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.

 

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.

 

Alaina Dickason Roberts

Alaina Dickason Roberts grew up living over a hooked rug shop and has been making punch needle rugs since she was three years old. At age three she invented a successful technique to secure loops that pulled out of her rugs, keeping them in place with Scotch tape. Alaina taught her first adult/child class when she was eleven. She taught the children while her mother, Amy Oxford, taught the grownups. Alaina is now a civil engineer working for The Boeing Company in Philadelphia where she lives with her husband, two children, and her miniature dachshund.

Louise Kulp

Louise Kulp holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in Painting and Drawing and a master’s degree in Art Education with a studio concentration in Fibers, both from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.  She received Oxford Punch Needle Rug Hooking Teacher Certification in 2006 and in 2011 was the first Oxford instructor to achieve Advanced Certification. Louise has been teaching beginning-to-advanced level rug hooking workshops for more than 11 years and is passionate about passing this innovative and creative textile art on to students of all ages. She has taught at Fletcher Farm School for the Arts and Crafts in Vermont, the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen, and in numerous museum education programs. She also has volunteered her time teaching children and youth at non-profit organizations such as the Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild in Vermont, The Point Community Development Center in Bronx, New York, and 4-H of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Her work has been published in Rug Hooking magazine and the book Hooked Rugs Today IV:  Expect the Unexpected, and exhibited at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. Louise is based in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and designs and hooks rugs and teaches under the name Eden Village Rug Hooking, a studio she established in 2008.

 

Anne-Marie Littenberg

Anne-Marie Littenberg is an award winning rug hooker and photographer who lives in Burlington, Vermont. She is the author of Hooked Rug Landscapes and Hooked Rug Portraits, a frequent contributor to Rug Hooking magazine, and has served as a judge for Rug Hooking magazine's annual Celebration of Hand-Hooked Rugs. Her rugs have been exhibited internationally, including shows in New York and Tokyo. Anne-Marie teaches rug hooking throughout the country and is past president of The Green Mountain Rug Hooking Guild. She lives in Burlington, Vermont with her husband Ben. You can visit her website at annemarielittenberg.com.

 

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