What I made in my textile class this week

I cut up some of the cloth that I printed with a sliced apple and stitched the circles onto a a piece of fabric that got dyed a rather dull grey. I like both sides of the new cloth

Monoprinted faces. I'm not sure where this will go.

Fronts and backs. I'm really enjoying making the two sides different, but equally interesting.

I over printed some ugly cloth. I like how this carved stamp worked out. You get very different patterns depending on how you place the repeats.

Before and after. This little grouping is developing and growing. 

Drop in weaving at River Market in New Westminister

We had a great time weaving at River Market in New Westminster on Sunday. What awesome place that is - interesting shops, great food vendors - right on the Fraser River. It's definitely not a run-of-the-mill chain store type mall. If you've been there, you know what I mean. If you haven't been there, it's worth the trip out to New Westminster. Transportation is no problem. It is right across the street from the skytrain station.

They have all kinds of community activities going on there too. While we were there, there was a free zumba class, a group of people playing board games, and of course, us doing our drop-in weaving. There's even a brand new shop that offers knitting classes for children and adults.

Lots of people were interesting in weaving, and we even had a photographer from the local paper come by to take pictures.

Here's more weaving in progress:

Fabric Art course

I'm taking a six week fabric art course at the Shadbolt Art Centre. In the first two classes, we played around with fabric paint and dye. Today we added some fused applique. Here are some of the things I've been working on. They are all still very much works in progress. Who knows what they'll look like when they are finished.

Front, back, back with fused applique

front, back, back with fused applique

these four feel like they go together

AD's white blanket

This was a collaborative project with my teenage daughter. She wanted an all white blanket. She chose the yarns, and I helped her set up the loom. She did most of the weaving herself. Pretty impressive, considering this is only her second weaving project - ever.

Fall and Winter Classes at "Believe in Your Child"

I was very excited to discover that there is a creative studio right in my own neighbourhood. They mainly offer children's classes, but I'll be teaching weaving classes there for both adults and children in the fall. The dates will be announced later on. You can find out more on the Believe in Your Child website.

52 books, week 16 - The Gussie's Retreat

More about 52 books in 52 weeks

I have a group that gathers a few times a year at a house on a lake just south of the border. They call themselve's the Gussies. I think it is because their first retreat was in August - get it? Three days to just make art in a lovely setting is such a luxury.

The art that I do at the retreat is always very different from what I do at home. I love to play with all the things that people bring to share and this seems to be about the only time I get out my gelli plate and do some printing.

This book is coptic bound with assorted cardstock pages. I used some navy velvety finished mat board for the covers - they were exactly the right size. The velvety flocked stuff on the cover got a bit mucked up when I was making the art but I'm okay with that, not everything has to look brand new all the time.

52 books, week 15 - Le Cadavre Exquis

More about 52 books in 52 weeks

We used to play this game with the kids when they were young - usually when we were waiting for our meal to arrive in a restaurant. One person starts by drawing a head, then folds the paper over so the next person can only see a bit of the neck. That person draws the body and folds the paper over again. The last person draws the legs. When the paper is unfolded, everyone has a good laugh at the funny creature that was created.

At the Artzona art retreat, a bunch of us supposed grown ups played the same game. A few people decided to collage their body parts. I'd never thought of doing that, so I had to give it a try when I got home. I used a combination of drawings from children's picture books and images from National Geographic magazines. Some of the combinations are rather bizarre - but that's the whole point of the game.

I didn't really do a lot of planning for this book. I had a bunch of index cards lying around, so I used them for the backgrounds of each page. After I had created all the pages, I started looking for something to use for the cover. I happened to have a folder that was exactly the right height for the three index cards. I love it when things work out that way.