The Olive Sparrow

Learning - Putting it all together - India Flint and Marjolein Dallinga

At the beginning of summer I took a felting workshop with Marjolein Dallinga in Picton, Ontario. It was organized by Linda from Rose Haven Farm Store. I like to describe myself as an "experienced felt-book reader and a beginner felter". My history of felting having started in the 90's and then put on hold due to my paintings keeping me exceedingly busy. Switching to working with resin in 2006 did not help me realizing my felting dreams - any floating fiber in the studio is sure to find it's way into the magnetic appeal of the wet resin. 

This year I have been very fortunate to learn techniques from both Marjolein and India. I couldn't help but apply what I learned from Marjolein when working on the landskin with India. Much to my inexperience of the vast amount of space a "crater" takes up, I was not able to make a lovley landskin - I had to felt it "my-way" (that is I used Marjolein's way of gentle felting). I also ended up with a piece of felt that was fully felted before India could stop me (grrr at myself). A landskin for me was supposed to be a larger wrap - mine would have barley able to wrap around me. So I decided to leave it as a cowl. I am very happy about that decision. To fully utilize India's teaching however, I worked on a smaller version of her teachings on my own time during the evenings of the workshop. Resulting again, due to time constraints, not in a landskin, but a shawl. 

Both where dyed together in one bundle, including gifts of mother earth found at the workshop location - and a tiny bit of help from one eucalyptus leaf - the overall brown colour is from black walnuts. No metal was added to this. I attempted to create a gentle variation of natural colours rather than distinct leaf prints - a success when I look at the finished pieces.

(Please forgive me the vast number of photos - being a fiberfile and loving to capture details, here are but a small portion of the total pix taken today).

 

The Shawl

 

 

The Cowl

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Layed-out

 

My Photo Assistant - Morley

I feel blessed to have learned from both women - and I like to think that I am already well underway in making some of it my own. Something I always share with my students - take what I offer and make it your own - apply your own layers to it. 

 

 

Learning - with India Flint

Back in 2008 I found out about India Flint's work and book Eco Colour through a blog (somebody named Olga - but sadly I do not remember the blog itself). I ordered the book right away and received just before the arrival of our barren season (also called late fall, winter, early spring). I had managed to dye a few pieces of fabrics and read the book cover to cover. I immediately was filled with ideas to incorporate her dyeing techniques into my art practice. Sadly, my attempts to bring her to Canada through the Textile Museum of Canada here in Toronto didn't lead to anything. 

Nevertheless, I have been following her growing recognition and fame with glee. Last year I found out too late that she was going to teach a workshop in Toronto and didn't get a spot - luckily though, I had the chance to hear her lecture at the above mentioned Textile Museum and got a chance to meet her in person (we've had the occasional exchange through e-mail over the years).

When I found out that she was coming back to Canada I set all wheels in motion to participate in her workshop. Although I initially ended up on the waitinglist, I eventually secured a spot. 

So without much further ado, here are some pictures of the past week. (Unfortunately, my severe hearing loss, coupled with India's soft spoken words was not a perfect match - if there is something that I'm sharing here that I obviously misunderstood, please peep up in the comments so that I can set things straight). 

The location was a wonderful place to work. After the first day, the coolest of the bunch, I worked outside for the reminder of the week. Thinking that very soon our 6 months of cold weather will be upon us, I tried to soak up as much sun as possible.  

The morning bundles greeting us on day two. Their most simple look speaks to me of a different time. They too loved soaking in those rays of morning sun.

The return of the shadow people (a series of work I did many years ago). Inspired by India's many pocketed smock/tunic, I sewed myself an apron with many pockets from an 3X mens shirt that I had set aside for re-purposing. That apron will definitely become one of my uniforms to wear at the studio and is the outline of the almost pioneer look of my shadow.

Looking at the unrolled bundles. These were dyed in black walnuts we had on the property. Sybil was very kind and let me take home as many as I could collect.

(In this picture - fLtoR - Judy, India, Sarah, Gini, Maggie) 

Stitching on my sample landskin. Using pre-felted old sweater bits with fringes, various types of wool and silk thread/yarn, cheesecloth, prefelt, and bits and bobs.

One of my own bundles - one that got me into trouble (grin) with our revered teacher. I used hand-dyed silk yarn that I was certain had been 100% fixed and would not bleed - ehm.. it did bleed and although most of us loved the blue lines it created, India pointed out that since we have no idea what exactly the acid dyes contain, it made it unsafe now to reach into the dye pot with bare hands to retrieve our packages - a task which previously was perfectly harmless with only goldenrod plants. Lesson learned: stick with undyed materials, especially when working with others.

Garden tour - India led us on a walk through the garden pointing out various plants and their possibilities in our work. This was one of the times I really wished I had the funds to purchase myself a hearing aid that has a wireless transmitter - I could have given India the microphone and would have been able to hear more of what she said. Luckily, my fellow students where extremely kind and let me copy their notes. Indias knowledge is wonderful, extensive and simply amazing!

 

This little fell'er came for a visit and hung around outside. Praying Mantis - and as we learned on our last day there, when the male has mated with the female she bites his head off and eats him - I'm sure that must have some nutrients important in the growing of new babies - but wow, I'm certainly glad we don't have the same mating ritual. 

Beautiful inspiration in the garden. Japanese Lantern. I imagine the lines as stitching; I also think of adding just a little bit of bright colour into an otherwise toned down piece.

Indias wonderful stitching - a sample she created while we stitched away on our landskin samplers.

A detail of Indias work - a finished garment, sewn, stitched and dyed.

Eucalyptus from the florist - samples on silk, wool yarn, prefelt. This bundle was wrapped around that large rock.

Day 5 - our landskins all bundled up and sitting in the cauldron. If my memory serves me right, these where the bundles containing bits of metal.

India getting the kindling in order. She improvised a wonderful fire area so that we could boil the cauldrons all in one go. We also talked about the care she has to take when making fires in Australia, where it is dry and dangerous - this is a task I will have to learn myself. I already told my husband that next year there will be a firebowl in our back yard. 

The match that got the process underway.

Indias wonderful stitched tunic - the back side - I love the threads and the meandering of the stitches (the link shows you the front).

Black walnuts and my humble-bundle warming up.

While the bundles bubbled away India showed us another neat thing (I won't give it away though, because I got the sense that she liked to keep this one as a bit of a surprise for the last day of the workshop). All I'm going to say, is that it's bloody addictive!

Removing the steaming bundle from the cauldron. If we do this at home, we would leave the bundles to cool in the pot, alas, as it was our last day, we didn't have that luxury. There were a lot of wet bundles taken home - I used my felt wetting-out bucket together with some black walnuts. 

My bundle (I think) - I used a lot of silk thread, because this is the colour that I love to sew on my papers with. 

The bundle dyed in goldenrod with an amazing bright green.

We have promised to each other to send around photos of the finished landskins so that we could all see how our big piece turned out. 

I will post pictures of my landskin and my cowl (more about that in my next post) in the days ahead. 

Thank you all my fellow workshop participants for being so kind to me and helping me hear, thank you Jan for organizing the event. Thank you India for sharing of yourself - I'm re-reading the books now, hearing your voice and understanding everything a whole lot more!

 

 

 

The Olive Sparrow Child - Fairy

A lovely fairy has flown away to be with her chosen fairy-mother. She arrived at the birthday of the little girl who turned seven yesterday. As some fairies can sometimes be a bit tardy and easily distracted, she only arrived at dinnertime.

 

A fairy traveling cocoon. Imagine, a fairy can't just travel through the city outside of the cocoon for everyone to see, she needs to have a place she can feel save in and also know that this will make her appearance a bigger surprise for the little girl.

 

Fairies can be shy, out little one was at first very shy when I took her into the garden to take pictures of her. 

 

But she hopped onto the chair I had set out for her and decorated with her favourite flowers -- Windflowers, also known as Wood Anemone.

The mother of the girl shared with me the little girls favourite doll from the book Flower Fairies of the Spring by Cicely Mary Barker - The Windflower Fairy. 

Our fairy turned to face me after I promised to let her read from the book that has her picture inside.

 

 

 Here is her poem, as written by Cicely Mary Barker in 1923

While human-folk slumber,

    The fairies espy

Stars withough number

    Sprinkling the sky.

 

The Winter's long sleeping,

    Like night-time, is done;

But day-stars are leaping

    To welcome the sun.

 

Star-like they sprinkle

    The wildwood with light;

Countless they twinkle--

    The Windflowers white!

 

 

("Windflower" is another name for Wood Anemone.)

I have just completed a felting workshop with the lovely Marjolein Dallinga from Bloomfelt so I wanted to create some wood anemone inspired flowers for the Fairy to take with her to the little girl.

Our fairy was soon curious and not so shy anymore, as she looked around the garden and after a while, she even loved having her picture taken.

Since the little girl would love to take the fairy along with her on outings, it was fitting that there would be a hat for the fairy to wear. Fairy hair is so easily tangled up in sunshine and sometimes the wind tries to carry strands of it away. (Birds also love to have it in their nests, as it protects the eggs and the newly hatched young ones).

  

 

The Fairy loved playing with the flowers and soon forgot that she was ever shy. 

 So we went back to the first spot and she stood there for me to take another picture.

 

I'm very much inspired by the Fairy books and I hope that there are many more that will come to life in the months and years to come. Making a Fairy doll holds special responsibility, as it is an essence that needs to be captured, more than a like-ness.  

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The dress of the Fairy was sewn from two layers of very fine cotton batiste. A pink one and a blue one. This way it has the almost irridenscent quality of the lilac in the picture of the book. The long wrap around her shoulder is also cotton batiste.

Curly, wavy hair was a special requisite that the little girls mom made to me me. I remember my mother many years ago knitting up some left over wool, washing and drying it and then unraveling it to create textured wool to decorate a dwarf's face with it. I love the springiness this creates in the doll's hair, yet it looks different from the boucle yarn often used for curly hair.

The Fairy is 52 cm / 20" tall 

Each doll is made up of the following materials.

Skin: 100% cotton (Swiss-made to Öko-Tex-Standard 100)
Stuffing 100% “green-processed” wool batt from Canada
Hair: 100% Wool, or a Mohair/Wool Blend
Clothing: 100% natural fibres (linen, cotton, silk)
Shoes: Recycled felted wool sweaters, or pure leather
Face: 100% cotton Embroidery Thread

Workmanship:
Each doll is created individually by artist Monika Aebischer, the proprietor of The Olive Sparrow. She sources and uses only the highest quality materials in her creations – swiss-made skin fabric, Canadian green processed wool stuffing,  wool/mohair for the dolls hair (often hand-dyed by her). Hair for the Olive Sparrow Children is made by crocheting a cap that is sewn to the head, allowing for replacement should it ever become necessary (although most children will object to this, as it changes their doll dramatically). For the wispy hair, a special german mohair is used and a labour-intense technique, for the loose longer hair each strand of wool is individually knotted into the crocheted cap. This is the prime technique for doll-wig creation.

Doll clothing is made from up-cycled vintage and clothing fabrics, in either pure linen, cotton or silk. Up-cycled fabric is wonderful for doll clothes, as the cloth has been washed soft, gentle and free of textile manufacturing products. Monika also felts used woolen sweaters to use for doll shoes and clothing. She knits the doll’s hats out of prime quality knitting wool. Each seam on the doll’s body is sewn twice to allow your child to fiercely love their Olive Sparrow Child. Clothing is sewn with French seams and some are fully reversible.

 

Felting around

Amongst my friends it is a well known, although not much talked about secret, that I am a bookaholic. I've recovered sometimes over the years, then purchased one book and bingo, back on a binge. The good thing is that because of my profession as an artist these are a business expense. Especially, since my books are primarily of the reference type, with lots of pictures and eye-candy. To give you a sampling of the categories, there is a whole shelf of japanese crafting books, a VERY large variety of Waldorf crafting and pedagogical books, and then there is the shelf of felting books.

This large library of felting books was started when I was in art school in the 90's and since then every book published and deemed worthy by me was added. All with the intention that I wanted to study felting. There have been some workshops over the years. For Example, circa '96 with Joan Livingstone at the Harbourfront Centre Craft Studio, followed by explorations in my own studio. I was always fascinated with felting because it gave me very similar effects to paper making (my main study during the art school years), except without the 10,000 dollars of investment into a Hollander beater and a press. It's so wonderfully simple, take sheep wool, comb it, align it, add some soap and warm water and elbow grease, and WOW! there it is.

My art career however had a mind of its own and took of into the direction of mixed media fine art. Once I started working with Resin I have not been able to do any textile work in the studio to keep the space as dust free as possible. Resin acts like a magnet to any dust that floats by.

Yet felt remained on my mind so much that in 2008 I ordered a large amount of felting fibre to be shipped to Switzerland, so that I could pick it up during a visit and bring it back. The cost of the extra suitcase being cheaper than shipping it to Canada. Summers where going to be for felting and since we have a wonderful covered back porch, that was what I would do.. Spend one day a week outside felting. I now have to announce that it is officially 2011, I have yet another order of wool that I brought back from Switzerland last year, and there was only one morning during the summer spent felting with a friend. The wool is downstairs and well.. not getting turned into felt. There are about 10 kg's of wool or over 20 lbs. 

But there is light... During my visit to the old home country last year I had the wonderful pleasure of taking a workshop with Christa Heiz in her wonderful studio. I spent 3 days felting with her and another student, while Huxley attended the public Kindergarten. Working with Christa was so inspiring. I managed to make a lovely bag, a sculptural piece and a play structure for Huxley's Playmobil, as well as a flower and a ring. 

Felted, waiting to have the handle part cut out

Finished bag drying in shape

It was with the inspiration of these smaller items, that I threw all caution into the wind last week and while I was preparing the next collection of abstract pieces that I did some felting at the studio. I am so inspired and think that I might now be able to do more regular work. 

The concept of felting these flowers was taken from one of my felting books in German, however, I spent quite some time planning the laying out of the fibres, i.e. colour sequences. Also the petals are cut by my own design, not based on the instructions. 

This puppy finger puppet was wet-felted and the instructions are based on a few different books. It was going to be a mouse, then turned into a puppy. The basic shape is wet felted, the eyes, nose and mouth is needle felted on. Very delicate work, yet so satisfying.

This boat-shaped vessel was created from a free-form resist. I feel a connection to this form, it is one of my internal symbols. I did not have a specific purpose in mind, and I think this might need to become a series of pieces.

 

Some of my future felted items will end up for sale through the Olive Sparrow. This has been intended all along, since it's business tag line is "Good handmade Goods". Any feedback on these tentative steps toward felted goodies would be much appreciated. 

PS: there has also been a lot of doll-hat knitting going on, textile studio clean-up and set-up and a new camera is now mine.. with the forecast for sunshine later this week, the opening of my Etsy store is coming into close sight.