Meet Our 2025 Winterfest Instructors

Lorilee Beltman – Knitting

Lorilee Beltman happily sees no end to where knitting curiosity can take you, and she loves to help knitters make new discoveries. For a decade she has enjoyed her students at over one hundred national events, and she looks forward to meeting you in class! Lorilee is patient with every student and packs her classes with content and lots of extra tips you can really use. Her articles and designs have been published in books, magazines, and online mags. She is a 2018 Knit Star teacher, the former techniques columnist at Knitty, and an online instructor at Interweave and at Craftsy where her classes are consistent best-sellers.

Heavenly Bresser – Spinning

Heavenly Bresser is an award-winning handspinner, spinning wheel restorer, and international fiber arts instructor. She is excited to share her love for fiber arts with the world. Heavenly actively teaches at a local art center in Illinois, where she is a faculty member. Heavenly has many years of teaching experience including a wide range of handspinning courses through various organizations and fiber events including the SOAR retreat, Wisconsin Sheep and Wool, New York Sheep and Wool, and Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival (online), Vogue Knitting Live and Stitches Events. Some of her areas of passion include the love for working with color, working from fleece as well as researching historic information for antique spinning wheels. Her published works can be found in Spin Off, PLY, tinyStudio CreativeLife, and Surface Design Journal magazines. Heavenly has made it her mission to help fiber artists of all levels to expand their knowledge about their craft and to try new things.”

Maggie Casey – Spinning

Maggie Casey has been addicted to spinning since the last century and while some people are proud of their wine cellars, she much prefers her fleece basement. She was co-owner of Shuttles Spindles & Skeins until it closed in 2020. Besides teaching spinning at Shuttles, she also teaches at the Estes Park Wool Market, Maryland Sheep & Wool, PlyAway and SOAR. She holds Part 1 of HGA’s COE in Handspinning, is the author of START SPINNING, EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE GREAT YARN and several Long Thread downloads, and writes for Ply magazine.

Jill Duarte – Spinning

Jill Duarte spends their days geeking out about all things fiber, diving into the nuances of fiber preparation, color, and the act of spinning. As co-owner of HipStrings, Jill is dedicated to the resurgence of modern craft that is based on a foundation of technical and historical knowledge. This approach is reflected in the fiber, yarn and tools they’ve developed and produce. Jill shares their insights as a regular contributor to PLY magazine, with the goal of making the technical aspects of craft accessible to all.

Kira Dulaney – Crochet, Knitting, Visible Mending

Kira Dulaney has been teaching fiber arts classes and hosting crafty events in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond since 2002. As a teacher, her focus is on providing valuable information in a stress- free environment and supporting students through the learning process. She is also the designer behind Kira K Designs, a line of original knitting and crochet patterns and kits featuring clean lines and intriguing details that are both interesting to make and easy to wear. Kira has taught at Estes Park Wool Market, Flag Wool, Flock Fiber Festival, Interweave Yarn Fest, Lambtown Festival, the Natural Fiber Fair, Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Red Alder Fiber Arts Retreat, Stitches events, and TNNA, as well as numerous guilds and yarn shops.

TJ King – Spinning

TJ King—a.k.a., the Peahen—is a spinner, writer and teacher with nearly 20 years’ experience in helping others find joy in fiber arts. While her passion is supported spinning, she also weaves, knits, felts and crochets. She’s looking forward to sharing her knowledge at the Cedar Springs Fiber Arts Center in the coming years.

Lee Langstaff – Shepherds’ Seminar

Lee Langstaff has been breeding and managing her flock specifically for handspinning fleeces in a full range of natural colors for nearly 20 years. Her Shepherd’s Hey Farm fleeces have been consistently well received by fiber artists as well as fleece judges. She is currently Co-Chair of the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival and has co-chaired its Fleece Show & Sale for many years. She is a past President and current member of the Board of Directors of Maryland Sheep Breeders Association.

Laura Linneman – Spinning

Laura Lineman is obsessed with knitting and spinning. She is a regular contributor to PLY Magazine and has taught at retreats across the country. If you ask her what her favorite spin to knit project is she will loudly say, ‘don’t make me choose, I love them all’, but will quietly whisper, ‘socks’. She cohosts the Knitgirllls podcast and the beloved Super Summer Knitogether crafting retreat. She currently resides in Mississippi with way too many spinning wheels and a Great Pyrenees named Purl.

Polly Matzinger – Shepherds’ Seminar

Dr. Polly Matzinger is an immunologist and sheep farmer. She teaches basic and advanced immunology, and the genetics and biology of sheep color and breeding.

Jillian Moreno – Spinning

Jillian Moreno is the author of the best-selling book Yarnitecture: A Knitter’s Guide to Spinning: Building Exactly the Yarn You Want. She is passionate about investigating the structure of yarn and color, and using them in intentional ways in knitting, stitching and weaving. She believes all yarn is beautiful and useful and enthusiastically encourages her students to feel joy making and using their handspun. Jillian believes in making yarn you like and want to use, she throws ‘must’ and ‘should’ out the window, though does enjoy the fun that comes from ‘it depends’. Combining technical and intuitive approaches to spinning, her students gain confidence as well as solid skills to build any yarn they can dream of. In her classes, Jillian shows there is never only one way to make a yarn. Knowing and seeing the outcomes of a variety of spinning skills frees students to build unique and useful yarns to use with any project they have in mind.

Laura Nelkin – Knitting

Laura Nelkin lives in upstate New York, where the sunny season is short, leaving plenty of time to be indoors knitting. Though she has a degree in apparel design from Cornell University, she took to knitting years ago and hasn’t looked back. Laura is currently enamored with unexpected sweater construction, lace, and with incorporating beads into lace, so most of her designs lean in this direction. She travels often to teach these techniques and more at workshops around the country. Laura runs two successful knitting clubs, has a line of knitting kits, and self-publishes patterns.

Clara Parkes – Keynote Lecture

Clara Parkes is a New York Times-bestselling author, speaker, and wool advocate who has dedicated her life to exploring the stories behind, and qualities of, the fibers we wear on our bodies—and taking readers along for the journey. Her book, Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool, is a fast-paced account of the year she spent transforming a 676-pound bale of wool into yarn, and the people and vanishing industry she discovered along the way. She currently runs The Wool Channel.

Patty Sanville – Shepherds’ Seminar

Patricia Sanville lives on a small farm in Frederick, MD., where she has been for 15 years, raising a family and raising sheep as well as various other species of livestock and crops. Patricia is on the Maryland Sheep Breeders Association Board of Directors and also serves as the Director from Maryland to the American Sheep Industry. Patricia works closely with the American Sheep Industry Association, the Maryland Sheep Breeders Association and the Board of Directors for The Great Frederick Fair where she holds the position of Ag-Education Co-Chair. She also works very closely with both the 4-H and FFA programs in addition to the public and private schools in the area. Qualified by the Secure Sheep and Wool Supply (SSWS) Plan as a trainer, Patricia hosts private and group sessions on the SSWS to create individualized plans for all sizes of livestock operations.

Kristen Walsh – Needle Felting

Kristen Walsh has been involved in creative things her whole life.  She has been exploring fiber for many years – first knitting, then spinning and finally felting.  Kristen has been earning attention for her felting, winning prizes at the many shows and has had work selected for several publications as well as exhibits across the country. Kristen sees no end to the possibilities with felting.  She wants to continue exploring felting through continued teaching as well as creating her own felted art.