Oxford Rug Hooking School Instructors
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.
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.
Kris Andrews
Kris is an artist with a passion for finding new ways to marry disparate textile techniques in her work. Her interests include punched rugs, Japanese embroidery, quilting, appliqué, cross-stitch, hardanger, drawn thread, pulled thread, crewel work, stump work, gold work, wool felt appliqué, needle felting, needlepoint, and fabric printing and dying. As a teacher with 15 years of experience, she has taught most of these techniques at a variety of levels. Kris has been hooking rugs with the Oxford Punch Needle since 2010. In 2014 she started working at The Oxford Rug Hooking School, using skills she gained in the needlework industry. Kris became an Oxford Certified Instructor in 2015. She is a member of the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild and a lifetime member of the Embroidery Guild of America. She lives in Middlebury, Vermont with her husband, young son, and two cranky cats.
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.
Judith Hotchkiss
Ever since her mother taught her to knit at the age of seven, Judith Hotchkiss has always been immersed in some form of fiber art. At one point in her life when she was laid up with a badly broken leg, Judith supported herself by knitting sweaters for retail in galleries. She then turned to machine knitting, and designed and knit sweaters for the wholesale craft market. For the past twelve years or more, her passion has been rug hooking and braiding. More recently, Judith has turned to punch and punch needle and is currently most interested in combining punch and traditional rug hooking. She is an Oxford certified instructor and is also McGown certified in traditional rug hooking. She dyes all her own yarns and wool yardage and occasionally includes her own handspun wool. Judith lives in Deer Isle, Maine where she is constantly inspired by the colors and beauty of Downeast Maine. She is the owner of Judith Hotchkiss Designs and Dyeworks.
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