52 books

Over the past year I have made 52 handmade books - more or less one each week. It started out as a way to motivate myself to do something creative on a regular basis and at the same time use up some of arty bits that I've been hoarding for way too long. I have started "annual" projects in the past, but like most resolutions they all got derailed after a few months. I'm really pleased that I stuck with this one for the whole year.

I didn't have many "rules" for this project - just to make a book each week and to fill them with art or writing or something. Although I didn't set any limitations on the size, shape or materials, in the end all the books are rectangles and made mainly of paper. I didn't even try out any fancy binding techniques. The largest one is about 12" by 6" and the smallest one is less than 1 cm square (it's really teeny).

Maybe over the next year, I'll post pictures of each of the individual books and their contents.

Oh, and yes, I do have another annual project planned for 2016. I've still got lots of art supplies to use up.

Gee's Bend Quilters

The whole group

I spent the last two days in the company of a very interesting group of women. The Gee's Bend Quilt workshop was part of this year's Maiwa Symposium. I first heard of the quilters from Gee's Bend Alabama at the SAORI workshop I took earlier this year. Gee's Bend is an isolated community of a few hundred people in rural Alabama. Even today, it is at least a 45 minute drive to the nearest town - to the closest grocery store, school, doctor's office. There is only one road in and out. The community has had a difficult history. The original inhabitants had been slaves who were eventually able to buy their own property. At one point in the 1930's money lenders took everything of  value from the community, including all their tools, food stores and livestock. The residents have had to be very resourceful, and the woman have been using old worn out clothing to make quilts to keep their families warm for a long time. At some point the quilts of Gee's Bend were "discovered" by the art world. Compared to painting by Matisse or Klee, they have been exhibited in museums in the US and around the world. .

Rita Mae Pettway with me and my Gee's Bend style quilt

The quilts are quite different from the very precise orderly "crafty" quilts that follow rigid rules with straight lines and exact seam allowances. They are full of life and personality and reflect the lives of the people who made them.

Two women from Gee's Bend came to Vancouver for the workshop, Rita Mae Pettway (known as Rabbit) and her daughter Louisiana Bendolph. You can read their stories and see some of their quilts here.

I spent the two days hand stitching a quilt that uses a crazy assortment of fabrics. The powder pink is a corduroy fabric that started out as a skirt I made for myself in the 1980's. I cut it up and made a pair of pants (trousers) for my daughter when she was a baby. There's a lovely green herringbone wool that was left over from a blazer that I hand tailored when I was studying fashion design. A piece of Saskatchewan's tartan also made it's way into the piece. The woman sitting beside me had brought it along. I didn't even realize it was her's until long after I had used it. She was very gracious about it all.

I asked Louisiana and Rita Mae to sign my quilt. The woman who sat around me also added their names. I think I will embroider the names and add one of Rita Mae's quotes "Sometimes I do, but all the time I don't." along the stripes.

Living Room Art in the Heights

On Saturday AD and I took a loom to a really fun annual event. Each year (well, for the past two years anyway), someone in the neighbourhood opens their home up to the community for a one night celebration of the artists in our area. It is a bit like a gallery opening, performance and house party all rolled into one. There were painters, photographers, filmmakers, storytellers, musicians and dancers at the event, each showcasing their art form. You can see more photos from the event on their facebook page.

I sometimes complain that I don't know any arty people in my own neighbourhood, so I always have to go to Vancouver to do art things. It was really great to meet (and reconnect) with so many artists from Burnaby. It was especially fun for me since AD basically took over the loom and spent the evening showing lots of people how to weave. That's her at the loom, wearing a scarf that she wove herself.

Yarn and Fibre Night at Magpie's Nest

Magpie's Nest is starting its fall programming, and I suggested that we have a Yarn and Fibre Night. Everyone brought their own projects, some folks were knitting, others were stitching. I took along a loom land let people try their hand at freestyle weaving. It was awesome, and I hope we can make it a regular thing.

Freestyle Weaving Workshop - postponed until January

I've been having such a great time doing "freestyle" weaving - where there are no mistakes, and I want to share it with everyone. I've decided to start teaching weaving workshops. I did some teaching after my own weaving teacher retired, and with the popularity of all kinds of fibrearts right now, this seems like a good time to start again.

 11:30 - 6 pm at
Another Space, 1523 East Pender Street, Vancouver, BC.
$160 including the use of a Beka rigid heddle loom and all materials and supplies.
Sign up with a friend, and you'll both get $20 off the price of the workshop.

This workshop is for you if you've always wanted to learn to weave, but thought it was too complicated 
or fiddly, or if you thought looms take up too much space.

You'll leave the workshop with a finished weaving that will be a completely original work of art.

Weaving in Finland

While I was in Finland, I stayed with a textile artist who organizes the Kuusisto Art Manor every summer. I offered to do a talk about freestyle weaving while I was there. I took a small rigid heddle loom in my suitcase, and we invited visitors to the manor to give it a try. The long banner was woven by many people from both Vancouver and Finland.

Weaving on a rigid heddle loom in Finland

My host with the finished banner

Article about my weaving in a Finnish newspaper.
In the photo, I'm wearing a top that I made for the trip. I call it "Kuusisto".

Weaving in Estonia

This past summer, while I was traveling in Europe I visited a SAORI weaving studio at Loovala in Tallinn Estonia.

More weaving

After taking the SAORI workshop, I was inspired to dig out my own rigid heddle loom and start weaving. I had put it away, half warped when I was pregnant with my first child. I had been planning to weave a gift for my midwives, but I decided to take their advice and just let some things go.

Over the 17 years that my loom had been waiting for me, the warp had  been "aging" - the threads had become tangled, stretched and broken. The whole thing was a big mess and I thought about ripping it off the loom and starting over but I kept the SAORI philosophy "there are no mistakes" in mind and persevered.

It was a short warp, which was probably a good thing because it was almost impossible to wind it onto the loom as it was. I ended up with enough fabric to make the back of another completely unique one of a kind original top that I called "Mid Main" after the location of my midwives' clinic.

"Mid Main" back

I wove more fabric using similar colours for the front panels:

"Mid Main" front

SAORI Weaving

I studied weaving with a master weaver for about 10 years, and then I got pregnant. My loom sat, untouched and 1/2 warped for almost 17 years. Then, quite by accident, I came across a SAORI weaving workshop offered by Terri Bibby of SAORI Saltspring. I was intrigued and signed up right away.

SAORI weaving starts with the belief that "there are no mistakes". This is very different from the precision and attention to detail that are important in other types of weaving. In SAORI weaving pretty much anything goes, wavy selvedges, dangling threads, lumps, bumps and holes just add to the beauty of the fabric.

First SAORI weaving

I was hooked. I made myself a completely original, one of a kind top that used up all the fabric that I wove at that first workshop. I call it "Semiamhoo" after the workshop location.

"Semiamhoo"