School Teaching Staff
Amy Oxford
Amy is an internationally known punch needle rug hooking instructor who has been teaching since 1986. She is the inventor of The Oxford Punch Needle and the author of five books: Punch Needle Rug Hooking and Volumes I-IV of Hooked Rugs Today. Amy worked as a licensee for the Shelburne Museum to make adaptations of their antique rugs and helped catalog the museum's collection of over 400 hooked rugs. She is the past president of The Vermont Crafts Council and past vice president of The Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild. Oxford learned to rug punch in 1982 while working for McAdoo Rugs in North Bennington, Vermont. When McAdoo closed in 2010 Amy purchased their collection of over 1,000 rug designs. Six hundred of these are available for students at her new school, and many McAdoo patterns are available for purchase online. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and at Vermont's Bennington Museum. She is the owner of The Oxford Company and founder of The Oxford Rug Hooking School.Bob Wertz
Bob Wertz is a fiber artist. For decades he has expressed his creativity in numerous genres including knitting, needlepoint, quilting, and weaving. Over the past few years he has gone back to basics, raising his own alpacas and sheep and incorporating his home-grown fibers into his art. In 2012 Bob was introduced to punch needle rug hooking as another way of artistic expression. He has pursued that, hooking numerous rugs and other hooked projects. Bob received his Oxford Punch Needle Rug Hooking Certification in 2016. He looks forward to any and all opportunities to share his craft with students and other artists.
Heidi Whipple
Heidi started working at The Oxford Company in 2009 by assembling Oxford Punch Needles. She took a lesson from Amy in 2010 to learn about punch needle rug hooking and fell in love with the craft. Heidi punched many rugs and wall hangings over the next three years and received her Oxford Teacher Certification in 2013. Heidi learned to dye yarn under the guidance of Sara Burghoff, the founder of Violet Jane. When The Oxford Company purchased Violet Jane in 2014, Heidi began dyeing Violet Jane for our many customers and students. 1n 2015 Heidi took a four-day intensive dye workshop at The Pro Chemical & Dye Company to further her dyeing knowledge. In addition to teaching punch needle rug hooking and yarn dyeing, she is the manager of the The Oxford Company. Her desire to help others in all aspects of life makes teaching a special joy for her, especially to see others enjoy and feel proud of their accomplishments.2020 Visiting Instructors
Judith Hotchkiss
Judith Hotchkiss grew up in a hooking household and watched her mother and older sister punch beautiful rugs. As a young girl, her mother often let her choose colors and practice punching on her big floor frame. Now Judith is an Oxford Certified Instructor, as well as McGown certified to teach traditional rug hooking, and she loves to teach the art to others. She produces her own line of hand-dyed wool and yarn, specializing in multi-value swatch dyeing as well as one-of-a-kind spot dyed skeins. She recently completed a new home studio where she is able to hold classes and retail rug hooking supplies. She lives in Deer Isle, Maine where she is constantly inspired by the colors and beauty of Downeast Maine. You can visit Judith's website at www.judithhotchkiss.com.
Kris McDermet
Kris has been braiding for 38 years and fell in love with braiding on hooking during her first braiding class when her teacher, Isabel Clough, mentioned that she had seen a few hooked rugs with a row of braid on the outside creating a frame. Kris began hooking and soon her rugs had rows of braid to compliment the hooking. She developed her technique of sewing and lacing the braiding inside and outside of hooking and going back and forth between the two art forms to create pieces for the floor and wall. Rather than only being used as a border, the braids share the rug space equally with the Hooking. She travels to teaches internationally and is a member of The Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild, The Association of Traditional Rug Hooking Artists (ATHA), and The International Guild of Handhooking Rugmakers (TIGHR). She participates in several rug braiding guilds in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Kris is a co-author of Combining Rug Hooking and Braiding-Basics, Borders, and Beyond with friends Christine Manges, and Dianne Tobias, is a chapter author in Finishing Hooked Rugs, and author of Welcome to Combining Rug Hooking and Rug Braiding. She has received several Viewer’s Choice ribbons at Vermont's Hooked in the Mountains shows, several Sauder Village Mixed Media ribbons, and had a rug in the 2014 and 2015 issues of Rug Hooking Magazine's Celebration of Hand Hooked Rugs. Kris was a featured artist at the 2018 Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild’s Hooked in the Mountains Rug Show in Essex, Vermont in 2018. You can visit Kris McDermet's website at www.krismcdermetrugs.com.
Diane Moore
Diane Moore is a third-generation rug hooker. Fine shaded techniques are her specialty using swatches and dip dyed fabrics. She is a McGown certified teacher and enjoys dyeing and hooking. Diane’s hooked pieces and articles have been in Rug Hooking magazine’s Celebration, Association of Traditional Rug Hooking Artists (ATHA) magazine, McGown Newsletters, and her work is featured on the front and back cover of Rug Hooking magazine’s book, A Rug Hooker’s Garden. Her rugs have won viewer’s choice awards at Hooked in the Mountains Rug shows. Diane has taught at schools in the USA and Canada.