It is with great sadness that I am writing this post. I was notified that Marilyn, aka Pandagirl, died from complications of a respiratory illness, while recently visiting her family in California. I emailed her husband Craig and expressed our condolences from The Felting and Fiber Studio. He kindly gave his permission for me to write a post in memory of Marilyn.

Marilyn joined The Felting and Fiber Studio forum in June of 2013, where she has written almost 5,000 posts. When one of our original members stepped down, Marilyn joined our team and posted to the website here for five years (March 2014 – April 2019). She had a background in marketing and wrote quite a few posts about how to market artwork and gave some great ideas on boosting small businesses like many of us run.

In Marilyn’s first post, she introduced herself and talked about her fascination with textures. I think a lot of fiber artists have that inclination to be a “hands on” type of person and Marilyn showed us many different fiber textures over the course of her posts.

Marilyn’s work ranged from Easter baskets, nuno felting, felt bags, dyeing, surface design, 3D pods, creating her own hand carded batts, and many felt pictures. She often made gifts for her family members and even one for her retiring physician (wine bottle cover above).

When I asked our other members about their memories of Marilyn, I heard over and over how kind and thoughtful she was. I have included their comments below, interspersed with photos of Marilyn’s work.

“I remember Marilyn from my first postings on the Forum, she was always very present and generous in her suggestions.” Caterina