Nettles, Treadles and Love

On December 22, the longest night of the year, and the shortest day, we give thanks for the deepening dark and the insight that it brings, and we celebrate the return of the sun and the warm glow of the natural light that we find around us.

I made this linoleum block print – my first attempt on a paper surface.  It didn’t work too well when I tried it on the card stock – probably not the right kind of ink or something.  So I xeroxed my test print on typing paper and Elmers glued it onto the cards.  Turned out pretty good.  Then I used this cool rubber stamp I got inside the card:

love and light.

Day two was held at the Commonweal garden at RDI.

we had class in the yurt this time.

Marlie came prepared

 Marlie DeSwart is a fiber artist and owner and operator of Black Mountain Artisans, a West Marin Fiber Artist Cooperative.  She is also co-founder of Local Wool Pastures, which sources, mills and sells wools and fibers from local shepherds and farmers.

so many different kinds of fiber

we made our own drop spindle out of simple materials.

Marlie demonstrating how to set up the spindle for spinning

Here she demonstrates how to add colored yarn to your carded wool...

...creating something lovely.

wheel spinning is quite a challenge.

All the spinning techniques were fascinating and challenging.  I could see how once you got it it would be a rhythmic pleasure, but this will definitely take a good deal of practice.

beautiful hand-spun fiber

The second class was at RDI again.

I actually forgot my camera battery, so don’t have pics of the day itself, but related ones from the first class and afterwards.

The following are examples Rebecca brought in – linoleum block prints, silk screen prints and various dye colors.

the greenhouse classroom

preparing coreopsis pigment

The coreopsis pigment gets poured into a cookie sheet, called lakeing, and left for the next few weeks to completely dry out.  You scrape up the remaining powder and the dehydrated pigment can then be rehydrated and used as a water color or other natural pigment.

oak galls

oak gall pigment

oak gall laking

I made my first linoleum block print for this workshop.  fun.

We then printed it on our dyed fabric using an ink we made from a concentrated dye that was thickened with sodium alginate.

yarn block print

yarn prints

these are all the various colors we got out of the day.  apple prints, wood block prints, linoleum block, silk screen, using an acetate, and our nature print.

various prints

The following are some natural dyes on display at the Yolo Wool Mill mill-in.

Coming up soon I will post about my first solo dye process using onion skins.

This is a pretty awesome gift to the world here.  Shivani at My Owl Barn blog has gotten contributions of cool and beautiful owl art for you to choose from and compile into a calendar for yourself, or as a gift.  The link to the calendar is here.

I found out about it at andrea’s blog at feathersfreesiasandfishingtackle.blogspot.com

She has a cool gift guide up right now, sharing interesting items she has come across, as well as tutorials for gifts you can make yourself.  There are links under the header to the guides, or you can just scroll down a bit on her site.  fun stuff.

Syd the Squid - photo from Fibershed facebook page

Also, the Fibershed marketplace has come out with the coolest little DIY project.  Syd the Squid – check it out here.

Isn’t  he adorable?!

Enjoy, and happy holidays.

On Oct 29 the Yolo Wool Mill near Davis had it’s annual Mill-In.  Tours of the mill, sheep shearing demos, a spinning circle, craft and fiber booths, food, music and fun.

I met a sweet angora rabbit.  I want one.   Or two.  Gotta do some research.  So soft.

He was so comfortable sitting on the ground using his hand shears.

Jane, the mill owner and operator, gave the tour and shared the fascinating story of how it all began.  She started off with a fleece cleaning co-op, and became part of a local group wanting to do something to better the community.  They decided on building a mill.  She traveled to the east coast to purchase massive USA made mill equipment.  Transported it back to her farm, couldn’t find a building for it, so layed a foundation and built a building around the machines. Machines that will probably last forever.  She can’t buy parts for them anymore, so she has a local blacksmith create what she needs.  These machines are amazing to see.

Jane

Sean and a huge carding machine

It is hard to believe that the SF bay area used to be filled with mills and industry.  Actually, what is hard to believe is that it isn’t anymore.  This wool mill is the only mill within a couple hundred miles.

People involved in the local fibershed project here have been motivated and inspired by this fact and are working with others – among them Sally Fox, an organic cotton breeder and inventor of a long-fibered variety of color-grown cotton (naturally colored cotton that doesn’t need to be dyed) – to build a working cotton mill.  This is so exciting – the growth of a fiber industry again.  This could be the building blocks of so much more to come.  Creative passionate people making beautiful change in the world is such an inspiration.

for more photos of this you can go to the flickr link here.

photo by Amy Cantrell

My aunt Amy, a professional photographer (www.amycantrell.com), took this picture of my grandma Lillian’s hands – my mom’s mom.  She was near the end of her life, living with the ravages of Alzheimer’s when it was taken.  Those hands that had known a sewing machine so intimately spent those last days repetitively folding and unfolding things.

I have only hazy memories of, as a young girl,  being in her sewing room in her red brick house in Atlanta, Georgia.  Most of the room was taken up by her big work table, with storage underneath.  I remember her showing me how to use carbon paper and a roller to mark pattern lines on the fabric for cutting.

Grandma Lillian made all of her own clothes.  She sewed all the time.  She had a sewing machine set up behind the counter at the used bookstore she owned.  I remember her in her matching polyester outfits, blonde curled hair, with just as easily a laugh or scowl on her face.  She liked her TV game shows, playing scrabble, and made the best baking soda biscuits ever.

She was tall and thin, and when I was a teenager I could fit into some of her clothes and we would play dress-up.

The rustle and feel of pattern paper, pinking shears and thimbles are all reminders of her.

As I delve into the process of sewing more deeply now, I feel a new/old connection with her grow – our hands sharing a memory of a similar landscape.

treasures

On a recent trip down to L.A. to visit my Aunt Amy, I asked her if she had any of grandma’s sewing stuff she could part with.  She gifted me with some treasures.

p.s. all the color photos of Lillian were taken by my mom, Grace.

The first class was held at Windrush Farm – Mimi Lubberman’s sheep farm in Petaluma, Ca.

We got to meet all the animals.

Mimi and the sheep

Shetland sheep

the ram

guard llamas

moo moo

We learned about a particular quality of good fiber known as “crimp.”

showing us the crimp

crimp

We got to feel hands on what good quality fleece for fiber feels like.

We learned how to wash the fleeces without felting them (carefully.)

And preparing them for carding  and spinning.

separating washed fiber

carding machine

It was a fascinating and fun day on beautiful land with amazing women.

Being a born-and-raised city girl, there is something so foreign, and yet also so familiar, about being around the animal creatures.  Throughout my life I’ve had a dog and a cat, and a parakeet and hamster as pets.  City pets.  These larger grazing animals, though tame, seem closer to the wild somehow – their constant connection to the earth – munching on it, pooping on it.  It feels good to be around them, and handling their fiber is a tangible connection to that earth.  A gift from the mama.

Both of my parents are Libras, and I was inspired to make them a simple handmade gift as part of their birthday present last month.

Eyeglass cases, made from scrap fabric from Discount Fabrics and some sheets of polyester felt.  The instructions are from this book.

My mother and grandmother taught me the basics of sewing when I was fairly young.  I went on to learn a little more in home economics class in middle school.  Is that even offered anymore?  In high school I made some items of clothes – simple elastic waisted pants and a pair of shorts (with pockets even.)  But then strangely I never wore them.  I liked them but they just felt a little too vulnerable.  I was too self conscious of the fact that I made them to wear them – they were too unique to be safe.

I actually still have my first two home ec. projects from junior high:

an apron

love the sewing detail

a skateboard pillow!

In college I did work exchange in the costume shop, where I used a serger for the first time.  Then somewhere in my late 20’s/early 30’s I was inspired to make a blanket out of a patchwork of recycled wool sweater squares.  And my friend Jen began teaching me the basics of quilting on a small pillow cover piece.  I started them both, and they now sit unfinished in a trunk downstairs.  These I will definitively finish one day however.

I have long since gotten over the mindset that handmade is uncool, as I felt in junior high/highschool.  And I have even gotten over being defeated (at least somewhat) because it is too hard.  I know that I can do things that are hard, and that the outcome is worth the effort.  I think what has shifted for me most recently is letting myself indulge in the pleasure of it – all the little details that make a craft unique.  The textures and color, the histories and stories, and the excitement about the process of creation.  The manifestation of an urge that has a life of it’s own – that is in fact Life actually.

Bolinas lagoon

I started two workshops at the Regenerative Design Institute (RDI) last month.  RDI is a permaculture school in Bolinas, Ca.  These two workshops are part of a re-skilling series they offer – they are a two day Natural Plant Dye class, and a three day class called From Sheep to Shawl.

gathering around the firepit

the greenhouse

Rebecca Burgess of the Fibershed project  is the plant dye teacher.

Rebecca discussing Sage

She had a huge rustic copper pot she got in France as our main dye pot.  It simmered oak galls on an outdoor fire to pre-mordant our cotton cloths in tannins, which helps it take the dyes better.

tannin bath

We harvested sage, coyote brush, coffee berry, and toyon for dye.

sage, coyote brush, toyon and coffee berry

Then we put our tannin-soaked cloth into an ocean water bath as a mordant – the metals in the water interact chemically in the dye process to make it lasting.

We also made some nature prints by rolling leaves up in cloth, wrapping with rubberbands and leaving in an oak gall bath in a rusty bucket.  Rust and copper have ways of strengthening certain dye processes and intensifying color.

rusty tannin bucket

We are leaving all the dye baths to sit and get stronger for a month before our day #2 class.

If you’d like to see the full slide show of this workshop you can go to the flickr set:

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/thimblehollow/sets/72157627994652782/

Toward the end of Summer I was looking through crafting books on amazon when I came across this book.  It sparked my curiosity and I promptly called my local bookseller, Pheonix Books, to order it for me.

The Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin.  It is everything you could want to know about the possibility of selling your handmade items.  This book introduced me to this whole unbelievably productive thriving community of crafters online.  I had been pondering the idea of a blog, but Kari convinced me to go for it.

I was sick for over a week in September, finishing this book and discovering the vast crafting blogosphere.  I got stuck on Amy Karol’s funny, inspiring and prolific angry chicken blog.  Kari, and my friend Maya in Portland, both highly recommended it.  Not only did it inspire me, I also felt like it taught me how to do a blog by example.  Just by her being totally herself I felt like I could be totally myself.  Then her blog led me to others like a tapestry.

So lying in bed staring at the ceiling, I formulated my blog plan…

local wool pastures yarn

I also wanted to share that the Fibershed marketplace is now up and running online.  If you are in the SF Bay Area and want some very local fibers and materials and some finished goods then check out fibershed.bigcartel.com.  The photo is of a lovely Shetland/Alpaca blend from Marlie and Mimi at localwoolpastures.com.

photo by Ginger Smith Molloy

Also, more reason to search out these natural fiber products – I just heard that a huge source of plastic pollution in the oceans is from the waste water from washing machines after washing synthetic fabrics.  Microplastic debris is washing up on shorelines around urban areas, and entering the bodies of marinelife, as well as the bodies of those who eat marinelife.  You can read more about this here. .