Textile artists featured in Olga

The Orcas Island Artworks features knitted and woven apparel by Melanie Davis, Maureen Hannan and Merry Bush from November 15 through Dec. 31.

Melanie Davis first picked up knitting needles at age ten. She didn’t make her first sweater until high school but has been knitting and designing her own patterns ever since. Although she has worked in many other media, she has settled on knitting as her primary artistic outlet. She says knitting has a natural meditative quality and is very portable. In the evenings you can often find her enjoying her three favorite hobbies all at the same time … walking, knitting and listening to music.

Maureen Hannan’s grandmother from Norway taught her to knit at age five. She started knitting seriously when she moved to the Island 26 years ago. Maureen loves attending workshops where she learns new skills and refines current talents. This past year included classes on felted purses and on creating scarves by needle felting onto silk and light weight wool. Maureen works with many mediums including wool, silk, angora, llama, and even dog hair!

Merry Bush has been knitting since high school and her first project was a Fair Isle sweater. She is self taught and creates her own patterns for hats, scarves, sweaters and baby clothes. She prefers natural fibers and especially likes to knit with the new bamboo yarns and is looking forward to trying the new corn-based fibers. Merry has just learned to weave and will be showing several new items.

These three textile artists have been members of the Artworks Cooperative for a total of nearly 40 years.

The Artworks is open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

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