Art on the Street

Here I am in my booth at Art on the Street! It was a great day. The weather was perfect and lots of people came to enjoy all the artwork that was displayed. There were over 87 different artists participating, roving musicians and a kids area by the Children's Art Factory. I very much enjoyed meeting so many people and hearing so many wonderful things about my work. 

Earth Loom Project!

I'm so excited to be a part of this project at the Guelph Enabling Garden! Building an earth loom with the community for use in the garden is something that I have wanted to do for a very long time. This is a wonderful opportunity to work with some fabulous people! Please come out and participate or visit the garden after September 24th to see the woven creation.

The Possible

Being in California was such a time of recharging and inspiration. One of the very best things I had the good fortune to do, was visit the Berkeley Art Museum and the ongoing and amazing interactive exhibit, The Possible. 
To call it an "exhibit" is kind of the wrong word, it's more of a learning experience facilitated by many artists, musicians and craftspeople.

Group indigo dye dip.

The weekend I was there, there were several things going on. A giant rug was being worked on by the artist (Fritz Haeg) as well as the public, there was a group indigo dye session in full swing, participatory print making area, beeswax candle making and some weaving going on. The music studio was set up and people were there making sounds and videos, the library was set up for people to peruse and use to make zines. 



I cannot describe the full extent of how I felt on my visit, because it was a full sensory experience, one that is not easily described in words. Please look at the information and videos on the BAM website. 
It was really a learning experience, a place to make and leave a mark. As pieces are created, they are moved to a growing and changing exhibition space which will house the culmination of The Possible as the weeks go on.

Print making station.

It felt so good to participate and I left feeling inspired and less scatterbrained about being very multi-diciplanary in my own work. 
I was happy to be accompanied by my creative cohort Jenne -  it was wonderful to experience this together. I got to watch her remove her cute handmade dress and give it a dip in the indigo vat. 





















We also got to visit artist and nature dyer Kristine Vejar's indigo vat after we had spoken with her about it at her booth at Stitches West (I also got to visit her dreamy store A Verb for Keeping Warm on the same day). 
Driving back to the South Bay from Berkeley that day during California's "magic hour" and sipping on our Arnold Palmers - Jenne and I were on cloud 9!

Kristine and Jenne at Stitches West.

Happy as can be at A Verb for Keeping Warm.

Saori in Santa Cruz

Someone LOVES Saori weaving.

A small collection at an amazing studio.

Wow! I just got back from an amazing visit to the bay area. It was so super so visit with my amazing friend Jenne and her family. We did so many amazing things, there will be several posts to reflect my adventures…

Tea, inspiring stones and magical bobbins all ready for our workshop.

The first thing I would like to share is our Saori weaving workshop. We met Jill of Saori Santa Cruz and got to try out Saori weaving in her beautiful studio surrounded by redwood trees.

Getting down to business…

Saori weaving is a way of weaving that allows the creator to be completely free and open to what they are creating. It took me a while to "get into" it. I tried really hard to enter the studio with no expectations or ideas of what I wanted to produce and just let myself be inspired by the materials, atmosphere and my lovely friend - and of course Jill!

Weaving away.

Weaving away on another loom.

Up close.

Pleased with the results!

 We also got to try out this new amazing spinning wheel from National Custom Spinning Works. The man who makes them used to do custom cars and you can really tell by the aesthetic and materials!

Jenne trying out a cool new wheel while Jill looks on.

Tea Break...

Jill was nice enough to write her own blog entry about our day, please take the time to read it too. 

Jenne inspects one of Jill's amazing creations.

A New Studio!

Fibreperson HQ

Well! It's been awhile... the Holidays are over and Winter has set in and it's very, very cold!

To keep from freezing and get me out of (my new!) studio, I've been trying out some different activities. I have taken up Tap Dancing, which I'm finding just a joyful way to get the blood flowing. I've also been going to a weekly Ukulele sing and play time, it's great! I'm learning a lot and having lots of fun. 

I've also completed and organized my new studio! I'm so excited about it... it's a nice cozy space and it's very organized and full of inspiring things and tools I've collected over the years. I just can sit in here and feel inspired. I have a lot of windows and a nice view and a door I can open when the weather is warm.

I'm raring to go and I've started experimenting on weaving by creating my own small looms. I started by using a cylindrical pressing ham that I just inserted pins into to warp on to. I am hoping I can create a seamless tube to use as the body for a puppet. Instead of just weaving around and around, which I think would make the tube on a bias and a little too droopy, I wove different colour blocks to make it more stable. I guess I'll see later today when I finish and remove it!

A cozy place to sit and spin.

Grand Opening of Make Your Mark Studio!

Texture...

Oh, goody! I can finally reveal a huge new project! My friend Alison Ruth and myself are launching Make Your Mark Studio! A maker's space for both myself and Alison to run classes out of and working studio space for all my fibre goodness work. 

We'll be having a grand opening party on Friday, April 26 from 6pm to 9pm. For more information please take a look at the Facebook Event Page.

I'm excited to be located in a historic building that has been recently renovated for artists and galleries. It's called Boarding House Arts. My neighbours include arts organization Musagetes and the Boarding House Art Gallery!

I'll be posting lots of things coming very soon - classes I'll be teaching in the space, events that we'll be hosting and lots of pictures!

Brand New Window Inside!

Brand New Window Outside!

Hodgepodge Farm Residency Part 2 - Natural Dyes

Cal and me peeking...

It's about time for me to go back to upstate NY for the Sheep and Wool Festival! So, I thought I should post part two of three about my August residency at Hodgepodge Farm!

The first week I was there, we spent our time dyeing both protein and cellulose fibre with natural dyes. To make it easy I used only use alum and cream of tartar to mordant the fibres. Mordanting allows the fibre to accept the dye and make it colourfast, it can also alter the final colour significantly. A lot of mordants are very toxic, alum is the least toxic, so that factored into my decision as well...

Mordanting yarn.

Since I had recently done some natural dyeing from plant matter I gathered from my own backyard which, in my area, gives mostly browns, golds and greens, I was excited to try something different. We wanted some blues, reds, pinks and oranges! So, we experimented with Indigo, Madder Root, Hibiscus Flowers and Jewel Weed (attn. Cal - jewel weed is a natural cure for poison ivy!). 

Posed demo.

I was really excited about the jewel weed, Paula at White Barn Farm told us all about this plant. It is a pretty green bush with tiny, pretty orange flowers. The exciting thing about it is that the WHOLE plant yields a very pretty light yellow. Buttery!

Jewel weed.

The hibiscus smelled wonderful and the chickens loved to steal the flowers right out of the pot! It yielded a pretty, mellow red/brown and a cool thing happened when I left some skeins in the dye vat overnight - they turned a pretty steel grey!

Hibiscus flowers.

We had a few indigo vats, the first was an instant vat that Cal had read about, since an indigo vat can take several days to prepare, this seemed like a great option. The other was a vat that Cal had in her workshop that had been sitting around for a few years. The cool thing about these natural vats is that there really isn't as long as you follow proper storage instructions. We had a great time with the indigo! We didn't achieve any deep inky blues but I think that was because we tried to to jam too much fabric and yarn into the vat - more fibre than dye yields more subtle colours.

Vat one of indigo.

Vat two of indigo.

Indigo dyed stuff.

The madder root vat was a fun one too. We did two vats. Ideally, you want to really soak any roots or bark to extract the colour and there are very strict rules for temperature and timing to yield certain colours. With the first vat, I was concerned I let heat up too much, the fibre was more of a dark orange than red. So, I brewed up the second vat, didn't let it get too hot and let it sit for several days with the fibre in it... we still only got a dark orange colour. No red this time - but the orange is beautiful!

Dippy in madder...

The set-up.

Next time - we get crazy with synthetic dyes!

Hanging to dry.

Pile of yarn.