Limitless Project: Andrea Petersen

NEW OPEN WAY YOGA OFFERING: Needles & Hooks

Join Andrea as she leads seasoned and novice fiber artists alike in developing their art during these new class offerings from Open Way Yoga. Read on to hear more about Andrea’s passion for the art form in this final Limitless Project post.

Needles & Hooks Fiber Arts Society

4th Fridays 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM in Norwalk (First Session Sept 27th)

Welcome Andrea to OWY's Limitless Project, our final featured artist for the summer! Andrea is a fiber artist. Oftentimes pople relegate fiber and fabric work into a seperate category, it considered crafting as opposed to fine art. This is silly. As a fiber artist myself, I know how much insiration, creativity and passion come through fiber and fabric... it's LIMITLESS! Read on to see some images of Andrea's beautiful fiber work and hear some of her thoughs on being a "maker." Andrea is going to start hosting fiber arts crafting groups at our Norwalk and Huron studios starting in September. Details at the end of this post.

-Shannon Leigh

Andrea's Thoughts on Her Art:

I have always been a "maker". I'm not always comfortable with the idea of identifying as an artist. Although I can't recall a time in which I wasn't creating something in some medium. Glue and paper, melted crayons, paint, fabric, clay, enameled metal, and even food are all things that I have used as the outlet for the instinct to get my hands dirty and create something new and tangible from simple parts. Yarn checks many boxes for me: it's relatively cheap (depending on the fiber), the colors and textures are endless, it's portable, a project can wait indefinitely while life is busy. And most importantly, knitting (and now crochet), help me focus and still the incessant chatter in my mind. It is therapeutic to stitch your anxiety, grief, fear, self doubt, ennui, hope and every other messy emotion into an object like a purge and then you still have a beautiful, handcrafted utilitarian piece to hold in your hands. You get to look at it and say "I made this" and some part of the restless creative beast is temporarily soothed. I've only ever been limited by the depth of my skill and that is always something that can be expanded upon.

It's probably not hard to see a common theme in my projects. I have a deep fear of being cold and apparently am unable to walk away from any purple yarn. I really plan to make things in other colors, but next thing I know..... PURPLE.

Knit fast, die warm. If we have the apocalypse, I'm your girl as long as you like electric raspberry.

I have only once followed a pattern exactly as written. The silk lace shawl for my friend Sarah as a wedding gift was a completely terrifying project. I had no prior experience with lace or charts but I was determined to imbue each and every one of the 54,000 stitches with love. It was like a spell made into fabric, full of wishes for her happiness.

I am completely self taught and just started learning crochet. I'm almost finished with a super weird freeform hat made of many individual small shapes with yarn only from my stash. So, if you guessed that there's quite a bit of purple involved the you get a cookie. But look! There's turquoise and olive green too, just to prove that I'm not incapable of a little change. I've included some work in progress pics.