The Olive Sparrow

Felting Workshop Recap

Not to sound to repetitive, but due to a non-working hard drive, the one that had all my images, here is finally, finally a recap of the Felting Workshop from Loyalist college in Belleville July 12 - 15, 2012.

I had a wonderful time and the pleasure of a super-nice group of students to work with. Preparing a workshop is a lot of work, as I like to structure my workshops very tightly, through a detailed agenda and planned projects, yet also have the opportunity to adapt the materials to my students needs and skills. This was an intense 4 days with many basic felting techniques covered. 

The main learning outcome I hoped to teach my students was that they would have the confidence to pick up any wet-felting project they would like to attempt after the workshop and have enough basic felting knowledge to try it. 

I brought my extensive library of felting books to the class. The students where encouraged to sign-out the books over night and find inspirational ideas that they would like to work on for day 4.

 

After 3 hours of setting up the class room, I was exhausted, and so excited about the following four days of teaching. When teaching in a space away from my own studio, I often don't know exactly what set-up will await me, and there is quite a bit of improvisation in making it all work. It is exciting, as I love the challenge.

Details of my felted work samples that welcomed my students on day 1. Having taken many different workshops myself, I find it always helpful to have sample to show at the beginning of a workshop with what will be created. Although it can be fun to have a few small projects where the students simply follow the instructions step by step, and only see the outcome at the end. Though that is hard on many students - they need to know what they are making so that they understand the instructions. (not a surprise, considering that creative handwork skills workshops are generally taken by people that are visual). 

 

For each project we worked on in class the students got to choose a specific amount of fibre in the colours they loved. We worked with 16, 18, 21 and 24 micron merino wool, as well as mountain sheep wool which has a micron of about 28.

 

Our intense agenda incorporated my demonstrations of various techniques, followed by work periods for the students. One student used her video camera to tape my demos and reviewed them during the work period when she got stuck on how to proceed next. Much of felting is about sequences of different steps and taking notes is paramount in remembering what to do next.

The finished rose of one student. The roses were made with mainly 18 micron merino, and a bit of 16 micron. 

 

Various student works in different stages of finishing at the end of day 4. The first project had been to make a square of felt and then manipulate the felt into another object. One student made the jacket for her doll (she is an amazing doll maker, that took the workshop in the hope to learn skills to create embelishments for her creations), there was also a beautiful flower and a pouch. One of my quilter students wanted to use here square in a wall piece she was inspired to make from the felt.

Everyone made roses in a special resist dying technique and free-form flowers from prefelt.  

For the major day 4 project, two people made slipers, one a vessel, some made bags. Most projects got finished in class, but some had to be finished later at home. 

 

It makes my teachers heart so happy to see the collection of work created by all my busy-hard-working students.

My lovely students. Thank you all again for giving me a chance to show you what is possible with wool, soap, water and elbow grease. I also appreciated all your feed-back for future classes.

Here are some of the comments from my students in reply to what they enjoyed about the class:

"Learning felting basics and going home with real projects which I have conficence to make again."

"The creativity of Monika"

"It was very educational and would have enjoyed it more if it had been cooler" (note: there was no air conditioning at the school on Saturday and Sunday).

"Great instruction, lots of hands-on learning, great student interaction"

"Everything! The instructor is knowledgeable, talented, teaches well and kind and patient. Exploring felt with no hard rules."

 

If this makes you wish you had been there, I currently have time available to teach some felting workshops this fall. Please drop me a note with your e-mail address and I will send you the details.

Wet Felting Workshop - Learn from me

There are now only a few spots open for the wet-felting workshop that I will be teaching at Loyalist College In Belleville, Ontario from July 12 - 15. 

Here are the details:

(Click on Image to see it larger)

To register, please sign up here

There is also a description in the Loyalist Summer Program on page 18

The cost of the workshop is only $289 (plus the material cost for all the yummy wool $75). If you need to a place to stay in Belleville, the school offers their residency for a very minimal fee of $40 (plus tax) per night. There are also many lovely B&B's in and around Belleville. 

I would love to see you at the workshop, I have 4 huge boxes of the most amazing wool coming from Europe. Some of those qualities are not otherwise available in Canada. 

Message me if you have any questions about the workshop, and you may contact Heather at Loyalist College for registration information
Heather Cockerline (613) 969-1913 ext. 2467 or Email:  hcockerline@loyalistc.on.ca  

Show Pictures

The shows I did a couple of weekends ago went well. It was lovely to meet so many new people and exhibit my work. I "hired' our son to be my helper for the day on Sunday. He was amazing! I still remember when I was pregnant that I just thought that our son would come along to the shows, play quietly behind the tent, get used to the life of doing shows and start helping with little things. As I told him the day of the show, he was not that kind of a child when he was younger. Whereas I have seen the children of others be the perfect assistants and quiet companions, my son was always too active (although I did have him along at an art exhibition when he was a mere 6 weeks old and that was a wonderful experience). Now, at eight, he can help me unload the car, set-up the tent, watch the booth for a few minutes, and also, especially at a Waldorf fair, go about doing activities that he likes to do and enjoy him self too. 

Here are a few pictures of my show tent to share with you that come from far and away. 

Welcome to the lair of the Olive Sparrow (give me a shout-out in the comments if you spot the little birdy - he always travels with me). 

Fairy tote bags - sized just perfectly for children to use as their lunch bag, a carry-all to take ballet slippers to class, a toybag to bring just a few precious things along on an outing or for momma to use as a small handbag.

Playsilks - look soon in my etsy store for an update in colours and sizes.

 

Hats and pants for three sizes of dolls. I love seeing all the clothes laid out like this and ready to be combined with tops to every doll-mommas own tastes and desires. 

Dresses, tunics and skirts. I am already excited and inspired for the new clothes ideas in my mind.  

The doll table - with Olive Sparrow Children (11 in all, although one was hiding in this picture) - the plan is that early next week the dolls and I will go on a photo outing - there are a few lovely places I have in mind to take photographs. All in preparation to have them listed within the next 2 weeks. They are all very excited to find their future families. In this picture you can also see wet-felted flowers, hand-dyed dress-up crowns both for children and their dolls, as well as Floppy dolls, nature-table fairies and Mother Earth (from the previous post). 

Shows are a wonderful way to share my work and to inspire moms that make their own dolls for their children. I also enjoy setting up the displays and seeing the expressions in the face of children when they respond to a doll. It's always a tad sad too though, to see how some of the parents really love to get the doll for their child, yet simply can't afford it. That is also why I offer doll-making workshops. I had planned to hold one this coming weekend, but it seems that after the summer vacation will be a better time for it - summer is to be outside and enjoy the weather and time with our families - I love the coming of September and the return back to hand-work and preparing for the holiday markets. 

PS: If you would like to receive advance notice of the dolls becoming available for sale, please send me a message to: info@theolivesparrow.com and I will add you to my early bird list.                   

 

 

Goings-on

November will be a very busy month - there are a lot of chances to meet me to learn from me and to see and purchase Olive Sparrow Goods.

Here is a list of events:

Workshop: 

META4 Gallery

Liquid Wax on Paper & Fabric

The workshop I talked about in June was moved to: 

Sunday, November 13 and (optional) Monday, November 14, 10 am – 4 pm

There might still be some space, please contact the gallery directly.

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The Art Guild of Scarborough

Hand-on Mixed Media Workshop Evening with the members of the Art Guild of Scarborough:

Working with personal Imagery - November 17th from 7:30 - 9:30

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www.TorontoWaldorfSchool.com/ArtsCraftsFair

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Sunday - November 20th:

 Ottawa Waldorf School

 Christmas Fair

10.00am - 3.00pm 

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Friday - November 25th:

Trillium Waldorf School in Guelph, Ontario

Cranberry Market, Friday November 25th from 7pm to  11pm.

(Please note that I will not bring my Olive Sparrow Children to this event - there is another vendor there who will have waldorf inspired dolls). I will have my nature table dolls with me though (not necessarily bunnies, but similar to this.) - and all my other Olive Sparrow Goods

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There are also two events planned for December - The Toronto Waldorf Academy and the London Waldorf School (I will post details in the days ahead).

So I'm better getting to working on my goodies now... I'm hoping to meet some of you at one of these events.

 

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!

 

 

 

Learn from me - Liquid Wax on Paper and Textile - Workshop at Meta4

On July 16 and 17 I will be teaching a workshop at Meta4 Gallery in Port Perry. It would be lovely to have you in my class.

http://www.meta4gallery.ca/courseCalendar/Programs.pdf

 

To register, please contact the gallery directly, for questions, please contact me directly.