2016 Judy Casserberg

Judy Casserberg

Knife River, MN, USA

Flora of My Native Region – Northern Minnesota, on the shore of Lake Superior, USA – 

I live in the Northern part of Minnesota where spring comes in May. We have a wide selection of trees, many conifers, but notably White Birch trees. Our state flower is the Pink Lady Slipper. 

Trillium and Marsh Marigolds join the Lady Slipper in spring in our woods and along our roadsides and ditches.  In summer they are replaced by Lupine and Cattails. Of course we have more, but when one thinks of what represents our area, these come to mind first.  

I found this a hard topic to do. It was so specific that I couldn’t generalize shapes and color.

 I would have been more comfortable if the topic had been just flora and fauna. I tried starting with a fabric background this time and found that restricted how I work. I realized that the topic would have worked better for me in embroidery. 

My tea cozy sports one fauna, an Army worm! 

2015 Judy Casserberg

Judy Casserberg

Knife River, MN USA

Water is our planet’s most precious commodity and we need to have more care in how we use it and how we protect it.

I live on the shore of Lake Superior, my front yard is the Lake. I have watched the Lake change with every minute, all day, night and season for the last 44 years. The Lake is never the same, the colors change, the texture changes, the mood changes. My piece, my view out of my front window tries so show some of these changes. I cannot begin to give this huge body of water justice, I cannot begin to show all of the colors or textures so I have tried to illustrate four of the Lake’s moods; calm, stormy, water falling and frozen. I have used needle and hook, needle and thread. I have used wool, metallic thread, silver wire and beads. I used this teapot from my collection because it’s shaped worked for what I wanted to say. I am pleased!

2014 Judy Casserberg

Judy Casserberg

Knife River, MN USA

Free Form Challenge 2014; One Color

I actually enjoyed this theme. I choose red as my color as it went well with my gold purse frame. If I had a silver frame, I would have chosen white. I enjoyed playing with a mix of shades and textures, balancing their combined weight against the other yarns and threads that I chose to give balance to the piece. I alternated by whim between my crochet hook and my knitting needles and used the same size hook and the same size needles no matter what yarns that I used, the threads varied widely in size as well as texture. I embellished my piece with four different sizes of red beads and used them to balance the piece.

2013 Judy Casserberg

Judy Casserberg

Knife River, MN

Mother Earth - what the idea of Earth means to you –

I am lucky to live on the shore of Lake Superior. I live with water, green grass, trees, rock and gardens. The textures and colors abound around me. They change with the light, seldom the same. And being from practical stock, my project had to be functional. I recreated my back yard into a container to hold future projects. I used my crochet hook and knitting needles to bring my yard to life, water, rock, soil, trees, flowers and vegetables.

2011 Judy Casserberg

Judy Casserberg

 Knife River, Minnesota, USA

The Fairies that I remember and know best from childhood are flower fairies.

I have always imagined large floral hats to be villages for communities of fairies. Many of the fairies are hiding under flower petals or leaves but the daring ones are peeping out at the ‘big people’ world.  A large fairy wing is the town statue. The gossamer veil mirrors the look of fairy wings.

I used a number of techniques in knitting, crochet and needle felting to make this hat.

One of the biggest challenges was to enlarge the hat form with wire to make it moldable and then to create a cover for the ‘superstructure’. But the first thing that I played with was the plumes.  I wanted the feathery plumes that you see in period hats. I would have liked more time to work on the needle

 felted fairy heads but time was running out. 

The veil is a modification of Tunisian crochet. I really enjoyed the

lacy look that it created.

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