Sawtooth Strappy Bag Class

Not long ago I was honored to be invited to teach at the Sawtooth School of Visual Art in Winston-Salem, what an incredible venue this school is! This historic brick building used to be a mill, and its architecture has the unique "sawtooth" roof that lends it's name to the school. Located in downtown Winston, the building is actually right across the street from where my grandfather had a Texaco gas station years ago. I have such fond memories of downtown Winston: visiting my grandpa at the service station, often we would stop by the local Woolworth's and shop, maybe having lunch at the little diner there. We always did my back-to-school shopping downtown too, as this was before the mall was built; I guess I loved clothes even then, and enjoyed going with my mom to the local dept stores to pick out some new things for the upcoming school year..boy how things have changed! Now downtown Winston on Trade St. is a veritable art mecca full of galleries and artsy boutiques, no surprise though; Winston has always been  full of artistic talent, and can even boast having the very first arts council in the entire country! Oh, in case you haven't guessed by now, Winston-Salem is actually my hometown and holds a very special place in my heart, I guess it always will.

At any rate, the Sawtooth School is an awesome place for classes, offering a range from photoshop to painting, ceramics, drawing, fiber art, pretty much anything you want! This particular Saturday I taught my "Strappy Shoulder Bag", wet-felted of hand-dyed wool fibers along with a collage of other fibers such as silk, curly locks, lace, wool nepps, some Angelina fibers for a bit of bling, and whatever else we might have on hand to throw in the mix. We had a grand time felting and rolling, and the girls made some gorgeous and very usable bags; 2 of the girls even chose the same wine-colored fiber kits, still their bags turned out very different. All in all a very enjoyable day with these wonderful gals, I look forward to teaching at Sawtooth again! If you're ever in the neighborhood, do stop into their shop, lots of wonderfully artsy goodies for sale there, including some of my own hand-felted jewelry.