Weaving:
Joan Namkoong has been weaving for over 20 years mostly with silk, cotton and linen. She weaves items like shawls, scarves, dishtowels, baby blankets, rugs and other functional items and likes to explore the creation of textures through weave structure and color. She is a longstanding member of the Hawaii Handweavers’ Hui.
Spinning:
Jan Dean is the shepherd for her small flock of purebred Romney sheep which she raises on a small family farm in Kalopa Mauka area of Hamakua on the Big Island. The fleeces are traditionally hand processed after shearing-through washing/scouring process, hand picking and carding, then spinning into yarn. She experiments by using modern dyes and techniques. Jan is primarily a spinner and knitter, but also needle felts, felts knitted fabrics, braids rugs and dyes. She volunteers with the Hawaii Sheep and Goat Association, the Grazing Lands Conservation Initiative, supports school gardens and occasionally remembers to feed her husband.
Knitting & Crocheting:
Stephanie Macdonald’s passion for knitting began nearly 8 years ago. Looking for a creative project to take along on long flights for her job, a friend handed her 5 slim sticks of bamboo, an instruction manual and a skein of sock yarn. Figuring out what to do with the “sticks” led her on a wonderful journey of sock knitting then sweater knitting a so forth.
Steff uses her love of knitting and 15 years in e-learning to provide an easy, relaxing style of instruction to new and experienced knitters. Born and raised in Ka’u, Steff recently returned to the Big Island with her sticks, Books and her stash of great fibers. Her “talk story” style of teaching makes for an enjoyable and entertaining knitting class.
Knitting & Felting:
Kije Hazelwood learned to knit in High School but didn’t really do much until she got stranded in New Hampshire having a couple of babies and was unable to leave home to work (68 ya know). Working from home she knitted Fisherman Cable Sweaters for sale until a move to California took her on a new career path and she started law school. She wasn’t to return to knitting for three decades, but her enjoyment simmered there as she worked her way through the legal/corporate business portion of her life. She took up her needles again in 2006 as she was approaching retirement. She’s never enjoyed it more and keeps her creative side pumping. Sixty-five, married, a mother of three, step mom to four, grandma to ten (at last count) she knits for them all plus her brothers, her dad and his step family, their wives and their kids. It’s a rare day when she doesn’t make some stitches happen.
