Weaving for Preschoolers...

This is another little post courtesy of my sister-in-law, Denise, in Ottawa. She's jazzed about weaving --- as are we, down at the studio, and more on that later... in the meantime, I'm going to try this project with my 4yr old Georgia and I'll let you know how it goes.
Denise writes:
I took a weaving class and fell in love. It's so peaceful to weave. I used a rigid heddle loom (which I'm wanting to buy, though maybe I'll rent one first). So of course I came home all excited for Luke to try weaving with our cute little INKLE loom and of course it was a disaster. The yarn kept coming off our loom and we just didn't have any fun at all.
But wait! That can't be the end of our story.
We had a much happier time weaving onto a plastic fruit basket. And, silly me, as we put the fruit basket onto the Easter Nature Table, we found the baskets he had already woven. At Parsifal Waldorf School (last year) his class decorated a simple paper daisy by weaving yarn in and out around the petals and thus turned the flat daisy into a bowl. A handle makes it a basket.
His favorite type of weaving is a circle song: "The thread follows the needle, in and out the needle goes. The thread follows the needle, this is the way we mend our clothes." While they are singing, the kids move in and out through a circle of friends.

~R.

Spring Bunnies at the Fair

We were at the Strathcona Spring Fair on Saturday afternoon, meeting cool folks & families who live 'round East Van. Strathcona is my favourite neighbourhood in Vancouver; it has such magic that when I walk around, the creative buzz makes my ears ring! This is the prime real estate for the remarkable Eastside Culture Crawl, a free art event in late November during which many of the artists open their studios for tours and shopping -- I highly recommend it.
(Our studio at 1875 Powell is just outside the official eastern boundary of the Crawl at Commercial; but if you head over to see the amazing folks in the live-work ARC building anyway, we're just a hop from them, beside Dockers Diner.)
The Spring Fair is like a mega block party and is organized (in part?) by Milisa Gardy of Honey Bee Photography; I'm sure she must be associated with a small army of other volunteers. The weather was lovely, Suzanne brought two of her angora rabbits and her 'cart of wares' and Henna and I did demos of spinning and needlefelting.
If you're in the neighbourhood, I would highly recommend coming out for the Harvest Festival that Milisa et al. is going to be putting on in the fall, and shop the Crawl for Christmas
~R.

Slippers, Slippers...

This is 13yr old Sage working on her slippers.... no,
they're not the first pair she's made, don't worry.
Suzanne did slippers as a class project with her grade 7's at the Vancouver Waldorf School in the fall; they rolled out a flat sheet of felt to the soft-felted stage; then cut out a simple sole and vamp/heel shape, sewed them up, and finished the slippers to to hard-felted stage right on their feet, using a big wooden washtub.
Suzanne herself makes slippers right on a wooden foot last (collected from antique shops over the years). There's also a Scandinavian method described really well in Pat Sparks' book Scandinavian Style Feltmaking.
We're a little bit obsessed with felted slippers down here... so far no one
has topped Suzanne's Gypsy Slippers (the green ones with the elf-point toes) --- she won an award for them at last fall's One of a Kind Show in Vancouver.
If you want to make some too, then sign up for Felting on Sunday afternoons or Monday nights with Suzanne -- you gotta start somewhere!

Teaching a Preschooler to Sew...

I've tried to teach my 4yrold to sew before and it hasn't been successful -- took too long to get anywhere, not interesting projects, and couldn't get the thread to go in-out-in-out in a (relatively) coherent line. Thus, I could relate to Denise's story about the kindergarten kids getting rather muddled when confronted with needle and thread (from yesterday's post).
However, I was hanging out with one of the many awesome preschool moms I know, and she had this cool book called 'The Creative Family', by a woman named Amanda Blake Soule (in case you haven't heard of her already....). Wow.
Which is how I was re-introduced to SEWING CARDS! I'm not going to post a link because there are so many, just google 'sewing cards' -- or better yet, work with your little one to make your own....
I used a shape she likes (heart, out of cardstock), punched a few holes, threaded a big straight needle, and gave her some stuffing for the inside to make it puffy (novelty value). She was GRACEFUL with the needle, and loved it, and I was amazed.

Handwork 'Can's' and 'Can't's' with little kids...

This is from a story from my sister-in-law Denise, in Ottawa.
I love her dry snapshot of (non) age-appropriate handwork!
I am often guilty of overestimating my own 4yro's comprehension, and so I'm grateful for Suzanne's help and insight from the Waldorf handwork pedagogy. Our craft sessions are more fun and satisfying.
Hooray for Sunday morning Playshops at the RAW Studio with Suzanne!

I don't know what school Luke goes to, only that it's somewhere in Ottawa....
Yesterday I was tasked with having a table of 6 kindergarten kids cut up pieces of fabric so we could sew a vest together. A. They wanted to cut little teeny tiny pieces. B. There was no pattern of a vest. C. The teacher thought the kids could sew with real needles and thread. Um, frankly, no. In fact, no to all of those. We made a paper mock up of a vest. We had a big talk about big and small pieces and they taped pieces of fabric to the paper vest. So, the teacher thought we could staple them on to be more secure. And, again, um, no, we're not having a paper vest! Luke and I took everything home, cut two vests out of old fleecy things that were stained with paint or mystery substances and fabric glued (yay, latex liqui-stitch) everything on. They look awesome and it took minutes! In fact we made two! The kids are putting on a "Elves and the Shoemaker" play. I am very very pleased with our vests and with our having found a reasonable (read quick and easy!) way to make them that did not require band-aids. Although I am allergic to latex, so I got hives. But otherwise a smashing success!

Teen Spring Break Fashion Projects

Here's 12yr old Summer wearing a hat that she designed and made down at the RAW Studio last week --
This was her process:
She felted the crown over a ball to get a basic dome shape, and she didn't like it much. So I encouraged her to think about what hat shape she DOES like and we looked at some options online -- she got really excited about a hat she remembered seeing in a movie, so we looked it up on YouTube.
So we took her head measurement and drafted a brim -- she really got excited about drafting and altering a paper pattern to fit herself! And she sewed it up and then indigo-dyed it in our vat.
Her enthusiasm encouraged Henna and I to put together a few Fashion Mini Projects for Teens for spring break:



Spring Break Fashion Mini Projects for Teens

1/Main St Wristies $30
wet felt with wool
2/Frances Skinny Scarf $30
wet felt wool with silk
3/Skull, Rose, etc Art Patches $25
sew different stitches to look clean & neat
4/Lisa Slouch Sox $25
adjust patterns to fit you
5/Alabama Corset T $40
make a simple garment to fit you

Wed 18th 1-4pm &/or Fri 20th 1-4pm
Open Studio with Instructors, Do one project or several.
Pre-Registration required, group sizes small
Deadline: March 16th
Reserve your spot:
therawstudio@gmail.com
1875 Powell St Vancouver www.therawstudio.com