Spin – a – Skein Competition Sponsor

Helen from Mawdsley Fibre Arts is our Spin-a-Skein Competition Sponsor.  Helen has engaged with the fibre arts her whole life, and about 5 years ago, she began woodturning to augment her passion of fibre arts.  She is particularly drawn to knitting, spinning, embroidery, weaving, crochet, and quilting.  Unfortunately, there are numerous tools used in fibre arts that were challenging to find – she stubbornly taught herself woodturning, so that she could make them.  As she learns more about woodturning, she is enabled to explore new shapes and styles of fibre art tools.  In particular, she enjoys working with hollow forms and multi-axis turning as these are able to add additional functionality to fibre art tools, not previously realized, as well as introduce a novel aesthetic. While her work focuses primarily at the intersection of woodturning and fibre arts, she also enjoys creating beautiful and useful wooden household items such as vases, candlesticks, bowls, platters, etc., as well as artistic pieces. She have recently started to expand this work by incorporating blacksmithing, creating a whole new range of fibre art tools and artistic pieces to create. Her work as a fibre artist and woodturner has appeared in Spin Off and Piecework magazines by Long Thread Media, Digits & Threads magazine, in the book 52 Weeks of Shawls with Laine Publishing Oy in Finland, as well as numerous self-published patterns.  She is also a member of the Alberta Craft Council, and her work is shown at both the Edmonton and Calgary galleries.