My love affair with textiles began when I was a child. I have been involved with some form of fiber for as long as I can remember. Knitting was passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me, and, most likely this connection extends to women who lived many generations before my grandmother. After perfecting my knitting skills through exploration and practice into my early adulthood, I expanded my skills by attending fiber technique classes in spinning and dyeing. The most helpful learning experiences came from an open mind and the willingness to experiment and make mistakes.

My current work is wall-shawls and artknit sweaters which incorporate and explore the use of energized handspun yarns. These yarns use the direction and amount of twist to add angles and texture to the knitting surface. Energized yarn, in combination with the variety of surface details knitting offers, has opened a whole new area of knitting for me.

While my artknits intend to evoke remembrance and reverence for ancestral women who used their hands to clothe their families and tend their farm animals, they go beyond the concept of the sweater as a practical and purely functional warming device created out of necessity. Sweaters and shawls are seductively transformed beyond necessity into unexpected whimsy and borderline frivolity through the use of tactile materials and labor intensive hand processes.


Elena dying fiber

Handspun llama on the spinning wheel
I am the sole creator of my one-of-a-kind artknits. Each piece starts with a bale of hay. I feed and care for the llamas and the sheep; I shear the llamas, I wash the fiber and dye it; I card the fiber and spin the yarn; and I knit each piece by hand. The simple tools of a dyepot, a drum carder, a spinning wheel, two needles and my two hands allow me to be intimately involved with each piece as it develops. I love the way my work gently falls in my lap as it grows stitch by stitch, row by row, section by section.

Through the extensive use of hand processes and my interaction with the llamas and sheep and the land around me throughout the seasons, a human connection is established between me, the earth, the llamas and sheep, and I hope this connection extends to those who purchase my work.


Work in progress...

Following where my hands lead me is an exciting and ever changing adventure. I am forever grateful to my womanly heritage for blessing me with hands that instinctively know how to create beauty for others to enjoy. Elena

My formal credentials are:

  • handknitter for over 40 years, handspinner and hand dyer for over 20 years;
  • knitting instructor and innovator of the multi-level knitting class format for Wild and Wooly yarn shops;
  • designer and owner of copyrighted original design knitting patterns;
  • owner of successful on the farm yarn shop that markets hand dyed and handspun yarns to knitters; breeder of fine and suri fiber llamas;
  • Alpaca & Llama Show Association llama fiber judge; speaker about llamas and llama fiber;
  • member Potomac Craftsmen Fiber Gallery at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA.
  • member Jury Committee, Potomac Craftsmen Fiber Gallery, 2001-2003
  • Handweaver's Guild of America Award of Excellence, 2002

Carded batt

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©Elena Stamberg
All rights reserved All of the images and text in elenastambergdesigns are the copyrighted property of the artist and are shown here for exhibition purposes only. No portions may be reproduced in any form without the written consent of Elena Stamberg.

ElenaStambergDesigns
P.O. Box 379
Barnesville, MD 20838
(301) 349-5149
[email protected]