Diane Daniels was born and raised in Southern California and comes from a long line of Italian seamstresses who migrated to the US from Sicily.
In the late 1980’s she lived in New England while her husband was finishing his post doctorate studies. During that time, she saw a Traditional Rug Hooking and wool dyeing demonstration at the League of New Hampshire Craftsman Show up at Mt. Sunapee. She was literally “hooked” and soon on a quest to learn everything there was about this amazing fiber art from some of the best teachers around the country! After her husband completed his studies, they found themselves back in California for his new job in biotech but dreamed about returning to New England some day. In 2006, that dream came true; she currently resides in Harvard, MA with her husband of 39 years along with their 2 cats.
Since 1998, Diane has taught a wide variety of classes throughout Southern California and currently here in Massachusetts; including rug hooking, pincushions/make-do’s, penny rugs, needle felting and pretty much anything involving wool. From the many years of teaching, she has fine tuned her skills and has many “tips & tricks” for helping students improve on their various techniques in all aspects of these mediums.
She is a passionate wool fabric dyer and has provided custom dyed wool fabric collections to shops and students alike. Her passion started back in her fine art classes in college where she studied painting with water color, oils and acrylics. After college she explored basking weaving, spinning, off-loom weaving and dyeing her own fibers at that time with natural dyes.
The colors that change seasonally and the wild life that abounds here in New England has served as constant inspiration for the hand-dyed woolens and fiber art she creates today, most notably in her hand-hooked rug making she enjoys the most.
