter, and started spinning and dyeing to supply herself with “the best yarns in the world!” She got her first Certificate of Excellence in Handspinning from the Handweaver’s Guild of America in 1997. Since then, she has opened her own business called Handspun by Stefania and taught numerous workshops dealing in natural dyes, spinning, and basket making. She has spoken about the fiber arts to numerous groups, and has appeared on Home & Garden TV as a guest on the Carol Duvall Show. Stefania sells handspun, natural hand-dyed roving, and handmade baskets. Previously a high school English teacher, she now enjoys teaching spinning, dyeing and knitting to fiber enthusiasts. Most recently, Stefania authored a book on natural dyeing, titled In Search of the Perfect Green and Orange, Too!

Linda Johnson is a recently retired materials engineer who has been knitting since she was four years old. She has been a shepherd for over three decades and has a passion for the felting process and the felting ability of different types of fibers. Leading the project to make the felt covering for a Mongolian Yurt in 2020 has been her capstone achievement so far. Sharing what she has learned with others is the focus of her future.

Deb is an enthusiastic hand spinner and teaches spinning workshops throughout the region, including at Sievers School of Fiber Arts and The Clearing. She is the owner of The Fiber Garden, a year-round fiber arts school and shop that has been featured in such magazines as American Small Farm, Impressions and Positive Thinking. She is also a travel consultant hosting travel tours focused on the fiber arts. For Deb it’s all a means to promote fiber arts and combine her love of spinning, dyeing, teaching and country living!

Anette Karlsson (formerly Skoog) is a Swedish skinnfell maker, Gotland sheep breeder and veterinarian. She has been a professional skinnfell maker for the past nine years and began her craft journey while living on a farm in central Sweden. Anette has been showing her art work in many judged art and craft shows across the country, including One of A Kind Show in Chicago and at the American Craft Council in Baltimore. Today, she lives on a family farm in northwest Michigan where she raises Gotland sheep and ismaking an increasing number of skinnfells for customers across the U.S. Her interest in teaching has taken her to twenty five states and she is a regular instructor at sheep and fiber events and private venues. When not working with animals or making craft items. Anette enjoys competing in the sport of archery on a national level.

Holin Kennen is an award-winning spinner and Coordinator of the Open Fleece Show at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival. She is also a wool judge, evaluates flocks for wool quality, teaches classes in spinning wool and flax and mentors others in wool judging. She is the author of the monthly blog “The Victorian Technology Institute.”

A retired research microbiologist, Letty Klein has a regular column in the Black Sheep Newsletter called “Michigan Shepherding.” In 2006 she co-authored and self published the book The Shepherds Rug – A Braided Rug from Roving. Since 1982 she has raised Karakul sheep on her Pine Lane Farm near Kalamazoo and has more recently judged fleeces as well as given ‘wool’ talks and rug braiding workshops all across the country. Letty will be judging the Open Fleece Show at the 2024 Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival.

Jenny Knavel received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997. She is a professor of art and design at Western Illinois University in Macomb, Il, where she teaches primarily design and digital photography classes. In addition to teaching, she is an active artist, her work having been juried into numerous regional, national and international exhibitions. In 2021, her artwork was selected to be on the cover of the SAQA Journal (Studio Art Quilt Associates), 2021, Volume 31, No. 2. Her shibori textile piece, Drumlin, was selected for the show Symphony of the Mountains and included in the publication Shuttle, Spindle and Dyepot, issue 204. She had work in the Second Biennial of Natural Dye Exhibition, China Silk Museum, Hangzhou, China. Additionally, she participated in the 40th Annual Contemporary Crafts show, Mesa Arizona, and her work was selected to be part of an online exhibition associated with The Natural Dyes in Northeast America Symposium Three: Past & Future Exhibition.

My husband and I started the family llama farm, Pine Knoll Llamas, in New London, WI in 1988, moving it to Clintonville six years later. My passion for fiber began at a llama outing where I saw llama fiber being combed and an internal switch was flipped on that changed my life forever! I love shearing my own llamas and processing my own wools and fibers. I love every aspect of wool and every level of processing it, as there is no greater joy than to take a fleece and to work with it to see the finished product. We opened a full retail yarn shop in 2010 called the Copper Llama, but after eleven years we closed it and moved to Oconto, WI where our llamas are now enjoying a view of Green Bay.

Bev has been weaving for the past thirty six years and teaching since 1999. She loves to share the joy of basket weaving to those around her, having taught her craft in more than eleven states and on Basket Weaving Cruises in the Caribbean. Making basket weaving fun, relaxing and inspiring is her goal. In 2003 Bev won the Eiteljorg Museum Weavers Challenge. In 2009 she added broom making as an offshoot of weaving and it too is now a passion of hers. She was named an Indiana Artisan by the State of Indiana in 2016 for her skills at broom making and basket weaving.

My first introduction to mending was when I was eight and my toes poked out of my socks. My mother handed me an old cigar box with various needles, embroidery floss and a light bulb. The box had belonged to my grandmother. My mother does not mend, but explained why the light bulb was in the box and that I was on my own. I was an earlier adapter of the visible mending movement with my attitude of “I like purple and I don’t care who sees it.” I am the proprietor of Purveyor of Fine Yarns in Madison, working with local shepherds and woolen mills to create single breed yarns – view at purveyoroffineyarns.com.

Heather Macali is an artist, designer and educator. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is currently an Associate Professor of Fashion and Fibers at Wayne State University in Detroit, MI. She has a vast knowledge of fiber techniques, specializing in dyeing, textile design, floor loom and jacquard weaving.

Nancy has been teaching for forty five years, taught high school for thirty five years and throughout her retirement has continued to give workshops and guest lectures. Her love of fibers started in her youth, living next door to her grandmother who taught her to knit, sew and garden. She continued her pursuit of fiber knowledge from college to present day. As an artist and creator, Nancy is skilled in weaving, knitting, felting, dyeing, and spinning among other techniques. She is passionate about sharing her knowledge with others, encouraging the exchange of creative discourse.

Ingrid and her husband Peter are the owners of Spry Whimsy Fiber Arts in Stoughton, WI. Ingrid has been spinning for over twenty years. She finished the Olds College Master Spinner Certificate Program in the summer of 2007 with her In Depth Study on Domestic Dog Fiber Characteristics for Handspinning. She teaches spinning at the store and at fiber festivals. She is a fiber evangelist and loves discussing the technical qualities of fiber types and their possible uses in end products.

Chiaki O’Brien is a SAORI Leader Committee Certificate recipient. She finished a year-long SAORI course in 2001 and worked at the SAORI head school in Japan before moving to Minnesota. She’s an artist-in-residence at schools, as well as teaching at assisted living facilities, Shepherd’s Harvest, Midwest Weavers Conference and other fiber related events in the U.S. In 2012 she was awarded a Jerome Fiber Artist Project Grant, allowing her to study Bengala Dyeing in Japan and she now teaches the natural soil dye process as well. SAORI Weaving taught her the way to create by following her heart and how wonderful it is to use our hands to create things, what a joy! Chiaki brought SAORI to Minnesota because she wants to share that joy with other fiber enthusiasts. She is a distributor of both SAORI Weaving and Bengala Dye and a Japanese Taiko drumming instructor and performer. She operates Studio FUN from her home in Bloomington.

Kathy has been involved with fiber in some way, shape or form for the past forty five years. She honed her craft both by earning a Master’s Degree in Dye Chemistry from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA, as well as studying with and learning from other artists. A retired instructor at the college level, she has taught biology, chemistry and geology for twenty nine years, but now devotes herself to fiber art full time. As Kathy’s work evolved, she began to focus on historic techniques and the use of traditional materials. She has traveled extensively over five continents, researching dyes and fiber arts. The yarns she creates are often dyed using ancient natural dyes extracted from plants in nature. She is the author of three books, including The Song of the Musk Ox where she delves into the spinning and fiber preparation of qiviut, the use of traditional natural dyes and the knitted designs of Dorothy Reade. Her numerous articles have been published in Color Trends, Spin Off, Ply Magazine and Rug Hooking Magazine. Kathy has taught many workshops over the years and enjoys discovering what wonders are out there, especially in the dye pot.

Kim lives on a farm near Prairieburg, Iowa. She recently retired from teaching but still can’t find enough time in the day for the knitting, spinning and felting she loves to do. And weaving is “looming” in the not-too-distant future! Kim’s Romney and Border Leicester fleeces have won awards at festivals in six states and at those festivals she regularly attends classes taught by nationally known artists. She loves combining her love of teaching and the fiber arts!

Ingrid has been making jewelry and art her whole life and about ten years ago started needle felting. She enjoys using things that might otherwise be thrown away and needle felting is a great way to do that!

Amy has degrees in modern dance, kinesiology and physiology. Her art and science backgrounds give her a keen understanding of learning and analyzing movement skills, composition, pattern recognition and systematic exploration. She translates that understanding into practical approaches to spinning and knitting techniques. She teaches spinning and knitting at venues across the country and is well known for her animated and engaging teaching style. Amy has numerous articles published in Spin Off and PLY Magazine and has also published in Interweave Knits and Handwoven. Find out more about her work at stonesockfibers.com.

Lori has had her hands in wool for almost forty years and she can’t decide which fiber practice is her favorite. So much wool, so little time! Over the years she has taught many levels of spinning, as well as wet and dry felting.

Elizabeth is a “mompreneur” who turned her love of wool into a thriving, family-run needle felting business called Felted Sky. Her line of kits and supplies can be found online and in over a hundred shops across the U.S. and Canada. She enjoys teaching through her kits, in person and online. Her work featured in Better Homes and Gardens, Do It Yourself magazine and on the Etsy blog. She has been teaching needle felting for nine years at a variety of fiber festivals, schools, local yarn shops and makers spaces. Elizabeth loves that she is able to promote stress relief, creativity and joy through needle felting.