MAWS - Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners
INSTRUCTORS
Annetta Kraayeveld
Annetta Kraayeveld has been teaching at basketry and fiber events since 2000. She began teaching functional rattan baskets and miniatures in black ash. In 2008 she began using paper and cotton cord in her work and added this medium to her classes. Over the years her medium of choice has become paper and cords.
Finished basket sizes will vary. The instructor will provide students a selection of colors for each basket and a workshop folder with detailed step by step weaving instructions.
Annetta teaches 20 to 60 classes/workshops a year to students of all skill levels (via 6 to 14 events across North America). She teaches contemporary vessel forms by plaiting painted watercolor paper and washable paper and ply-split braiding hand-spun cords. The workshops presented here have been taught in other locations, although not in Montana or any of the surrounding states.
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WORKSHOPS:
Diagonal Twill Basics
Paper Japanese Leaf Scoop
Magic Folded Pouch
Papyrus-Paper Business Card Basket
CATEGORIES:
Basketry
WEBSITES:
Annette Swan Schipf
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Annette Swan Schipf loves sharing her love of weaving with others. For her, it is a joy when the “light comes on” for a student. She has been teaching weaving & dyeing classes since 1987 through adult education, private classes, and for various weaving guilds and seminars at state weaving conventions. Annette was a member of Gallery 16, a local co-op art gallery, and she has been active in the Montana Association of Weavers & Spinners (MAWS). Multiple pieces of hers have been selected and/or won awards at national weavers conventions, the MAWS juried competition, the juried art show at the state fair, etc. Her hand woven pieces have been sold locally, across the state, and in California and Massachusetts. Annette graduated from Montana State University with a degree in Business Marketing with an emphasis on Clothing and Textiles; she worked in retail fashion in Seattle Washington after graduation. When she and her husband moved back to Montana to settle on the family ranch she took the opportunity to begin the adventure and love affair she has had with hand weaving ever since.
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WORKSHOPS:
Buttons & Beads
Krogbragd or Summer & Winter Basket
CATEGORIES:
Weaving​
Barbara French
Barbara French is a maker with a life-long devotion to natural fibers. She learned to sew and knit from her mother at a young age. Beginning in high school days, she was making and designing her own clothes. Later, weaving, spinning, and dyeing were added to her fiber obsessions. Barb studied music and languages at Montana State University and taught school for many years. While owning a yarn shop in Bozeman in the 2000’s, the focus of her teaching turned toward the fiber arts. Most recently, her fiber work involves lots of color play in rug and towel weaving, natural dye experiments, and figuring out fun ways to use up her embarrassingly large fiber stash. Barbara is a founder of the Montana Fibershed organization, which is focused on growing a sustainable textile economy in Montana. She was honored as a MAWS Living Treasure in 2024.
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WORKSHOPS:
Learning to Weave on a Rigid Heddle Loom
CATEGORIES:
Weaving
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Cindy Knisely
Cindy Koedoot Knisely has been a fiber addict since birth. When she was young she would visit a nextdoor neighbor who sewed and ask for fabric scraps so she could make doll clothes for her dollies. As she grew older she learned to sew, knit, and crochet. Then she discovered quilting. As an adult, she found her true loves in spinning and weaving. Cindy was a Michigan Public School teacher for more than 27 years. She infused her love of the fiber arts into her teaching. She even ran a rug weaving studio with her Special Education Students. She has been teaching adults and children weaving, spinning, and small-loom techniques (continuous strand looms, potholder looms,) as well as Locker Hooking, and Tooth Brush Rug Making for many years, Now retired, Cindy is happiest when she has some sort of fiber project in her hands.
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WORKSHOPS:
Continuous Strand Weaving
CATEGORIES:
Weaving
Committee
MAWS 2026 Committee
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WORKSHOPS:
Hands on Bateman
CATEGORIES:
Weaving
Dawn Ahlert
Dawn began exploring the fiber arts at a young age. Her passion for learning and fiber arts has driven her to explore many areas of the medium. Dawn’s years as a hairstylist contribute to her deep understand of fiber and color. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing from University of Central Florida and Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from Montana State University. Dawn earned The Handweavers Guild of America’s Certificate of Excellence for Level 1: Technical Skills in Handweaving in 2020, and Level 2: Master Weaver in 2022. She has also received the HGA’s Award that honors outstanding exhibited works of fiber art and first place in HGA’s Wearable Art Exhibition at Convergence in 2024.
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Dawn is a member of the Southwest Montana Fiber Arts Guild, the Helena Spinners and Weavers Guild, and the current president of the Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners (MAWS). She is excited to continue to share her knowledge through teaching and conducting workshops in weaving, spinning, and fine art.
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WORKSHOPS:
Elevate Plain Weave with Warp Pickup
Taniko - Weft Twining inspired by Indigenous People
CATEGORIES:
Weaving​
Denise Jackson
Denise Jackson is a fifth-generation spinner and weaver from Central Montana She is a member of the Great Falls Spinners and Weavers Guild. She also is a fiber arts judge who works with the Northwest Regional Spinning Association (NwRSA) on setting fiber arts judging standards for the state of Montana. Denise completed her master’s degree in communications and leadership with the goal of becoming a better teacher and judge. She teaches nalbinding, lace knitting, Shetland hap shawls, socks, all levels of spinning, fleece judging, project planning, and more. She is a published author for Spin-Off magazine including the articles “Troubleshooting,” “Making Videos for Spinning,” and “Helpful Websites.”
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WORKSHOPS:
Lace Knitting
Colorwork Knitting - Stranded, Mosaic, Double
Techniques in Knitting - Trapping Colors/Steeking
CATEGORIES:
Knitting
Heavenly Bresser
​Heavenly Bresser is an award-winning hand spinner, spinning wheel restorer, and international fiber arts instructor. Some of her areas of passion include a love for working with color, working from fleece, as well as, researching historic information for antique spinning wheels.
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WORKSHOPS:
Think Outside the Braid
Blend & Spin with Wild Silk
Blending Board: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
Slow to Quick: Ease Your Way into Longdraw
CATEGORIES:
Spinning
WEBSITES:
Joanne Hall
​Joanne Hall is a weaver, teacher, and author with a Masters Degree in Textile Design from the University of Minnesota. After teaching at the University of Montana and Cal Poly, she began weaving tapestries, teaching in her studio, and traveling to teach. Author of five books, she has been teaching weaving for over 50 years, including tapestry, drawloom weaving, and the Swedish Art Weaves.
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After growing up in a Minnesota community with a rich weaving culture, she expanded her knowledge by traveling to Sweden to connect with family and professional weavers. She studied traditional Swedish weaving techniques and collaborated with individuals in the Scandinavian textile world.
Joanne is a MAWS Living Treasure and was inducted into the Montana Circle of Masters by the Montana Arts Council in 2025.
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WORKSHOPS:
Swedish Art Weaves - Dukagang & Rollakan
CATEGORIES:
Weaving
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Judith Colvin
​I am a feltmaker living and working in the Mission Valley of Montana. My involvement with fiber art dates back forty years. I have passionately pursued felting for the last twenty years. My love of color and texture have taken me on a path of continuous learning, as one new technique leads to another. Using traditional wet felting techniques I have created hats, scarves, garments, lights, items for the home, and, well, the possibilities are endless.
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WORKSHOPS:
Felting a Shawl Pin
Felting a Necklace/Collar
CATEGORIES:
Felting
WEBSITES:
Karen Griffing
Karen Griffing has been spinning, weaving, felting, braiding, natural dyeing, and knitting for more than 45 years. She has been sharing her interests by teaching and demonstrating at schools, museums, historical parks, fairs, festivals, guild meetings, and conferences. Most recently, she is making and weaving on a warp-weighted loom. She lives and creates in Corvallis, Montana, where she likes to garden, hike, and care for a small group of alpacas.
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WORKSHOPS:
Sprang
CATEGORIES:
Weaving
Lari Smoyer
Lari Smoyer has been knitting 3 to 5 hours most days for at least 5 years, including cable and colorwork accessories and garments and double-knit accessories. For several of her knitting projects, she has adapted patterns to create matching accessories, including a double-knit hat and mittens set.
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WORKSHOPS:
Double Knitting
CATEGORIES:
Knitting
Mary Backstrom
​Mary has been spinning with a wide variety of spinning wheels since 2001; from an ashford traditional to the recent 3d printed electric wheels. She uses her yarn to make socks, sweaters, hats, vests, and in her weaving. Throughout the years she has continued to peruse continuing education from a wide variety of sources to improve her skills.
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WORKSHOPS:
Wheel Maintenance & Beginning Spinning
CATEGORIES:
Spinning
Melissa Arnold
Melissa Arnold has been working with textiles for more than 40 years. She began as a weaver and spinner and moved full time into surface design in 1990, when she moved to Hawaii where she learned the art of shibori and indigo dyeing from the Temari Center for Asian Arts. She spent from 2003 to 2015 collaborating with fashion designer Catherine Bacon, producing textiles for her spring and fall collections. Melissa’s work includes many different processes, such as dyeing, devore’, discharge, screen printing, shibori, resist scouring, wool collage, felting, and nuno felting. She has taught workshops in Hawaii, at the Big Sky Fiber Festival in Montana, at the Coupeville Art Center on Whidbey Island, Washington, and in Auburn and Loomis, California. She also taught workshops in Canada, Philadelphia, and Vermont.
Her work has won many awards and is in the collections of the Nippon Silk Center in Japan, Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, and numerous private collections across the country. In Spring of 2005, her work was on the cover of Ornament magazine in a featured article about designer Catherine Bacon. She has lived in Victor, Montana since 2016 and has been creating a whole new body of “Earth Connected Mixed Media Art” using Sticks, Stones, Cloth, Bones, Paper, and Metal since 2020. You can see her work on Instagram @textillian_nomad.
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WORKSHOPS:
Indigo Shibori for Saki-Ori
CATEGORIES:
Dye
WEBSITES:
Molly McKinnon
​Like many, I began weaving in college, got busy with life, and returned to it in retirement A member of the Big Sky Fiber Arts Guild and the Missoula Weavers Guild since 2011, I love the continual creative processes of spinning and weaving.
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WORKSHOPS:
Introduction to Experiences in Weaving
CATEGORIES:
Weaving
Suzi Ballenger
​Born and raised in Indiana, Suzi Ballenger, MFA, is a Rhode Island fiber artist and educator known for thinking outside the box. Her aesthetic is informed by the freedom she has always felt and still feels in the outdoors. An unending curiosity for material stimulates her language of hand and craft; believing these characteristics are enhanced through a deep understanding of the architecture of warp and weft.
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​My materials are personified as I work with them. The individual characteristics are enhanced through hand manipulation techniques and conversations between each other. The architecture of form, order/dis-order, movement, substance, and tension are all part of this subjective dialogue. Density contrasts with transparency to create meandering, linear pathways of rhythm. Every fiber has a personality – it is up to us to listen to it
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WORKSHOPS:
Pattern Logic: Ms + Os
Using Color to Create Pattern with Turned Taquete
Renegade Treadlings
Kami-ito: Making Yarn from Paper
Transforming Tools & Weaving Wonders
CATEGORIES:
Weaving
Spinning
WEBSITES:
Sylvia Smith
​Sylvia Smith is a fiber artist with a focus on handspinning. She has been spinning for at least 30 years and just became a certified Master Spinner through the program at Olds College. She's very active in her local Guild and the Montana Association of Weavers and Spinners (MAWS). She teaches spinning and fiber prep classes at her local yarn shop, as well as regional fiber festivals, and is an occasional contributor to "Spin Off" and "PLY" magazines. She lives in northwest Montana with her husband and cat, with one being an enabler of my fiber pursuits while the other is an occasional obstacle.
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WORKSHOPS:
Fiber Prep
Spinning Fun Yarns
Intermediate Spinning Techniques
CATEGORIES:
Spinning
Tom Knisely
Tom Knisely has made a career from his love of textiles. Tom has studied, collected, and taught spinning and weaving for more than 40 years. He most recently worked at Red Stone Glen Fiber Arts Studio in York Haven, PA. He taught for more than 30 years at The Mannings Handweaving School in East Berlin, PA. He has been the Artist in Residence for the Florida Tropical Weaver’s Guild for more than 4 years. In addition to teaching, Tom weaves professionally and is a frequent contributor to Handwoven magazine. He has written 8 books on weaving and spinning, including 2 children’s books. He is currently at work on his 9th book. Tom is renowned among his students for his kindness, good humor, and seemingly infinite knowledge on the subject of weaving.
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WORKSHOPS:
The Straight 8
Clasped Weft
Finishing Techniques
CATEGORIES:
Weaving
WEBSITES: