Picking up on our "Tradition in the Making" - I hosted three Souper Sundays: Sept 14 & 21 and October 5.
September 14 - the soup was a simple brown lentil vegetarian soup. Lindsey dropped in and worked on drawings for a contribution she was making to a collaborative chicken trading card series. 
Lentil & Vegetable Soup
Ingredients:

September 21 - the soup was a tomato red thai curry lentil soup with roasted carrot and red pepper (so zingy!) accompanied by garlic sourdough toast - Aleksandra brought her kids Alexander and Tatianna and she crafted a cute big-eyed creature out of some of my handmade felt.
Zingy Tomato Red Lentil Soup
Ingredients:

October 5 - the soup was Coconut Kabocha Miso Corn Chowder - a very experimental soup - based on "use what you've got" principle. Jason joined me and brought some mending - learining how to darn the worn out heels of his thick wool work socks.
Ingredients:
Coconut Kabocha Miso Corn Chowder
Ingredients:

Throughout September we had a series called Felting Fun Tuesdays which happened mostly in the Adanac Park Community Garden. It was promoted through the Hastings Sunrise neighbourhood facebook group and through this website, word of mouth. We had about a dozen participants per evening, mostly parents and kids.

The plant friends growing at the front of the fieldhouse were getting rather thick and overgrown, so I gave them a pruning, discovering that one, the Pacific Ninebark, has handsome limbs that suggest a piece of furniture to me. So I've saved them to skin off the light crackly bark and play with the shapes at a future date. Front of house is looking a lot better now, and less attractive to late night poopers.

In other news, playing around with these stamps free from nephew Desmond's strongstart.

 After five sessions of patterning, cutting, serging and sewing, Laura van der Linde completed her Fab-O fishy coveralls - and wore them out to the Artisan Yard Sale in July. This was a great experience as I wanted to help someone through the process of making coveralls and it gave me a chance to do it. I'm looking forward to making more coveralls with more folks - so hit me up if you're interested!

We kicked off May with an afternoon visit from Dawn and Nicky. I had been working on some felt inspired by all the daisies blooming on the grass in the park. Really enjoyable hearing about Dawn's recent travels in Uzbekistan and Turkey and hearing about Nicky's work as an English professor at SFU and her weaving and costuming projects.  

Daisy-inspired wool felt. I used pre-felts (incompletely felted wool fabric) to form the daisies.

May the Fourth be With You! Although I failed miserably to photograph our experience (other than these two quick shots just before our destination), I did manage to lead a ride from the AP Fieldhouse to Deer Lake Park for the Burnaby Blooms Festival. It was a small, skilled group of riders, but I pre-rode the route and made a map just in case. We started off with coffee and scones and enjoyed ride on mostly separated bike routes. Yaaay Burnaby!! 

We finished up the sewing on Graham's sailboat cushions May 9 and he brought everything home to be installed.

Laura, an accomplished clay artist, who I ran into at Burnaby Blooms, was interested in making a pair of coveralls. She diligently visited over the course of the month to adapt my pattern, cut out her chosen fabric and serge & sew the pieces together.

Wednesday Friendsday crew celebrated Nicole completing her classes and gaining Wednesday night freedom with a potluck, glitter tattoos from the thrift store and a better than usual jam. Download the file below to hear a sample.

Oh my! Souper Sunday on May 18th was spectacular! We met local family Krysta, Krystal and their two kids, Ellen, Patrick and their four kids who came all the way from Oakridge, as well as Jessica, Ian and Jason who were all mending. I made a vegetarian lentil soup with all of the above ingredients and it was a pretty sweet time all around. Since I have a lot more Makemobile bookings on Sundays in the Summer, I will probably not be able to host any more Souper Sundays until the Autumn.

Wet felting Wednesday afternoon May 28 was the hottest day of the year so far and pretty quiet. A nice day to wet felt under a tree in the park. I met a few neighbours and park users, one being George, who rides his bike all the way from UBC several times a week and another was local singer/songwriter Susie Ungerleider!

These photos are from several Wet Felting Wednesdays in April - April 9, 16, 23.. I take my felting supplies outside and felt in the park and talk to neighbours. There's an RSVP form if you want to attend an upcoming Wet Felting Wednesday - or contact me if you want to do wet felting on a different day.

Nicole and José of The Magic Triangle came to visit April 12. We made some tiny paintings on the "Swirl Art Junior" from the thrift store. They play shows often! Go see them and buy their music. 

Souper Sunday April 13. Graced with the presence of Random Old Lady aka Barb Shaw and Jason Harder aka The Cycle Driven Gardener. It seems like all my friends are super heroes.... Good times - they both played songs! I made Potato Leek soup.

Sharon Kallis from EartHand Gleaners came to visit April 14th. She showed me her new obsession: Card Weaving - and we did what friends do: I helped pin the back of the neckline for her to alter her gloriously striped hand-grown, hand-dyed, hand-spun, hand-woven, hand-sewn vest!! 

A few metres away from the Fieldhouse grows the Community Garden - complete with espaliered apple trees and happy bees. Mmmm April had such bee-youtiful blossoms! 

I met some of the Community Gardeners and we agreed to co-host a Free Market in the park. So I drew some birbs and made a poster. The crow is based on a photo of local celebrity corvid, Canuck the Crow. RIP.

Heather and I at the first "Souper Sunday" on March 30th. 
"Latergrams" are what my friend Sharon calls the posts you don't post right away. You find the photos in your phone and get them up when you can, while living your life, not devoting every moment to digital documentation. In a year it won't make a bit of difference that 7 weeks has passed. 
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Repotting plants, sewing aprons and making cards also all from late March.

Here's the poster that I made for the Fieldhouse in April.  At first i made a grey, boring poster and realized that it wasn't great. So i tried again to make a colourful, hand-drawn poster, illustrating things we do at the Fieldhouse & hoping this would call out to the colourful, creative part of people. I hung them around the neighbourhoo.d and neighbours have gotten in touch. We've shared bike rides and crafting jams since then. I'm happy to report that Posters Work!

Pop up books and cards are delightful! In this workshop Tom shared the story of his own pop-up art inspirations and led participants through primary techniques for creating their own pop-up art.
Tom Walker's pop-up books use the element of surprise to address serious topics. For him, the simple, moving forms support a philosophical inquiry into the relationship between work, leisure and time. Tom's work is inspired by Walter Benjamin, Karl Marx's Grundrisse, and the 1821 pamphlet The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties by Charles Wentworth Dilke.
Tom Walker's website: https://timeworkweb.com/popups.htm

Here are some links related to discussion that came up during the workshop:

Exhibit Catalogs
Once Upon a Pop-Up: UBC, 2018
The Immersive Movable Object: University of Toronto, 2024

Youtube Channels
The Pop-Up Channel: Duncan Birmingham, 96 videos 
Pop-Up Master Class: Matthew Reinhardt, 112 videos 

We'll host another pop-up making workshop Saturday, April 19, 2024.

It feels like the Winter season of introductory open-format housewarmings has come to a close. Through these four Sundays of Tea and Crafting in February, I've introduced this place to some folks from nearby in the neighbourhood and others from across town. It's feeling suitably warmed-up and broken-in. People either brought their own hand work - or needle-felted a nametag or painted a mandala. I appreciate the conversations most of all. Feeling grateful for the brave souls who came to check out the fieldhouse in these early days. 

In the past few weeks I've had a variety of visitors to the Fieldhouse and I'm encouraging everyone to bring a project they want to work on. I'm heavily textile-focussed these days - and the projects of folks stopping in have been too. Byron dyed his partner's silk blouse; Karlis made quick alterations to his PJs; and Heather had the great idea of turning a sweater into a pillow. I appreciate working one-on-one and providing a high attention experience. I'm  thrilled to connect with people through these activities. It really is my jam!
Thanks Vancouver Park Board Fieldhouse Program! You Rock!
What project would you like a Maker Buddy for? Please leave me a comment!