Fiber artist Celeste Suter gathers wool from sheep, llamas, alpacas and her angora rabbit, Cosmo, and turns them into practical items that are works of art.

In her own words, “I’m doing what I love — knit, crochet, weave, spin yarn, wet felting, needle felting and fulling, which is knitting something and then shrinking.”

She also designs, teaches fabric arts, and retails fabric supplies. Suter works and creates at Celestial Designs Fiber Art Studio, her store and studio in Montevideo. Initially she carried knitting, weaving and felting supplies in her store, but added sewing and quilting supplies because people were requesting them. Originally she had only wanted a space to be able to create and work on her art.

“I realized that when I opened a retail shop, then I could have time to create while at the same time providing a service to the community,” she said.

Suter gets her wool locally as much as she can. She has friends near Pennock who have llamas, alpacas and Southdown sheep, and who were happy to find someone who could use the wool. Suter even helps with the shearing. She also buys from other local sheep producers.

“When I was at the county fair last year, I purchased one of the fleeces that I really liked,” Suter said. The sheep had been cared for by a girl about 9 years old, who had also helped with the shearing.

Not all wool is created equal

Originally, Suter would get excited when someone offered her bags of wool, but she soon discovered not all wool is created equal. Some of it was rough wool, from sheep bred for meat.

“If you have had a scratchy sweater, it was probably made with yarn from rough wool,” she said. Suffolk and Dorset give finer wool, she said, and alpaca is one of her favorites.

Then there is her rabbit.

“I have a white angora rabbit who produces copious amounts of fur, so much so that I can’t keep up with it all. It also felts very well and very easily, which is a problem because he likes to lick himself.” This angora — not to be confused with angora goats, whose fiber is called mohair — is especially soft and warm. “Angora is 10 times warmer than wool,” she said.

She has one other source for wool — fiber fairs.

“A fiber fair is basically anything related to fiber, whether it’s weaving, spinning, knitting, whatever,” she said. She attends the North Country Fiber Fair in Watertown, S.D., in September, and another one in Lake Elmo in May. She also finds tools there. She recently purchased a lucette, a wooden instrument that makes braid, “an instrument that’s been around for a thousand years.”

Special recognition

Suter has received recognition for her work. She received an invitation from the Regional Development Corp. to submit a proposal for Minnesota’s Sesquicentennial. Her proposal to create felted wool “pelts” was accepted.

The pelts were developed serendipitously. A fellow wanted felted boot liners. She made her first piece, and it struck her that it looked like an animal pelt. For the Sesquicentennial commission she created four wet felted wool “pelts” made from local fiber.

“The four panels represented the animals that were common to this area and were most important to both the Native Americans and the settlers who came here — buffalo, elk, beaver and turtle,” Suter said. “This is part of a collection that is touring in Minnesota. I was very excited to do my first commissioned art piece.”

Working with an ancient craft and finding older tools like the lucette fit well with her interest in the Renaissance Festival, where she also won an award. It is too difficult to take a loom along, so she looks for other tools she can use when she dons her costume and wanders around as a draper. About a year ago she designed and sewed a cardinal’s costume complete with alb, girdle, chasuble and felted biretta.

“It won second place in the daily costume contest at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival,” she said.

Teaching and learning

Teaching and learning are a natural part of Suter’s life. She received a bachelor of science degree in elementary education from Iowa State University in 1982. Her classroom work was with students who had learning disabilities. Once she was married, her teaching shifted to her own children. Now most of her students are adults.

There is much to learn, and she loves to talk about, demonstrate and teach others the techniques she has learned.

For instance, there is wet felting — taking wool, getting it moist in hot water and agitating it. The wool fibers come together. “It becomes a fiber that is very dense and sturdy, and very warm and water resistant,” Suter said. “Not water proof, it will eventually get wet, but wool has the wonderful property that even when it gets wet, it stays warm. Wool is a wonderful natural fiber that no polar fleece or anything out there can touch.”

There is also needle felting. To demonstrate, she laid some colorful wool fibers on top of a small purse and started pushing a barbed needle through them. “It attaches the wool fibers to another object.” She uses small barbed needles that are fashioned after industrial felting needles. But the process itself, like most of what she does, is not an invention of the industrial age. She has learned that the Native Americans used porcupine quills to attach decorations to their garments and other items.

Sewing and crocheting have long been a part of Suter’s life, but when she learned to spin yarn and weave, she found a new interest.

“I fell in love with the rhythm and endless possibilities for combining color and texture,” she said. “A year later I learned how to wet felt and found another way to use fiber.”

She not only teaches others, she is always learning herself. The fiber arts are an ancient craft, and Suter is obviously enthused about being part of something that is both ancient and modern.

“I don’t think I’m ever going to get bored, because there is always something new in the field to explore, and there are new innovations all of the time, although it really all goes back to stuff that’s been done for hundreds if not thousands of years.”

Celestial Designs Fiber Art Studio is located at 212 South First Street in Montevideo. The telephone number is (320) 321-1023.