Starting out with a pop-up card co-make I was inspired by Michele and the Lunar New Year - of the Fire Horse! - to make pop-up cards. Many thanks to Michele for her expertise and her excellent example (she makes hundreds of fun, positive pop-up cards which she gifts to seniors borrowing books from the VPL!).

Winter Wool Buddies in February saw a series of small gatherings and conversations that got me thinking about how I need to have "an Ask" - or something (or several things) to invite people to when we connect.
Specifically I'm thinking about neighbourhood-based organizing, starting from a common interest in art and craft.. I appreciate the good talks we've had this past month. I came away with was an over-arching metaphor of mending the world and our relationships as we also mend out material things. It's a reminder of the "ExperiMending" presentation I did a few years ago for the Museum of Anthropology.
My mending included my felted wool coat that I've been wearing for the past couple years - i removed the sleeves, over-dyed it and have begun adding needle-felted decoration to cover up the wear and tear.
Also my mom requested copies of the little mending zine that i originally created for Roedde House's family day a few years ago... and revisiting that sweet zine has reminded me of the power of care, repair and mending.

Thanks to a windfall of wool fibre and yarn from a friend, I opted to devote the Winter public programming at Adanac Park to the magical hair of the sheep. There's little that brings us back in touch with our human heritage than gathering together to make fibres into cloth. So far into January we've had a number of small gatherings with good company and conversation. Projects have ranged from learning knitting and weaving to freestyle stitchery, mending garments, spinning - and jazzing up a winter jacket with needle-felted flowers. We've also had some non-wool related activity - some pop-up card making  and some furniture repair projects - and I'll talk more about that in a later post. Winter wool buddies will run through March - so look at the events schedule and RSVP to come join in on a session. If you don't already have a project to work on I can help get you started on something - did I mention we have a lot of wool? 

This December was all about keeping a regular rhythm of events and locking in the coziness with the addition of a few new decorated lanterns, a refinished table and learning how to make chai. This December we made wool felt ornaments; wet-felted cowls; bean bags; Solstice lanterns; decorative paper garlands; a laptop case, plus mended some clothing items and made a few nametags.
We're also looking toward January programming when we'll be focussing on wool - spinning, dying, weaving, felting - and discussing the Canadian wool industry and secondary use of local wool. Tentatively titled "Winter Wool Buddies" we anticipate quality making time in the studio producing wooly wonders with friends.
If you'd like to come work on some woolens - please reach out via the contact form on this website. We'd love to see you!

Programming from September through November I chose a weekly repeating event (Felting Fun Tuesdays) - to have a familiar rhythm - and scheduled a handful of "Marathon" weekend events - where we'd focus all day on a particular activity and people could drop in and take part. All of this is experimental: trying things to see what people respond to, what works well in the Fieldhouse - and what we want to do ore of in the future. I chose the "All Day" approach because that's how I like to work: to be immersed and let my mind and creativity play in a certain mode without interruption and transitioning into other things.
During this time we tried Braiding and Weaving, Hand Lettering, Repairing Woven/Caned Chairs, Lantern Making, and Sewing. I've learned a few things that I'll tweak in future and along the way it's been great meeting more folks and getting to know each other better.

Felting fun Tuesdays continued through October & November, keeping a regular rhythm of weekly crafting sessions at the Fieldhouse. We have a few regulars who have come back again and always a few new people as well. In December our regular Tuesday night will be a more open "Crafting Jam" where people can work on whatever they like. Felting will always be available as an option!

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!