Happy things in January

Are you looking for a fun, creative New Year's resolution? 

2016 has been quite a year. This is the perfect time to start keeping track of all the things that make you smile

Join me each month to make a fun little journal that you can use to keep track of your own happy things.

A few years ago I made a series of junk journals to record all the happy things that happened in my life each month. They are just small simple little booklets made out of random bits of paper that I had lying around in my studio. I decorated them with equally random stickers and other bits and pieces. They were so easy and fun to make. It always makes me smile when I go back and read through all my random happy thoughts.

This year, I'll be running a series of Junk Journalling workshops. We will meet on the first Friday of each month from 6-8 pm at Muckabout Studio (Hastings at Gamma in North Burnaby). I'll have all the materials and supplies you need to make your own "Happy Things of the Month" journal. $18 per session, or buy a 5 session punch card for $75.Contact the studio directly to register.  (They have sessions each week, but I'm only there once a month. The other instructors are all fantastic and will introduce you to other junk journalling ideas.)

If you can't make it to the Friday workshops, I also sell Mini Junk Journal Snack Packs at the Muckabout store. You get a premade mini-journal in a takeout container filled to the brim with fun papery bits that you can use to decorate it. The kits are $10 each.

The couple that weaves together...

On Saturday, I did a workshop for a lovely couple. He bought it for her as a birthday surprise. They spent the day weaving together.

He wove a scarf in the colours of his favourite sports team -the Saskatchewan Roughriders (green, black and white)

She chose a lovely earthy pallette (orange, green, black and white). I had lots of other yarn colours for them to choose, I really did. Even though they made their colour choices for completely different reasons, the two scarfs ended up being very complementary. They even matched the walls of the studio!

They both look very happy with their finished scarves.

Leigh Square residency week 9 - The End*

*yes, that is another "Series of Unfortunate Events" reference. That's two weeks in a row now. I just realized that as much as I enjoyed the series, you might get the impression that I thought of this residency as "unfortunate". Absolutely not! The residency has been a great experience. I've enjoyed the dedicated, productive time, and many opportunities have come my way as a direct result of the residency. I'm planning to do a post reflecting on the whole experience, but for now, this will just be a regular recap of my week.

I had a visitor on Wednesday who popped in to comment on how much he liked the pieces that I had on display. Then he told me a story about a dream he had a few weeks ago. He dreamt that he was following the ancient trade routes along the coast and that while he was somewhere in Oregon (he said he didn't know why, but he was sure this took place in Oregon), he met a weaver who showed him many beautiful and finely woven goat hair blankets. He said he remembered how delicate and soft they were to touch. (I'm not entirely sure that goat hair is particularly soft and delicate. I'd describe it more as coarse and sturdy, but never-the-less, that's the fibre that people along the coast here did use to weave their blankets.) When he told me this story, I thought he had seen the weavings that I had done on the Salish loom, but he seemed confused when  I mentioned them, so we went out to see the display cabinet.

That's when I realized that I had specifically taken those two pieces out to take to the Creative Weaving Project at the Dunbar Community Centre. Oh well. I appreciated his story and I'm glad he shared it with me.

Since this was the last week of my residency, I had made a list of the things I wanted to finish up.

I wanted to get some looms warped for my workshop on Saturday. I'm really enjoying the direct warping method for shortish warps.

Because I've had several workshops and events recently, all my looms had warps on them, so I had to clear some off before I could rewarp them. I decided to play with some pick up stick patterns at the same time: They don't show up too well in this piece, I think they look better in a balanced weave, but this was a practice piece for me. After all, it's only been about 20 years since I've used these techniques.

I also wanted to finish the warp that I had put on the big floor loom.

I managed to get to the end of the warp and when I unrolled the finished piece, I realized that I had woven about 1/2 the full length by myself in the last two weeks of my residency. This piece was supposed to be woven by members of the community. There were a few community members that did some weaving, mainly at the Culture Days event at the start of my residency, and the groups of kindergarten/grade one students who came by for during their field trips. I think this was the only disappointing part to the residency. I'm not sure why, but very few people in the community were interested in weaving. I was going to be a give the finished banner to the centre for them to display, but in the end, I decided to keep it for myself as a souvenir of my time at Leigh Square.

Terri stopped by to remind me to cut the warp off the loom in front of the reed so that the next person to use the loom doesn't have to rethread the whole thing.  I really meant to, but somehow, I ended up cutting it between the heddles and the reed. Oops! It's a pain to rethread everything, but it was my mistake, so I spent the time to leave the loom the way I found it.

One of the things that I've been working on now and then during the residency is making full size patterns for some of the garments that I've designed. I finished up with rough patterns for six garments. I hope to eventually post some tutorials for making handwoven garments.

And just like that, it was time to leave. Overall, it was a really productive and useful experience. I'm glad that I did it. I've realized that I am not ready for a permanent off site studio, but I would like to do more (occasional) short term residencies like this in the future.

Leigh Square Residency - the penultimate week (8)

I've always wanted to use that word, and yes, I did know what it meant before we read "The Series of Unfortunate Events" - possibly my favourite children's book series ever.

To get back on topic, yes, this is the second to last week of my residency. I gave some thought to what I wanted to get done in these last two weeks. One thing that hasn't been working out as I had hoped is the community weaving. I can't quite remember how long I made the warp, but there's lots left and it won't all get used if I leave it for other people to weave. I just don't get that many visitors. I've decided to spend time weaving on it myself. I was going to leave it behind as a gift to the community, but since not that many community members have actually contributed to it and I've done most of the weaving on it myself, I think I will keep it as a reminder of my time at Leigh Square.

This week I wound up what I call a "magic yarn ball' - a ball of random yarns of different lengths tied together, and did some weaving with it. I love how random the weaving is, with little bits of nubbly texture from the knots which just get woven in wherever they land. This is the technique I'm planning to have people use in the "Weave a Scarf in a Day" workshop that I'm doing at Muckabout Studio on December 3rd.

I also did some patterns using two shuttles with two different yarn colours. It is so simple for beginner weavers to get some interesting patterns this way. When I was weaving in Mexico, they called this type of weaving "pick and pick". The students in last week's classes really enjoyed working with these patterns.

Speaking of last week's students, Joanne came by to visit and brought in the weaving that she started last week. She's already finished it and says she has lots more ideas that she wants to try out.  I think her next plan is to make some journal covers.

I spent a lot of my time this week setting up a loom to do 1/2 twill. There are two ways to do 1/2 twill on a rigid heddle loom:

.1 Using one heddle - it's faster and easier to warp, but you have to use a pick up stick and repick every third shed.

2. Using two heddles. This is slower to warp, but supposedly the weaving part is more straightforward. Since this is a very long warp (for a rigid heddle loom in any case), I decided to spend the time up front and warp with two heddles. When I wound this warp, I had not planned to use two heddles, and in hindsight it probably was not the best choice. It has three different yarns. The light pink is tripled (it was wound into balls this way, and I didn't bother to separate them). The dark pink yarn is quite thin, and the red is slubby. To complicate things further, I decided to move some of the warp threads around rather than just put them on the loom in order. It took me all of Wednesday and well into Thursday to get it set up, and along the way, I remembered why I don't like to do two heddle weaves. Let's just say it's very creatively threaded. Admittedly, I was distracted on Wednesday as Joanne came to visit. It was fantastic to have the company and I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with her, but perhaps the complicated warping sequence was not the best choice of activity to do with someone else around. I'm hopeful that it will give some interesting results, just like the creative student warp last week. We'll see.

I also rethreaded a simple blue warp. It also somehow ended up with a few funky things going on. I didn't notice until I started weaving on Thursday night. I've certainly been reciting the mantra "there are no mistakes" a lot this week.

I started work on another tapestry on my Salish loom. I've been wanting to do a Sakura themed weaving since the cherry blossoms were blooming last spring. I'm really enjoying this loom with the chunky yarns for tapestry. I took it along to the Dyepot Club meeting on Friday and someone asked why I started weaving from the top, and I said "That's what Debra does". She said it doesn't really make sense when there is a fixed bar at the bottom. There are some vertical frame looms that just let the warp threads hang, and in that case you have to start weaving from the top, I've been enjoying the challenge of thinking about the image from the top down, but maybe for my next project, I will start from the bottom.

I have a short "to do" list for next week. Let's see how much I get finished.

Possible Omissions Show and Sale

Last weekend, we held the Possible Ommisions show and sale at the Mission Possible studio. I took along a few things to exhibit and sell. Making things to sell is most definitely outside my comfort zone, and has been causing me a fair bit of anxiety. I'm usually a fairly relaxed person, so this is not a feeling I have very often, but it's important to do things that make you uncomfortable now and then right?

So, the next time I get asked to participate in a sale (like next
weekend for example), I have a bunch of things ready to go.

We had lots of bare wall space, so I hung some of my recent paintings and asked people to give me feedback on them. Several people commented that they look like my textiles. I don't feel like they are finished yet, but I haven't decided what I want to do with them next. I expect I'll get them out every once in a while and play around with them.

I took a loom along and let people try it out. It was a leftover warp from one of my earlier workshops with an interesting threading arrangement. I liked the way the warp is spaced out with some areas with larger floats. I like the way the piece turned out, and lots of people asked what I'm going to do with it. I think it is the perfect size to become the back of a vest. Now, I just have to collect some weaving for the front.

I took my button maker along and people had lots of fun making little collage buttons. Interesting message choices. The ones that say "be kind" and "It's not the end of the world" were made by a librarian from the US. I think she's planning to wear them to work.

And, why yes, that is reference to A Clockwork Orange in the upper left corner.

I think my favourite is the forest with the little green heart that says "How beautiful you are!"

I was thinking of selling the button maker last year because we hardly ever use it anymore, but I'm glad I hung onto it.

Leigh Square residency week 7

 This was a bit of a different week for me. We are having a show and sale this weekend at the pottery studio. Instead of weaving, I decided to spend some time making things to sell there. Since most of the other people in the show are potters, I decided to do something different.

I stitched some glass beads onto the felt beads that I made as samples for the mini workshop i did a few weeks ago and turned them into necklaces. I'm quite pleased with how they turned out.

I also made some necklaces from some bamboo tiles that I painted ages ago and then promptly did nothing with them. I added some beads and sari silk bits to dress them up a bit.

I'm also going to take some of the felt cuffs that I've had on display at Leigh Square, and I've done a few mixed media paintings of labyrinths and standing stones.

This whole making stuff to sell is new to me. I have no idea what people might want to buy. I keep thinking back to an overheard quote that I wrote in one of my sketchbooks: "it's an experiment, it doesn't need to be fixed". Thinking that way is making it easier for me to finish some things without getting all bound up

I had two weaving workshops on Thursday. A full day affair in Poco, and then the first of a series of evening workshops in Burnaby. Not the best planning for sure, but they went well. A couple of the students brought along  their own rigid heddle looms. The one on the left is an Ashford and the one on the right is a Schact Cricket loom. It's nice for me to see these other looms in action. Although they are made by different companies they share some features that are quite different from the Beka model that I use. There are things that I like about them, and there are things that I prefer about my Beka looms. Both the students said that they would rather have a Beka loom - mainly because it is less bulky. I have to admit that is my favourite feature as well - especially when I have to carry several of them to workshops, or put one in my suitcase when I'm travelling. (I carried a warped loom in my suitcase when I went to Europe last summer and gave a talk about freestyle weaving in Finland).

Here's some of the fun weaving that people did today. Lots of exploration of "pick and pick" patterns made by weaving with two shuttles with different colours of yarn.

The Thursday evening series will continue on November 24 and December 1. There is still space to join us for one or both nights. Send me a message if you are interested.

Interviews about my art

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with Jill Schuler of Creativi-tea. She wrote about our conversation here:

...and here's a short video clip about the Creative Weaving Project. I start talking around 1:17.

Leigh Square residency week 6

I spent Wednesday working on my Red Fish rag weaving and coincidentally, parked in front of a fish shaped bench that day. This weaving is an experimental prototype for a large commission that I'm planning to propose. I think the process worked well. I really liked the blending and subtle colour variations that I was able to get by combining different pieces of fabric. Most of the fabrics that I used are printed cottons, but there's a bit of heathery wool,  a jersey knit, a tartan plaid and some shiny synthetic bits thrown in as well. I think one of the things I liked best is that the technique uses up a LOT Of fabric. It was very satisfying to see my "stash" decrease. 

I did a hand stitched quilt workshop last year with some folks from Gee's Bend Alabama, and I found myself thinking about them after the US election results.  I decided to do a small hand stitched piece with some of the fabrics I used in the weaving. As I stitched, my thoughts went to the stories that they told us about growing up in rural Alabama and the hardships that their community faced when the money lenders came and took everything of value from them - all their food stores, tools, livestock, everything that they would need to survive in their remote community (which is still almost an hour drive to the closest town - grocery store, doctor's office, school. Imagine how isolated they would have been without cars or even horses.) Somehow, they managed to persevere, and found ways to survive and to make things out of pretty much nothing like the beautiful quilts that they hand stitched from rags to keep their children warm on cold winter nights. I wrote the words "Winter is coming" on my piece, because that's how I feel about their country right now. You can find your own meaning in the Game of Thrones reference.

 I set up a display of some of the things that I've been working on during my residency in one of the display cabinets. I've been wanting a way to show people what I've been working on, so I'm happy to have the extra for some of my work.

I had a very nice visit with Mary on Thursday. I know her through the Vancouver Artist Trading Card group. When she learned that I'm a weaver, she gave me three LeClerc backstrap looms that she found at her local thrift shop. They even have rigid heddles.  I've been saving them to play around with during this residency. It was nice to be able to show her what I've been doing with one of them. 

After finishing the Red Fish weaving, I decided to take a bit of a break from weaving for the rest of week, but I do have plans to use the backstrap loom to reacquaint myself with the patterns and textures you can get using a pick up stick or two. Maybe next week.

One of the people in the Tuesday Spinners group took pity on my poor broken drop spindle. She had fixed a similar spindle issue with some gold Fimo polymer clay and she gave me the her left over clay to fix mine. I still have to bake it to harden the clay. Fingers crossed that all goes well.

I also played around with the felt beads that I made a few weeks ago for one of the mini workshops. I did some needle felting to "fix" some loose bits, and then did some embellishments with beads and bits. I think they'll become necklaces for some of my upcoming sales.

Next week is looking pretty busy. I'm doing a full day weaving workshop on Thursday. Joanne is going to bring her Cricket loom and we're going to figure out how to get it set up. I also have a workshop in Burnaby on Thursday evening, then on Friday, I'll be setting up for our weekend "Possible Omissions" show and sale at Mission Possible in Vancouver

Possible Omissions Show and Sale

We are beside the crawl this year, hope you will come to "Possible Omissions Show and Sale" that we are having by coincidence on the same weekend, November Sat - 19th and Sun - 20 , Dawn is weaving and will have a loom for you to try, Shelimar will have a wheel ready for you to play with clay, we also have coffee and baked goodies and other fun things going on, I hope you can come by and see what we have been up to for the past year. See you next weekend
..
Ps please share this post with your friends.

Creative weaving project

Here's a short video with a clip of me talking about my "Lammas daybreak in North Burnaby" weaving.

Leigh Square residency week 5

This week, I working in the smaller room at the front of the building. It's actually called the "Artist in Residence Room". It's a much more manageable space. I set myself up in front of the window and didn't feel like I was sitting in the middle of a huge empty cavern. There are morning classes scheduled in this room, but I'm thinking of changing my times so that I can use this space more. 

I made some good progress on my experimental rag rug weaving on the Salish loom. I got a start on the red fish that symbolizes Coquitlam.

I was in the smaller room because there were several school field trips this week that needed the big room. They made fish shaped lanterns, and I found out that in Chinese culture the gold fish is a symbol for good luck - adding another layer of meaning to my "red fish in the river" weaving.

I also got lots of help from the kids on the community weaving. They were all kindergarten and grade 1s, and I didn't have a lot of time with them, so I had 4-5 kids working together on the loom at a time - two working the foot pedals, two passing the shuttle back and forth and another one working the beater. It was quite chaotic at times. Ironically, I had chosen blue yarn. According to the colour chart that the children were given, blue represents calmness and relaxation. 

I also had visitors from Nicola Lodge, a seniors care home. None of the seniors wanted to try weaving, they preferred to watch. There were two grade 9 students with them (because it was "bring a grade 9 student to work day"), and they had a great time weaving and writing messages on tags that I will attach to the weaving.

I took a bit of a break from weaving and made some journal samples. One is for the "Junk Journal Snack Pack" kits that I have for sale at Muckabout Gift Gallery, and the other is a sample for a workshop on making a journal that I'll be teaching there in the new year.

On Thursday night I went to Muckabout's official opening and dropped of the samples. In addition to the Junk Journal Snack Pack kits, they also have some of my wrist cuffs for sale in the store.

I'll  be teaching a few workshops there before Christmas:

Express Yourself" Art Journaling:
November 11 or 25, 6:30-8:30 pm $25 each session including supplies and materials.

Freestyle Weaving: Make a Scarf in a Day
December 3, 10am-4pm, $160/person, including the use of a loom and all materials and supplies
Grand Opening SPECIAL: sign up with a friend and you each pay $120.

Register at the store: 4759 Hastings Street, Burnaby (at Gamma - next door to the Pizza Hut).

Leigh Square Residency week 4

It's hard to believe that I'm already almost half way through my residency. I'm really enjoying having the dedicated time and space to do my own thing. It's a bit of a pain to cart things back and forth all the time, but there's really no point in bringing my whole home studio out here, and there's no good storage space in this multi use facility. It's too bad, because it really is a pain to have to pack everything away at the end of each day.

Have I mentioned how big the room is? It's huge and there are loads of tables. A few people have asked if all that space has inspired to work really big. The thing about weaving is that it might be big, but all the cloth is all wound up on the loom so you can't really tell until the very end when you unwind it. It's one of the things I really enjoy about weaving: the excitement of seeing your creation in its entirety for the very first time.

Wednesday morning started with the last of the mini-workshops. This week we made small woven pouches. I love this design because the whole thing is woven in one piece and there are no threads to weave in or edges to finish, you just pop it off the loom and it's finished - other than the cord it hangs on, and I'm pretty sure there might be a way to weave that in as you go along as well.

One of the participants from last week's mini workshop "Weaving without a loom" brought back the piece that she started. She wove a whole bowl. I just love the colours. The varigated blue/green is sock yarn. I think it is gorgeous.

That's it for the mini workshops. I still have a full day rigid heddle weaving workshop coming up on November 17, 9:30-3:30, $135/person, and if people want to stop by to hang out and work on their own projects, they are welcome to come to open studio time on Wednesday mornings 10:30-12:30.

After the workshop, Jill from CreativiTEA came by to interview me and she took me out for lunch. 

I pulled out one of the backstrap looms that I was given a while ago. I've been saving them to play around with during this residency. It looks like there might be a few pieces missing from some of the kits and the instruction booklet was more amusing than helpful, with some really really bad hand drawn illustrations.. Fortunately one of the looms was already set up with a bit of weaving started on it, so I could tell what things were supposed to look like. It was an interesting exercise, but I'm not sure I like this type of "loom". I'll have to give some thought to how I might use these looms. Maybe one day, I'll visit some traditional backstrap weavers and learn more about their weaving.

I found someone in the heritage museum who was able to tell me about the Salish weaving that they have. It was commissioned for them and woven recently in Chilliwack. The river with the red fish references one of the possible meanings for the name Coquitlam. Another possible meaning is "the people who have hands that stink like fish". One of the other symbols (the person giving the explanation didn't know which one) means friendship.

I've decided to do a "Coquitlam: red fish in the river" weaving on my own Salish loom. This will be a prototype for a proposal that I'm thinking of submitting to create a large rag rug. I warped the loom with "mop cotton" which is about the same weight as the heavy wool that is traditionally used for this type of loom, and tore strips of rags to do the weaving. This is a much easier alternative to sourcing and spinning the thick "buffalo yarn" that is usually used. I'm pleased with how it is turning out so far. 

Coincidentally, I found a couple of books in the studio space on using scrap fabric to make new things - one is on upcycling sweaters and the other one is about rag rugs.

There's been more progress on the community weaving, and I've decided to weave in bits from my personal projects, so that there will be a "trace" of my time at Leigh Square left behind with the weaving. As you can see this week, I added some "rags".

The last thing I did before I left for the weekend was to set out a basket with some yarn and "warped" CDs with instructions for anyone who happens to find them to add to the display that I've started. I don't know how well used the space is when I'm not there. I'm looking forward to seeing what people have done when I'm back next week.

Living Room Art in the Heights

Living room art in the heights is a lovely community event. Every year, for one night someone from the neighbourhood offers to have their home transformed into an art gallery/performance space. This is my second year participating. Last year my daughter and I took one of our looms and did a community weaving with the attendees.

This year, we exhibted that weaving and made a new one. I also exhibited my Salish weaving. Since it was inspired by the view from my North Burnaby home, it seemed right. I had hoped it wold have been finished, but I like the way it looks on the loom.

 I also added to my collection of woven CDs. Since only one person can weave on the loom at a time, this was a great way to involve more people.

We were set up in the kitchen. At first this seemed like an odd place, but where does everyone end up at any good house party? It was a small area, and it was packed with people all night. It was great to have everyone come to us. One of the things I like about local community event is seeing people who I've met over the years, mainly through the kid's activities, but don't see often anymore. It's nice catching up with their lives.

Some of the other art. Christie Lim's embroidery, Bill Thompson's bird peeking in at us through the window, Sheila Chowhury's forest painting with dragon sculptures - I met the person who made the dragons, but I've forgotten her name (she didn't like it when I called her the "dragon lady" - I thought it was a compliment - you know, like 'nasty woman'), and lastly, Diana Hall's rug - wool crocheted over cotton rag strips and felted. She said it was her own idea. I think it's brilliant.

 Christie's interactive embroidery. She's going to sew the pieces together to display next year. Notice that it's all about perspective. I thought "never forge" was good advice, but an odd choice for an embroidery project, then someone moved the scissors.