Ann McElroy, Judith Rygiel, Jan Scott, Elizabeth Watt
Ann McElroy
Ann McElroy
Ann lives on a working sheep farm in Eastern Ontario with her extended family. She has been felting for more than 10 years and takes pleasure in teaching and sharing her work through the Ottawa Valley Weavers and Spinners Guild, and independently. Ann enjoys exploring texture and colour through using different wools and fibres. The combining fine wool and fine woven fabric into nuno felt is a particular favourite. Recently she added her own felting kits to her repertoire. Ann shares her enthusiasm for felting through the Felting and Fiber Studio blog and forum.
Judith Rygiel
Judith Rygiel has extensive experience in both weaving and teaching. She took her first weaving class 45 years ago and has loved it ever since. She earned both a Master Weaver certificate with the Guild of Canadian Weavers and an Ontario Handweavers and Spinners’ Instructor’s certificate in 1978. Judith returned to university later in life to study textile history, especially in Maritime Canada. She completed a Ph.D. in Canadian History from Carleton University in 2004. She has run a professional weaving studio for the past 40 years and is a specialist on Acadian textiles in both Maritime Canada and Louisiana.
Jan Scott
Jan has a BA in fine art and art history as well as 3 years of commercial art. She has a love of textiles and texture. She has a large collection of looms and spinning wheels including a diminutive great wheel! She is try’s to fit them all in a little house already full of books. She has been teaching classes through the SCA and OVWSG on topics from silver point drawing to warp weighted looms but she really enjoys the simplicity and portability of the inkle band loom. She has been experimenting with needle felted sculpture with armatures (they bend so may fit into her house). she is easily distracted by the question “is this spinnable?”
Elizabeth Watt
Elizabeth Watt
Elizabeth received her Ontario Handweavers and Spinners Master Spinner Certificate in 2011 upon completion of her in-depth study entitled “Pot as Mordant: In Search of a Safer Natural Dye Method”. A serious knitter from the age of 14, she finally learned to spin while in Graduate School in Vermont. She joined the OVWSG in 1993. She began teaching spinning at the OVWSG more than 10 years ago and has been introducing others to the joy of making yarn ever since. Having adamantly insisted she would not weave, she somehow allowed an Inkle and a Rigid Heddle loom into her Fibre Space (they were later followed by 3 floor looms, but that’s another story) and now enthusiastically shares her exploration of the extremely portable and versatile RH loom.