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Outside her employment with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Ms. Otmar's personal interests include gunsmithing, finger weaving, scrimshaw, and period clothing. She has spent the last thirty-five years learning finger weaving, twining and early heddle weaving to make beaded sashes, belts and bags that would have been used in the early colonial frontier of America. Her special areas of personal research interests are in textiles and 18th century clothes. In particular, she has focused on woven materials manufactured from bast and animal fibers produced by the native American peoples. Allied to the woven material is a practical knowledge of natural dyes and process gained through the actual practice of dying linen, silk, and wool in the manner in which it may have been done in the 18th century. Eve Otmar received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and a Bachelor of Art in Graphic Design from Northern Kentucky University. She is the Retail Coordinator at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. As a lifelong student of weaving, she has participated in numerous conferences relating to native Americans and frontier life in 17th and 18th century America. |