Members of the Thread Artist Guild® were given a challenge to create a piece of artwork to go with the theme of "Adventures In Wonderland".

Our Award Panel (Marianne Alexander, Tammy Martin, Debi McCarthy-Beckett, Jan Nethercutt, and Anita Schaeder were shown anonymous pictures and asked to award points to each picture for keeping with Theme, Neatness of work, Originality, Construction, and Presentation.  Then the points were tallied to determine the winner.  A big thank you goes out to our Award Panelists for sharing with us their knowledge, expertise and time to review the entries.

We have terrific entries and our Award Panel all said the entries were so good they had a very difficult time in awarding their points!  Thank you to all the members who entered...you are all truly fantastic artists!

It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce:

Winner of the 2008 Thread Artist Guild® Annual Award Challenge!
Paula McHenry for her entry in and Winner of the Small Category, titled
"Caterpillar's Very First Try"

Entry: Caterpillar's Very First Try
Artist:  Paula McHenry
Category: Small
Size:  6.5 inches tall
Description:  This is Caterpillar's first try with his hookah and he quite excited to find out smoking it has started
to turn him from a girlie pink to a boyish blue. As you can see, he seems to enjoy smoking his hookah while he
guards his favorite mushroom.

Runner-Up and Winner of the Miniature Category
Susann Scholze for her entry titled "caught ye"

Entry: "caught ye" - Miniature Category Winner!
Artist: Susann Scholze
Category:  Miniature
Size:  3.75 inch - 9.5 cm
Description:  Alice and the Cheshire Cat are made of DMC embroidery thread. Alice's dress is removable and they are both full poseable.

Other Entry Finalists were:

Entry: Tea Party
Artist:  Mary Shelley
Category: Miniature
Size:  Tallest 3 inches tall
Description:  Alice and The Mad Hatter are crochet in cotton thread. Alice's skirt is removable.
The Mad Hatter's hat has the tag on stating the price of 10/6 (ten shillings six pence). 
The table cloth is crocheted and made the teapot, cups and saucers, sugar bowl, milk jug, plate of biscuits,
vase and flower, and the rabbit hole are made from clay and painted. The little rabbit is crocheted with a felted
tail and the Dor Mouse is felted.

Entry:  Sam the Cheshire Cat
Artist:  Mary Terry
Category:  Miniature
Size:  3" X 4.5" in length
Description:  Sam is felted using Corriedale wool. He is mostly static felted but his head is free to rotate
in any direction. He has 2mm black onyx eyes and his nose, paw pads and his teeth are embroidered using
black embroidery thread. His whiskers are made using upholstery thread

Entry: The Queen of Hearts & The Cheshire Cat
Artist: Charlotte Des Roches
Category:  Miniature
Size:  The Queen of Hearts 5" tall The Cheshire Cat 3 1/2" long The Magic Mushroom 2 1/4"
Description:  All 3 of these pieces are needle felted using Merino Wool. The Queen of Hearts
has a beaded crown & earrings made with tiny Bronze beads & trim on her dress has black cut
beads on it.  She has a movable head and arms. The Cheshire Cat has a movable head.

Entry:  Sleepy Dormouse and Teapot
Artist:  Lita Ashely
Category:  Miniature
Size:  4.5 inches with Dormouse inside or 5 inches with lid on
Description:  Dormouse... is 2.75 inches at largest part and 1.25 inches 'tall' curled up asleep.
Made from a mix of Corridale and Merino roving. Black bead eyes and 'invisible' thread whiskers.
Teapot: Made from soft blue Double Knit yarn (worsted weight) with lazy daisy and French knot embroidered flowers.

Entry:  Frog-Footman and Fish-Footman
Artist:  Marge Wiese
Category: Small
Size:  7.5 inches including the hat. (Frog-Footman, 5.75 inches, Fish-Footman, 6.25 inches not including the hat)
Description:  The Frog-Footman and Fish-Footman are needle felted wool sculptures, inspired by the
artwork of John Tenniel for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll. They are shown meeting
when the Fish-Footman delivers an invitation from the Queen. A handmade envelope is being received by the Frog-Footman.

Each year one of our Award Panelists volunteers to create an exhibition piece for our award.  This year our Display Exhibition Piece is by Marianne Alexander:

Title:  "Wool and Water"
Size:  8.5 inches tall
Description: In the Alice Books there is a chapter called "Wool and Water" where the White Queen turns in to sheep. The sheep sits and knits until she is working with 14 needles, so of course, this sheep has 14 needles in her work, a fifteenth in her "hand" and three more behind her ear for good luck.

Past Award Winners:

2007 Award

2006 Award