Lucy Rees
Lucy Rees and Linda Szydik met 10 years ago at a workshop introducing wool applique. They have been friends ever since and continue attending wool workshops around the state. Their favorite venue was Galveston.
Lucy and her husband have been at Robson since 2012. Linda and her husband moved here in 2021. Both are active members of Material Girls where they advocate for other members to try wool applique. They have a few converts.
Wool applique and embroidery is done by hand. No machines are used. Lucy says her friends who do machine embroidery say they have “gone to the dark side.” Both Linda and Lucy are very experienced in hand embroidery.
Wool applique has long been associated with folk art, but in recent years, it has been elevated to rival fine applique. It is most often coupled with embroidery using perle cotton threads. Wool motifs can be appliqued to cotton or wool backgrounds and then used in a larger quilt project or framed for beautiful artwork.
While the first wool applique used wool made for clothing, the most desirable wool today is felted wool with a tighter weave—even better if it is hand-dyed wool with hand-dyed perle cotton threads.