Craft Industry Alliance is proud to announce the winners of the 2026 Golden Scissors Awards, recognizing excellence in the crafts industry. The awards ceremony took place live on stage at h+h Americas at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, Illinois, today. Five outstanding craft professionals were recognized in front of an audience of several hundred of their peers for their contributions to the industry.
The craft industry includes world-class corporations and thousands of visionary small business owners whose never-ending creativity continually lifts the entire sector to new heights. The Golden Scissors Awards are an opportunity for the industry to acknowledge those who have offered outstanding leadership and innovation and made important contributions to the industry as a whole.
Nominations for the awards opened in January of this year and were open for a month. In March, each nominee was considered individually and confidentially by a panel of seven judges nominated by the Craft Industry Alliance Board of Advisors. Judges for this year’s awards were Arianne Foulks, founder of Aeolidia; Omkari Williams, activist and author of Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World (Without A Bullhorn); Julie Roehm, Founder and COO of SewShare; Brandy Maslowski, founder and host of Quilter on Fire Podcast; Britt Garber, owner of KnotBadBritt; Elizabeth Caven, venture investor; and Janine Vangool, publisher, editor and designer of UPPERCASE.
Craft Industry Alliance would like to thank the sponsors of this year’s Golden Scissors Awards program. Their sponsorship is a demonstration of their support of our industry and of the importance of recognizing talent. Thank you to knitCompanion, Fox Chapel Publishing, Universal Yarn, Bernina, Fabric Merchants, Michaels, Clover, Shannon Fabrics, and Famore. Each award winner received a beautifully engraved, personalized pair of golden scissors made for them by Famore to honor their achievement.
There were five categories of awards given this year: Emerging Leader, Innovation, Sustainability, Social Impact, and Lifetime Achievement.
Thank you to our awards sponsors:
The winners:
For Emerging Leader, the award goes to a dedicated leader and arts professional with experience spanning administration, education, and creative practice. Lexie Millikan has directed major arts festivals, taught at the collegiate and secondary level, and represented U.S. craft internationally, collaborating within the UNESCO Creative Cities Network and presenting at global conferences. Lexie’s leadership and dedication consistently inspire and shape arts communities, both regionally and beyond.
For Innovation, the award goes to the founder of the Sewing Doc Academy, an online training platform dedicated to teaching people how to service, maintain, and understand sewing machines. Recognizing a growing shortage of qualified sewing machine technicians and limited access to technical training, Andi created Sewing Doc Academy to make professional-level education accessible to anyone with the curiosity and determination to learn. Her work supports the broader Right-to-Repair movement in the sewing industry by equipping future independent technicians with skills traditionally limited to dealer service departments, while inspiring a collective effort to keep sewing machines out of landfills and in the hands of people and communities who need them.
For Sustainability, the award goes to Smart Art + Craft, an organization that keeps thousands of pounds of art supplies out of landfills and gives them a second life with artists, teachers, and students ready to create. In addition to promoting the reuse of materials, Smart Art + Craft employs adults with disabilities, helping them build job skills, gain confidence, and connect with the community.
For Social Impact, the award winner is the creator of Welcome Blanket, a participatory project where thousands of makers create handmade textiles and messages of welcome for refugees and immigrants. Blankets are exhibited at museums and cultural institutions and then gifted through 30+ partner organizations. She’s also the co-creator of the Pussyhat Project, which helped bring craftivism into the cultural mainstream.
For Lifetime Achievement, the award goes to fourth-generation needleworker and nationally recognized fiber artist Torreah “Cookie” Washington. Her work centers on African American textile traditions, ancestral memory, and environmental responsibility through art quilts, Gullah rag rugs, basketry, and sculptural textile forms. Washington is a leading contemporary practitioner and teacher of Gullah Rag Quilting, a no-sew, utilitarian textile tradition rooted in the Lowcountry and passed down through generations of African American women. Her work has been featured in national exhibitions, museum collections, films, PBS’s Hidden Gems of Charleston with Peter Greenberg, and The Saturday Evening Post. Washington describes her practice as craftivism—transforming reclaimed textiles into objects of beauty, memory, and care. Every stitch, she says, is a prayer, a story, and a gift to the future.
