Elizabeth Miller
Heritage Skills for Contemporary Life: Seasons at the Parris House

Elizabeth Miller

Elizabeth Miller is a fiber artist, writer, and instructor in the Western Lakes & Mountains region of Maine. Her primary sources of inspiration are the natural environment and matters of being human, including love, motherhood, trauma, and grief. Her western Maine homestead keeps her occupied with gardening, beekeeping, chicken keeping, and many things fiber. Elizabeth is the founder and artisan at Parris House Wool Works, a rug hooking studio based in her historic home and online. The studio provides rug hooking, punch, and needle felting supplies, original rug hooking patterns and kits, and more. It is also the site of a monthly hook-in/pot luck, the 2nd Saturday of each month, and ongoing workshops.

North Atlantic Fiber Arts was started in 2022 as Elizabeth’s art and creative writing hub, separate from her studio supply sales and work. It is a container for her love for Maine and Nova Scotia and the artistic themes she revisits in her work as a result of her ties to both places. She is the author of Heritage Skills for Contemporary Life: Seasons at the Parris House, published by Down East Books in 2021. The title references her 1818 historic home in the National Historic District of Paris Hill and includes both homesteading and fiber art how-tos and projects. Her work has appeared regularly in Making magazine and Rug Hooking Magazine. She has also appeared on Magnolia Network’s Maine Cabin Masters, episode 704, teaching Ashley to hook. Her art has been exhibited at Rug Hooking Week at Sauder Village in Archbold, Ohio. She is a contributing artist to Our Lives in Colour and Shadow, by Karen D. Miller, published by Rug Hooking Magazine.

Teaching is a favorite aspect of Elizabeth’s creative life. She especially enjoys introducing beginners to our craft. She teaches in her own studio and has also taught for the Squam Art Workshops, Fiber College, Schoodic Arts for All, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, Beekman 1802, Darn Good Yarn, Portfiber, Pleasant Mountain Fiber Arts, Rufus Porter Museum, and a variety of other venues around New England. Parris House Wool Works kits can also be found in shop and online at Kennebec Cabin Company (Maine Cabin Masters), Darn Good Yarn, Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, and Fiber & Vine (Norway, Maine).