Charlene Anderson: Artist, Designer, Writer; Purveyor of all Things Creative

About My Work

My one-of-a-kind artwork incorporate a variety of fiber techniques, including beading, weaving, knitting, felting, piecing, stitchery, and quilting.

The majority of the fiber I use in my work is hand-dyed and/or handspun to achieve the perfect color and texture. Many of my garments incorporate several of these techniques.

My work in beads and fiber incorporates a variety of techniques, but I feel all my work deals head-on with two major issues: color and craftsmanship. All my work tries to use color and texture in new and exciting ways while maintaining superior levels of craftsmanship.

My work has been featured in the major textile, jewelry and bead magazines and has been exhibited in shows and galleries across the United States.

I only sell items I buy and use myself, so you can be assured of the highest quality tools and beads---I am a direct importer of beads from Africa, India, the Czech Republic, Bali, Austria and Germany. The tools I offer are of the highest quality that will make your work a pleasure. It is my goal to keep my store filled with the prettiest beads and findings and the newest, most innovative tools.

Want to Learn More?

Check out the over 50 eBay Guides I've written for information about all aspects of jewelry, beading, knitting, spinning, weaving and more.

 

Zebra photo by Ron Davison in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania.

Biography

(long and detailed---skip and look at pretty beads, tools, books and other stuff if you'd like)

I have played with fibers and beads all of my life, though there was very little in the way of family history to support such involvement. My Mom still jokes that she saves up buttons for me to sew on when I visit her. I had an aunt who crochets, and there are three family quilts that I am aware of, but that's about it. At any rate, I remember making little crocheted dolls from McCall's Needlework magazine as a youngster, and can especially remember making all sorts of crochet and felt clothes for my Troll dolls.

At about the time I gave up the dolls we moved from Los Angeles to the Thoroughbred horse ranch that my parents owned in Hemet, California. There I had the opportunity to raise whatever animals I chose for my Future Farmers of America projects, so I chose them all...horses and pigs and steers and sheep. Through my high school years I supported my animal habit by working a variety of jobs, most notably in the only yarn shop in town. Well, maybe not most notably. My first paying job was vaccinating chickens one summer for Newcastle disease. At any rate, needlepoint was all the rage then and I needlepointed everything in sight. I also crocheted a lot - especially swimsuits. Remember the little crocheted swimsuits from the 70's and 80's? I made them - lots of them, in all colors - and wore them as well!

Even though I worked in a yarn shop, I didn't learn how to knit very well. I'm not sure why. I do remember starting a mohair sweater for my Mom, and being able to work the pattern OK, but I was terribly disappointed when the sweater turned out way to small for her, and she's not a big person. I knew nothing of gauge and thought the needle size in the pattern was engraved in stone. After that horrible experience I swore off knitting.

After graduating from college I moved to Hawaii, where I kept up the needlepoint and took up cross stitch and quilting and joined the Hawaii Stitchery and Fiber Arts Guild. A few years later I began weaving when I became fascinated by a loom I saw in a weaving store in Honolulu. I wove with a vengeance, and began selling one-of-a-kind garments in exclusive shops and galleries in Honolulu and on the Mainland. I am proud that Oprah Winfrey has one of my handwoven shawls.

The weaving shop where I learned to weave closed, so I decided to open up a small yarn shop. I began knitting with a vengeance in 1985 when my friend Anne Davenport taught me how to knit. Not just to knit, but to really KNIT. In exchange for knitting lessons, I taught Anne how to weave. And there began an interesting twist - Anne became enamored of weaving, and I of knitting. Anne now weaves much more than she knits and I knit much more than I weave. Anne's greatest gift to me as a knitter was teaching me that a pattern was not a requirement. She was the first person to tell me about Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen and their liberated way of thinking about knitting.

Knitting was a wonderful outlet for me then, as it is now. In 1984, right about the time I learned to knit, I was diagnosed with uveitis, an autoimmune disease of unknown origin that affects the eyes in ways similar to that of rheumatoid arthritis does to the joints. The treatment is sometimes debilitating, and when the disease is active, I can become legally blind for long periods until the inflammation in my eyes resolves. Knitting keeps me sane during these periods. Many times I don't have the energy to thread my loom or throw the shuttle, but I can still pick up my knitting. Even if I can't see very well, I can knit. I especially remember knitting a dark indigo blue Aran sweater of my own design during a especially bad period. Could I have picked a harder project for a time when I could barely see?

I have since been diagosed with Crohn's Disease and Ankylosing Spondylitis and find that my art work helps tremendously in keeping my mind working creatively while facing these life-altering diseases.

I'm now beading, knitting and spinning almost constantly. I'm not one for carrying my knitting with me to knit in waiting rooms or in the car, perhaps because I almost always knit my own designs and have to concentrate and solve problems and make notes as I go along so the designs can be reproduced. I take knitting when I travel so I can work on it during quiet times; I did work on a pair of socks during a lifeboat drill on a cruise of the Baltic a few years ago.

I cannot sit down at home without knitting, beading or spinning. I have learned to read and knit at the same time, and feel very productive when I do these two things at once. I download audio books onto my iPod and can read while knitting, working out, driving, etc.

I enjoy knitting with my own handspun. It has a life and a color palette that cannot be duplicated in commercial yarn. As I complete each new project, I can feel my knitting style evolving. Though I love color, and my weaving is known for a vibrant and complicated color palette, I prefer to knit in a single color and use texture to tell the story. That is not to say that I don't do Fair Isle, color patterns, or intarsia work, because I do. But if I had to knit just one way, it would be with lace or with textured stitch patterns.

I especially love to combine unusual edgings or finishes or closures on my knitting. A student commented recently that these edges have become my trademark and I think she was right. I think it is attention to detail, such as with edgings and closures, or with perfectly symmetrical decreases or centered and aligned pattern repeats, that makes knitting a challenge and a pleasure. I know many knitters who are happy with projects that have 'fudges' involved, but I'm not one of them. That's not to say their knitting is not valuable, because it is. But I like to work out the challenges and details in making everything come out just right. This architectural approach to my knitting means that my production numbers of finished objects may suffer somewhat, but there is great pleasure in finishing an article that has structural details that are entirely suitable to the finished product.

In addition to my writing and designing, I served 12 years on the Board of Directors of the Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. I have served as HGA's President, First Vice-President, Second Vice-President, and Fund Raising Chairman. I still review books for their magazine Shuttle Spindle & Dyepot.