Felted Eggs Workshop, Family Fun

Felted lollipops (above, right) or Easter eggs involve a fun fiber process.

Learn to make felted eggs at the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center in Mystic., Thursday, April 7, 6:30 p.m. Ages 10 and up. Call (860) 536-1216 to register. Cost is $30 with family discounts available.

Three Days of Fiber, Arts, Studios, Farms

Head for the Maine Fiber Arts Tour Weekend, Friday, Aug. 6, Saturday, Aug. 7, and Sunday, Aug. 8, a three-day special event featuring more than 50 studios, farms, shops and galleries open to the public.

Workshops, demonstrations galore about traditional crafts such as basketmaking and quilting to knitting, spinning and nontraditional uses to art.

Maine Fiberarts is a statewide arts nonprofit formed to support fiber and to foster its special work in basketry, beadwork, clothing design, crochet, embroidery, felting, knitting, lacework, needlework, paper, quilting, rugs, sewing, spinning, surface design, and weaving.

Goals include to "create greater opportunities for artists to exhibit work, to apprentice, to mentor, to teach crafts to children" and more.

Sorting Fleece and How It's Done

William Cournoyer of Preston is an ex-officio officer of the Connecticut Sheep Breeders Association.

At the recent Connecticut Sheep, Wool & Fiber Festival, he entertained and educated the crowd on the finer points of sorting fleece, some of it freshly shorn.

For more about the organization and membership (no sheep are required), see their Web site www.ctsheep.org.

Life And Beauty Captured in Art by Gene Matras

Gene Matras is an artist who hails from New Hampshire. His detailed pen and ink drawings are masterful and capture life on a farm, wildlife and beauty around him. His work was on display at the recent Connecticut Sheep, Wool & Fiber Festival, with the opportunity to meet the artist, who manned his own booth.

Matras was born in Poland and emigrated in 1960 with his parents and brothers to New Hampshire. Today he lives with his wife and five children on their homestead in Pittsfield.

Matras' prints are produced from the original by an offset lithography process in limited editions, numbered and signed by the artist.

He also offers a very portable (and wearable) versions of his work on quality T-shirts.


View the range of his works at www.genematras.com or call the artist at (603) 435-8214.