Julie Johnson and Alice Russell hold up Alice's "Quilt of Valor"[/caption]
Detail of "It's Fall, Y'all: Fun Scrappy Autumn Quilt" by Audrey Hiers[/caption]
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Audrey teaches Sara about quilt design in the Folk School Quilting Studio.[/caption]
CP: How did you get so involved in the quilting world?
AH: Probably because of the quilting genes in the family. Both of my grandmothers quilted and although I never saw either of them at the frame, I do believe in heredity! You could say I fell into it, and once I tried it, I got hooked big time. I seriously started quilting in the early 80s and taught my first class in 1987.
CP: Has quilting changed since then?
Comparing quilting 1980s to now is like the difference between night and day. For the most part we still use fabric and that's about it.
CP: What’s your favorite holiday motif?
AH: My favorite holiday motif is a sprig of freshly cut pine with holly sprigs mixed in. Alone, it would be a holly leaf.
CP: How is Appalachian style quilting different from quilting in other regions? Does it have any distinctive characteristics?
Folk school gardens[/caption]
Their history is fascinating. The school’s namesake, John C. Campbell was described by his colleagues at Piedmont College as “the guy from up North that you can get along with” when he was president of the school. In 1903, he and his wife Olive Dame outfitted a covered wagon and set out to explore Appalachia. John interviewed farmers about their agricultural practices and Olive collected traditional ballads and studied the handicrafts. They aspired to improve the quality of education in the region but they were also studying the wonderful crafts, music and tools that mountain people used. Beyond cruel stereotypes, not much was known of this region at the time. The book of ballads Olive eventually published is still the seminal work on the subject.
We just had a visitor come through our knitting class. She told us that she was a knitter but that she could "never do what we were doing!" And all of the students exclaimed at once that of course she could!
So what are we doing that looks so complicated but is so based in common sense that we think this newcomer could totally handle it?
Well, here's what we're doing in the knitting room this week: Top Down Stranded Yoke Sweaters (without a pattern). Sounds intense, right? Sounds like you need a lot of experience? Nope! Really, all we are doing is the knit stitch and increasing.
We're starting at our necklines, learning how to do the knit stitch with one color in each hand (stranded knitting), and then we are increasing as we work beautiful designs down to the widest part of our shoulders (the "yoke"). Since we each have different body sizes and proportions, and we each fancy different types of designs, we are going off-road and making up our own sweater patterns as we go.
I stopped by the Yarn Circle on a Monday afternoon to speak with Martha Owen, our beloved longtime Resident Artist in Spinning, Knitting, Dyeing and Felt Making. We talked about many things including fiber arts, raising sheep, travel, artistic process, Fair Isle, her rich history with the Folk School, and more. Enjoy our interview!
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Don't ever lead your sheep with feed! A student photo op pic by Bonnie Shearer[/caption]
CP: How did you become involved with the Folk School?
MO: There was one year when I was a wee lass that I came to Little Folk School. I must have been 8, 9, or 10. I grew up in Pennsylvania, but my mother, Mary Porter Fain Owen came from Murphy. I would spend the summers here with my grandmother. At that time there was only one group of kids in Little Folk School. I learned to dance and I still sing the song I learned.
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Photo shoot for Early American Life Magazine: Spinning near Festival Barn, August 1988 - That's Emolyn drinking a "grape coke" and trying to be good[/caption]
The next time, I was in college and I came for dancing again. I was doing volunteer work with a local church and we came to the dance one night. One summer my mother gave me a spinning wheel she had gotten from my great aunt and said: “Look! You always did like weird stuff.” She put the wheel down in front of me walked off and I thought “Well, I don’t know how to work with this thing.” My grandmother was reading the Cherokee Scout and saw an ad that the Campbell Folk School had a two-week class in Spinning and Dyeing. She said "Why don’t you go down and learn?" I said “Well, maybe I will.”
The full craft program that we have now had started in the '70s. The class was taught in Open House by Pam Strawn. We would card and spin and then do a dye pot when we had a pound of yarn between all of us. From that I made my first vest and I wore it for years to prove to my students that you should make something for any yarn you spin, you don’t have to wait until you spin “perfect” yarn.
My whole life turned left after taking that spinning class. That was 1978. I married my enabler, David Liden in 1979, and I had sheep by 1980.
CP: Tell me about your first sheep.
MO: I bought two ewes with lambs by their sides. One of the lambs was called "Maw Maw" and was the same age as my oldest daughter, Annie Fain. Maw Maw's portrait is hanging in our house. She was a pretty important sheep and I learned a lot of things from her. She lived to be 17.
CP: Do you have tips for beginning sheep owners?
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Ro-bear and Julliet, our current Great Pyrenees dogs - they weigh at least 125 pounds each now and live with the sheep (Oh, and Martha and David!) - Photo by Charlotte Crittenden[/caption]
MO: Now I have 35 sheep, but you've got to start small. Sheep reproduce quickly. While you are learning about things like housing, worming, and hoof trimming, etc, the fewer sheep the better. Security is also top priority. Sheep don’t have a way to protect themselves besides snorting, stomping, and running away which is very attractive to dogs. The biggest problems you have are neighbors' dogs and strays. Try security animals like llamas, donkeys, or Great Pyrenees. I have two Great Pyrenees right now. I haven't had any predator problems since they have been here. We are on our fourth generation. A border collie's job is the tell the sheep what to do, but the Pyrenees protect the sheep. They live with the sheep.
CP: As a current resident artist, one of your duties is to schedule teachers for the knitting, dyeing, felt making and spinning classes at the Folk School. How do you find them?
MO: Every possible way you can think of. We need someone who is passionate about what they do, someone who has done their craft a lot, but is a good teacher. I am always looking around and listening.
Quilted Landscape by instructor Karen Tunnell[/caption]
When I stepped into Karen Tunnell's "Quilted Landscapes" class, every wall had a different window peeking into a beautiful and unique world. The "windows" were the quilts students had been working on all week. Many worked from "near and dear" personal photographs of places that inspired them.
[caption id="attachment_9825" align="alignright" width="313"] Reference photo & landscape quilt by Stephanie Wilds[/caption]
Stephanie Wilds from Black Mountain, NC used a photo she took of the Folk School labyrinth on a previous visit. The result was a gorgeous depiction of the garden rivaling the beauty of the original photo.
Stephanie is an experienced quilter and has taken several classes at the Folk School including Marilyn Wall's "Fabricating Faces" and Julie Sibley's "Design on Paper and Fabric," which she refers to as "life and career changing." She is currently creating the quilt to be displayed at the 2014 Swannanoa Gathering. We can't wait to see what see comes up with! Find out more about Stephanie on her website.
Margaret Radcliffe is teaching two Knitting classes next month at the Folk School: My First Sock (Feb. 28 - March 2 / Weekend) and the Easiest Sweaters in the World (March 2-8). Come learn new techniques to take your garment knitting to the next level (or the first level if you are new to socks and sweaters). I chatted with Margaret about Knitting, the Folk School, and what it is like to write about Knitting. Enjoy our interview!
[caption id="attachment_9786" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Sweater by Margaret Radcliffe[/caption]
CP: Where are you from?
MR: I grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, and now live in Blacksburg.
Community Knitting Project[/caption]
CP: How long have you been coming to/teaching at the Folk School?
MR: Since 1997. I was starting out as a knitting designer and teacher and saw an ad for the Folk School in Knitters Magazine. I got a catalog and discovered that there was one week in the summer, Little/Middle Folk School, when I could come with my daughter. She was just old enough (seven), so that summer we both came. We loved it so much, we kept coming back. It was actually years before I even approached the school to teach-I was too busy learning. That summer was the beginning of a tradition, attending Little/Middle with my kids, that lasted 15 years. I started teaching knitting, both adult classes and during Little/Middle in 2004. A few years later I expanded to add dyeing to my classes.
Cindy Alley wrote a great...
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