Workshop

Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026  2:30-4:30pm

Beyond the Edge: Explorations in Blanket Stitch.
It’s not just for blankets anymore!

Come explore all sorts of variations on a single versatile embroidery stitch, from organic and cellular forms to landscapes and geometric shapes.  This workshop is open to all experience levels; whether you're new to embroidery, do it often, or are out of practice, you will have a fun and relaxing time stitching together.

All materials will be provided.

• Date: Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026
• Time: 2:30 - 4:30pm
• Location: First United Methodist Church, 1421 Spruce St., Boulder, Parlor Room
• Class size: 16
• Workshop fee: Free for members and $40 for nonmembers
• Materials fee: Donations appreciated

Payment method is online only with a credit card. If you would like to pay by check or cash, you must contact programs@handweaversofboulder.org to register for the workshop.

FREE PARKING at Boulder Parking Garages on Saturdays.  Closest location to the church is at 15th & Pearl  The parking garage at 11th & Spruce is closed for construction until mid Oct.

To register for the workshop click here.

Janet Strickler
Mixed media artist

Janet Strickler is a mixed media artist who has been around fiber arts her whole life.  She received a 2026 Handweavers Guild of Boulder scholarship to travel to England and study Organic Forms in Hand Embroidery with Mirjam Gielen, an artist from the Netherlands.  This workshop is her reciprocation with the Guild for the scholarship.

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Day Meeting	October 12, 2026 9am
Evening Meeting	October 13, 2026 7pm

In-Person Meetings

Day Meeting Presentation: Clothing Journey

Where does your yarn and clothing come from? Where is it going? We will discuss fiber sources, supply chains, processing and manufacturing, scale, and circularity.

Evening Meeting Presentation: Fiber Content & Shopping for Sweater Yarn

Learn about commercial sweaters and reading labels. Shopping for a sweater to unravel? You'll find out why not all sweaters are a good fit.

Also at October Meetings
In-Person HGB Fiber Art Show & Sale Assistance
Standards Review – Sale Tech – Parim – Publicity

Justin Near
Fiber Artist and Owner of LoMaNa (Locally Made in Nashville)

Justin Near​ is a Nashville, TN fiber artist and homeschooler who has a passion for sustainability and supporting local and regional communities and economies. In recent years, Justin has become a regular instructor at regional fiber festivals, is an occasional writer with Ply magazine, and is developing an annual fiber industry conference with Southern Fiber. Growing up, Justin was surrounded by crocheting, knitting, embroidery, and sewing, and dabbled in many of those as well as closely related fiber arts. As an adult, not long after beginning their homeschool journey, a door into the fiber world was reopened at a young child’s birthday party where wool and spindles were the theme. In her day job, Justin builds, manages, and supports websites and has a strong love for learning new technology. This carries into the fiber arts world, which is very closely related to the sciences – dyeing and chemistry, spinning and physics, design and engineering, and weaving and programming – so Justin feels quite at home here and hopes to pass on that love and passion to as many people as possible so that they, too, can experience the magic and beauty of working with raw, natural materials.

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Yarn on a Budget: Upcycling Sweaters with Justin Near

Unraveling knit sweaters can provide you with plenty of high-quality yarn (up to a mile!) at a very low cost. Learn how to choose the right sweater to unravel, de-seam a sweater (the hard part!), and unravel it (the fun part!). Every student will be provided with one thrift-store sweater to keep, or bring a sweater from home to learn more about it. 

There will be tools to share, but feel free to bring a ballwinder if you have one and any tools like lights or magnifiers that might help you see detailed work

Suitable for all levels.

• Date: Sunday, Oct. 11, 2026
• Time: 1pm - 4pm
• Location: Mountain View Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place, Boulder, Rm. 215
• Class size: 10
• Workshop fee: $65

Payment method is online only with a credit card. If you would like to pay by check or cash, you must contact programs@handweaversofboulder.org to register for the workshop.

Please note: Workshop will be held at the old location, Mountain View Methodist Church, 355 Ponca Place, Boulder, Rm. 215

To register for the workshop click here.

Register

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In-Person Meetings

Day Meeting Presentation: Weaving without Tension:  How to free your mind (and your warp); understanding SAORI philosophy

Weaving without angst and the need for perfection.
Learn about SAORI weaving philosophy, its 4 tenets and consider the possibilities for weaving with a different mindset, allowing freedom of expression to influence your weaving.  You may be surprised at the results!

Evening Mini Worshop: From Tableware to Dinnerwear

Move beyond dish towels and placemats. Consider using your weaving to create and wear your own unique style from woven cloth to wearable clothing.
Laura will share some pieces of SAORI clothing and show how patterns are created in a simple way.

Laura Roveda

Owner of SAORI Studio LA - Weaving From the Heart.  She is a student and teacher of SAORI weaving.

Los Angeles native, Laura Roveda has dabbled in wet felting and basket making, and discovered SAORI weaving in 2009 while living on an island in British Columbia, Canada. The opportunity to be able to weave freely, without a need for perfection or precision, was compelling enough to immerse herself fully in the philosophy. Deepening her understanding by weaving as a means of self-expression and without rules was life-changing. Not having woven prior to discovering SAORI, but as a potter suffering from perfectionism, this was a wonderful liberation with which to begin a new creative journey. Laura opened her SAORI studio in 2011 and has been teaching classes from her home studio since that time. She has offered workshops and presentations and will travel anywhere to share SAORI philosophy and weaving.
She has visited Japan multiple times to deepen her experience of SAORI and learn more from the Jo family and others. She was fortunate to be present to celebrate many birthdays of SAORI founder, Misao Jo who passed away in 2018 at the age of 104!

Laura’s background has been in working as a clinical social worker, and over the years worked with children and their families, the elderly in end-or-life care/case management and also worked with survivors of human rights abuses seeking asylum in the US..

She is a seeker of beauty and enjoys photography, gardening and smelling the roses.

Website: www.saoristudioLA.com

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In-Person Meetings
Holiday Celebration Buffet and Ornament Exchange

The celebration starts with food - of course!

• Bring-A-Dish Buffet - All are invited to contribute a ready to serve and easily shared food item to the buffet - along with any utensils required for serving
• Tote along your own dinnerware, utensils and napkins to reduce waste

Day Meeting: 9 a.m. Set-Up

Evening Meeting: 6 p.m. Set-Up

The HGB Holiday Celebration includes a handmade fiber-art-related ornament exchange, each participant brings one wrapped handmade fiber related ornament.

The ornament exchange is a long-standing tradition leading to many laughs and a few quick steals! Come join in the fun - or watch the commotion! The choice is yours!

Ornament Exchange

Do I need to participate in the Ornament Exchange?

I'm new to the Guild. Can I still come to the December meeting holiday celebration? 
What should I bring? 
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Day Meeting	January 11, 2027 10am	Zoom
Evening Meeting	January 12, 2027 7pm	Zoom

Zoom Meetings

Day Meeting Presentation: Breed-specific Wools: What They Are and Why They Matter

Wool grows in an amazing range of varieties with all sorts of different properties, and the wool you want to use to make a camisole isn’t the same wool you’d choose to make a laptop case or stuff a mattress with. Wools vary in comfort, warmth, durability, and other factors that can make or break our textile projects. What is a breed? Why do breeds matter? What are some breed-specific wools, and how do we best use them? With a combination of science and art, we can broaden our fiber horizons and have more fun with the fabrics we construct and use.

Evening Mini Worshop: Animal Fiber Primer for Spinners, Knitters, Weavers, Crocheters. . . 

This program is geared toward fiber or yarn users. Deb describes types of fiber critters and the fiber they produce, organized as the mainstays, the outliers, and the luxury fibers (some expensive and at least one surprisingly not), and gives tips on buying and using animal-source fibers. She will go through some breed examples and touch on saving rare breeds, and conclude with an appreciation of the small-scale farmers, shepherds, and ranchers who are raising the fiber we love here and around the globe.

Deborah Robson

Speaker, Spinner

Deborah Robson is a fiber generalist who specializes in spinning, knitting, and weaving, although she experiments with all aspects of textiles. She is the fiber author of The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook and of The Field Guide to Fleece, in collaboration with livestock expert Carol Ekarius. For fourteen years she worked at Interweave Press, editing both books and Spin-Off magazine. Her current research focuses on the millennia of alliances between fiber animals and humans, in one project using Shetland sheep as an example of how the relationships have evolved, and she is publishing monographs on fiber-related topics.

Website: independentstitch.com

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Day Meeting	February 8, 2027 10am	Zoom
Evening Meeting	February 9, 2027 7pm	Zoom

Zoom Meetings

Day Meeting Presentation: A Journey in Felt

Karen would like to take us on a journey through time and across continents to explore the fascinating story of feltmaking — where it began, why it was developed, and how this remarkable material has endured through thousands of years.

We’ll travel back to Central Eastern Asia, where archaeologists uncovered some of the earliest known felted artefacts from ancient burial sites in the early 1900s. These extraordinary discoveries give us a glimpse into the lives of people who were working with wool fibre long before written records existed.

From there, our journey will move through time and across different countries, discovering traditional felted objects and techniques that were first made hundreds of years ago and are still being made today.

And finally, we’ll bring our journey right up to the present day, where she will introduce us to some of the incredibly innovative and inspiring feltmakers working today — artists who are experimenting, challenging traditional ideas and pushing the boundaries of what we might imagine felt can be.

So, from ancient burial sites to contemporary studios, together we will uncover the remarkable story of feltmaking and discover just how far this humble material has travelled.

Evening Meeting Presentation: Taking Fiber on the Road: Building and Touring Large-Scale Fiber Installations

After more than 22 years knitting professionally for fashion, film, and commercial clients, Emilie Odeile made an unexpected pivot. Together with her creative partner, Ken Chapin, she founded Dundee & Lee to create architectural-scale fiber art that transforms spaces and invites people to step inside the story. Their first collaboration, Goodnight Moon: A Fiber Tale, became a traveling exhibition, followed by Stampede, a site-specific installation for the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art, and most recently Space Cowboy, a statewide traveling exhibition exploring the intersection of art, science, and community. This presentation explores what it takes to move beyond traditional fiber practice and into large-scale installation work. Emilie and Ken will share how they design, fabricate, transport, install, and maintain traveling exhibitions, how engineering and textile techniques work together, and what they've learned about collaborating as artistic partners while creating immersive experiences that engage thousands of visitors.

Karen Lane

Fiber artist and owner of Lincs In Stitches.

Karen Lane discovered Feltmaking quite by chance in 2014 but it was the exhibition Black Sheep: The Darker Side Of Felt that inspired me to learn this ancient craft. Seeing the incredible work on display led me to search out some of the artists concerned, Marjolein Dallinger, Gladys Paulus, Maria Friese, in order to learn how I too could create fascinating three dimensional forms from something as humble as sheep’s fibre. I’ve always been drawn to shape and texture so I’ve specialised in three dimensional, textural felt and gone on to teach others what I have learnt. I am currently a Regional Coordinator for Region 8 of the International Feltmakers Association and I will be forever grateful for the opportunities and friendships Feltmaking has opened up to me.

Website: lincsinstitches.com

Emilie Odeile and Ken Chapin, founders of Dundee and Lee LLC

Emilie Odeile is a fiber artist and Ken Chapin is an artist, designer and experienced builder

Emilie Odeile is a professional fiber artist with more than 22 years of experience creating knitted work for the fashion, film, and commercial industries. After decades of designing for clients, she co-founded Dundee & Lee with creative partner Ken Chapin to explore the possibilities of architectural-scale fiber art. Emilie leads the artistic vision for the studio, combining knitting, crochet, tufting, embroidery, and other textile techniques to create immersive environments that invite people to experience fiber art in entirely new ways. Her work includes the traveling exhibitions Goodnight Moon: A Fiber Tale and Space Cowboy, as well as Stampede, a site-specific installation for the A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art. 

Ken Chapin is an artist, designer, and experience builder whose work focuses on connecting people through creativity. As co-founder of Dundee & Lee, he translates artistic concepts into fully realized installations by designing the structures, lighting, electronics, logistics, and interactive elements that allow large-scale fiber artworks to travel and engage audiences. His background in community engagement, experiential design, and statewide collaboration helps transform each exhibition into a platform for storytelling and participation. Together with Emilie Odeile, he has developed nationally recognized fiber installations that bring together art, engineering, and human connection.

Website: dundeeandlee.com

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Day Meeting	March 8, 2027 9am
Evening Meeting	March 9, 2027 7pm

In-Person Meetings

Day Meeting Presentation: Coming Soon

Detail to be posted soon!

Evening Mini Worshop: Coming Soon

Detail to be posted soon!

Coming Soon

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Day Meeting	April 12, 2027 9am
Evening Meeting	April 13, 2027 7pm

In-Person Meetings

Day Meeting Presentation: Coming Soon

Detail to be posted soon!

Evening Mini Worshop: Coming Soon

Detail to be posted soon!

Coming Soon

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Day Meeting	May 10, 2027 9am
Evening Meeting	May 11, 2027 7pm

In-Person Meetings

Day Meeting Presentation: Coming Soon

Detail to be posted soon!

Evening Mini Worshop: Coming Soon

Detail to be posted soon!