Above: A collection of Susan Feller's rugs at Ruckman Mill Farm.
Above: Steaming dye pots and some ingredients for natural dyes at Laurie Gundersen's studio.
Below: Natural dye ingredients.
Above: Closeup view of stitching for a shibori dye project.
Above: A hooked rug in progress, Susan Feller's Summer Fantasy.
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Natural Dyeing and
Rug Hooking
July 25-27, 2008
Textile artisans Laurie Gundersen and Susan Feller will head up three days of exploring primitive dyeing and rug hooking. We will be setting up our kettles on the shores of the Shavers Fork of the Cheat, gathering dyestuff and learning different resist techniques to create patterns on silk and wool. We will then use our freshly dyed fabrics to create hooked rug art. Participants may sample the basics of the two crafts or decide to hone one or the other. During day one, we will be working with the inventive art of shape resist dyeing, known as shibori. Day two will focus on rug hooking skills. By the end of three days you will go home with shibori dyeing and rug hooking skills, hand-dyed textiles and a hooked project. 3-day, 4-night package: $480.00
Includes tuition, lodging, and meals Tuition only: $210.00
3 full days of workshops
Above: Susan Feller's Nurturing Friendship won a $500 Merit Award in the 2007 West Virginia Juried Exhibition. Several rug hooking techniques are incorporated in the work.
About the Workshop Leaders
Susan Feller has been rug hooking since 1994 although since childhood any fiber craft has interested her. The traditional connection, recycling, and creative opportunity to paint with strips of wool fabric attracted Feller to the rug hooking techniques.
Encouraging others to find their own creative voice with fiber, Susan can encourage traditional rug hookers and fiber artists. She teaches nationwide; is chair of TIGHR , the International Guild of Handhooking Rugmakers; and with her partner, Jim Lilly, operates their studio/log home located in Augusta, West Virginia. They offer a full line of rug patterns and hand dyed wools through their Ruckman Mill Farm website.
Laurie Gundersen describes herself as a utilitarian folk artist: a dyer, spinner, weaver, piecer, and quilter. She has operated a textile studio since 1980, slowly evolving an avocation of using her “scrap.” She continues to find inspiration in the primitive spirit of wasting-not, using every square inch, whether in a woven rag cloth on the loom or a pieced quilt.
Laurie likes to experiment with different types of dyeing, and natural dyeing gives her great satisfaction. She also works with wood as a fiber, weaving baskets from hickory bark, split oak, poplar bark, and honeysuckle, and has discovered that wood is a great dye for the other textiles she creates. Hickory bark, for instance, yields a beautiful, strong yellow. The black walnut hull contains juglone, a brown pigment that makes a perfect dye for cloth and a great stain for woodenware.
Laurie's work has won numerous awards, including a $3,500 Artist Fellowship from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts. She owns and operates Goff House Antiques & Textile Studio in historic Beverly, WV. More of Laurie's work may be seen at her Appalachian Piecework website.
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