about HW WOOLWORKS STUDIO
Welcome to my Studio. Thanks for stopping by!
I have been creating handcrafted yarns and textiles for the past 18 years. My startup project involved a national award winning farm/shop and learning centre, London-Wul fibre arts, in New Brunswick, Canada. Today I work from a bustling studio and Gallery in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia. The WoolWorks Studio allows me the exciting new opportunity to present a series of signature work that I have handcrafted in one-of-a kind or small batch quantities. I am hugely influenced by colour, texture, nature, and the change of season. All of which has inspired this catalogue of select fibres, yarns, hand knitting designs as well as my very favourite fabrics and tools of the trade. |
about my life in wool
Coming to work in fibre arts has been a happy marriage of my academic studies in Animal Sciences and my early exposure to visual arts.
- I have worked in hand dyeing, spinning, felting, rug hooking, and knitting for many years.
- I have doodled, sketched, and painted always.
- I am a graduate of the City and Guilds of London (creative textiles) with distinction.
- At present much of my personal work is in design as well as mixed media.
- My design tastes tend toward “vintage meets modern” and “earthy meets feminine”.
- My life and work is guided by nature.
- I grew up roaming the expanse that was my father’s photography studio.
His business occupied the basement level of a large brick building on Monkland Avenue in Montreal. While my father staged backdrops, lighting, and composition my mother helped with administrative details in the office. Quite literally, I spent all of my preschool days absorbing the open space, the creative air, and the entrepreneurial work ethic that played out in front of me.
Home was on the West Island of Montreal, seemingly far from the fast-paced inner core.
The, then rural, edge of suburbia provided the great outdoors, gardens, and animals, animals, animals. Cats always, dogs often, a never ending parade of orphaned birds as well as rabbits, frogs, salamanders, and so on. Textiles were prevalent as well. With a European heritage my brothers, my sister and I were all trained in needle tapestry. All the while my live-in grandmother was occupied in the creation of extraordinary embroidery work. That with which she had once made a living, providing for herself and her children, as a single mother arriving in Canada.
This was the formative mix that eventually led me to fibre arts. Fibre production allowed me, over a period of 20 years, to raise animals in a no-kill, no-sell environment, fed my appetite for textiles and provided me the opportunity to once again, spend my days in a studio.
Heidi Wulfraat comes to fibre from both an intimate and an academic perspective. She holds a BSc in animal science as well as certification with the City and Guilds of London, England (creative techniques: textiles) with distinction. Her hooked rugs have been internationally awarded and her multi-disciplined textile work has received numerous publications. Heidi’s studio is situated on the beautiful South Shore of Nova Scotia Canada where she, along with her husband and their much-loved dogs, continues to explore a handmade life .
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To subscribe to Heidi’s newsletter where she shares inspiring links,
project ideas, and thoughts on letting your creative voice shout out loud...