Thea West, fiber artist, recycles fibers from old sweaters and fabrics to create yarns for crochet hats, woven bags and hallelujah dolls. The rug yarns are from her many sewing projects and redesigned garments and continuous strips are cut from t–shirts and skirts. The tapestry style of crochet Thea teaches was developed from a need to use strips of various length, while developing interesting patterns. Thea has been developing these crochet patterns for many years. Thea is the Founder of Rags to Rugs which meets once a month at the Sonoma County Recycle Center, Garbage Reincarnation's Recycletown.

Thea learned re-use at mom's knee, literally! One day when she was going through her mother's crochet books, a newspaper clipping from 1945 slipped out. It was an article describing how to cut a lady's suit, jacket and skirt, from a man's suit. Wool is a fiber that has many lives. It amazed Thea's 11 year-old brain, and still does.

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