The Craft Sessions' 2016 Retreat Dates

Just a short post today just to let you know our exciting news! We have finalised our dates. The Craft Sessions 2016 retreat will be run from Friday September 2nd 2pm to Sunday September 4th 4.30pm in the Yarra Valley*!

We are working hard on our 2016 program - to make sure we are meeting all your crafting (and connection) needs, by planning a weekend of good food, a beautiful location, fabulous workshops and inspiring people. We want to ensure we have the balance we want, the variety you crave, and the skills you are looking for. We are going to nail it!

As you know this year we sold out in 2.5 hours - totally crazy but true! We wanted to assure you that we would release all the retreat details a few weeks before registration opens, so you have time to get organised. A few people also suggested that we change the registration day/time to the weekend to make it easier to arrange and we will do that too. We can't wait to share all the details with you in April of next year!

Joining our mailing list is a great way to get all of the info you need straight to your inbox.

Wishing you a magical summer with some quiet crafting time.

Felicia x

*The Yarra Valley is just outside Melbourne.

Unintentional blog break and dates for dates!

Geez! This year the holiday season has really been kicking my butt. Concerts, and fairs, and birthdays, and bring-a-plate, and charity events, and meetings, and summer-sandal purchasing for kids with skinny feet, and then there is this thing called christmas and ..... well whoa. And as Karen discussed in her post from a few days ago, I totally identify with the feeling that life is a little meh at the moment. Too much rushing, to many obligations and not enough time to catch your breath. Life feels distracted with doing rather than being. Nothing feels concrete.

Karen really hit the nail on the head for me when she said that she thinks part of the problem is that she isn't making! Making is an everyday habit for me, even when things are chaotic. In fact normally, making is something that supports me through chaotic times. This year though, I haven't even got the energy to pick up the appropriate knitting on the way out the door, so non-essential making has come to standstill. And not making, and not having enough time for even a line of knitting, gets me all off kilter.

I'm sure many of you are also feeling it?

Anyhoo, school is out for the holidays, birthdays are done, and it is time to take a breath. And part of that breath is letting you know that I'm going to be posting the dates for next year's retreat on Friday.* I have them in my hot little hand at last and can't wait to share.

Hope your week has space in it, along with some time for crafting and general joy.

Felicia xx

*If you are on our mailing list you will hear a little earlier

One of the (many) things Anna Farago taught me.

So I'm lucky enough to have this friend Anna Farago. Lucky in all the everyday ways that make friendship over many years wonderful. But I often feel even luckier for her friendship for two big reasons.

1. We work very differently as humans, which provides a richness of experience and ideas to our conversations, that I love.

2. She is super patient with me, which is not always an easy feat.

She is an artist and a patchworker. And an art teacher. She is also very very smart. About art, craft and life.

Anyway enough about her. Let's talk about me. And what she has taught me.

As I've said before on this blog, I am wrong often. The whole "I was totally wrong about patchwork" is a fantastic example, and the Anna in question who did the sighing in that post was the lovely Anna Farago. Did I mention that she is patient with me.

Anyhoo. We make things together, not always physically in the same room, but we share what we are making as part of our everyday conversations. A lot. We have different skills. I'm a little more interested in the technical and love the maths, and she knows the art, the colour and the composition. We talk about things as we work on them; what we are doing, why and how. The way we make things is really different too. I'm a practicing-completionist/reforming-perfectionist whereas Anna loves the process.

She didn't/doesn't set out to teach me stuff. But over time, her thoughts on making slowly but surely, seep into the way I work. And today I want to talk about what she has taught me about the beauty of visible process.

I started this quilt a while ago (that is Anna in the top photo of that post) and it is an ongoing-work-in-progress. I'm not even halfway finished the hand-quilting yet, and so I've realised it will be an ongoing-work-in-progress for the next six months at least.

And that is where it has got interesting for me. The perfectionist in me traditionally wants my craft-person-ship to be as beautiful as I can make it. Although I regularly make mistakes, I make decisions about where and what I'm willing to live with and what I rip out. I rip things out a lot. However it turns out that this quilt is a little different.

So the quilt is a linen quilt with alternating stripes. It goes from a darker blue stripe to a light off-white stripe with blue cross hatching. The back is an incredibly pretty silver linen sheeting from Tessuti. Because of the colour contrast on the front I wasn't sure what colour hand-quilting thread to use when I started the hand-quilting. 

If I used a dirty darker blue it would show on the back of the quilt but not so much on the front. That the stitching would appear in a really subtle way. Subtle but beautiful. However if I used a silver thread it would really show on the front but not on the back. This would be the opposite of subtle. The stitches would be features; highly visible in all their glory. Which might be totally lovely.... I needed to make a decision between subtle (the blue) and striking (the silver). I decided to go for a more subtle look. So I started with a dirty blue cotton as I thought that would look lovely on the blue square in the middle of the quilt.

The thing is, that when I started the quilt, I hadn't done any hand-quilting for a year. I knew I would be rusty and my stitch size would be all over the place. So I started quilting by doing single stitches as a time (rather than loading the needle with three or four), because I was totally lacking rhythm and skill. Now - because the cotton was blue - and remembering that the fabric was blue on the front of the quilt and silver on the back - the stitching looked lovely from the front and, well... the back just looked atrocious. Small, large, small, on the skew. Wacky. And because it was blue cotton on silver fabric the stitching (mistakes) were incredibly pronounced.

The perfectionist in me still finds these photos a little difficult to look at.

If this was a quilt for the wall that would be totally fine. You wouldn't see it. But it is not. It is a quilt for my own bed, which means you will see both sides, often. If I hadn't been in quite such a hurry to get started, I probably would have done what any self-respecting quilter working on an important project would have done, and made hand-quilting samples to figure out what to do. But I didn't. I jumped in.

I stitched a few rounds in blue, and after being appalled by my lack of technique (perfectionist), I changed the cotton to silver and kept going. My thinking was that stitching on the back - which is always messier unless you are an expert hand-quilter - should be the same colour as the fabric on the back, as that way the messiness wouldn't be so pronounced. I decided to keep going, and after completing a few rounds in silver to make sure I liked it, I decided to pull out the blue stitching and redo it with the silver later.

I mentioned this false start to Anna and she said "hang on a bit - don't pull it out yet - just leave it and see how you feel about it later". And so I did. All the while thinking she was crazy (often my starting postion) but as often happens with me, I've slowly come around to her way of thinking (often my end position).

See Anna loves seeing the maker in the craft. She loves seeing the mistakes in all their glory and isn't obsessed with making things perfect. She likes to be able to see the process. Seeing the history, the choices, and the personality of the maker as part of the object.

This quilt is being made over time as part of the continuum of our lives. What I am discovering in making it, is that I too, am actually enjoying seeing a visible representation of that process. I like that my initial choice of blue stitching is still the the quilt. I like that apparently at random, the stitching then changes to silver. I like that you can see at the centre of the quilt that I'm rusty and then that my stitches even out as I find my rhythm.

I want to say "oh my" but instead I'm embracing the history.

This quilt often gets tossed aside for weeks at a time, so my work lacks consistency. I'm also changing my hand-quilting style all the time, as I try to improve my technique. Sometimes I use the top of my finger, other times I'm pinching the needle. Sometimes I'm quilting towards myself, and sometimes on an angle. Other times I'm quilting in the dark when the bulbs blow out in our loungeroom due to a dodgy fuse. Other times I'm tired, or grumpy, or have had two glasses of wine. Or I have a kid sitting on me. All this history is visible and featured within the stitches of the quilt. Maybe not visible to the uneducated observer but visible to me.

And I love that!

Somewhere along the way, I have given up notions of consistency, perfection and craft-person-ship being my primary goal. Slowly, without feeling it change, I've embraced the nuances of quilting over time, and as part of a life. I've learned to love that the inconsistencies in the quilting, mirror the inconsistencies of living. And that this quilt - which I will hopefully have on my bed for the next fifty years - will be a record of the my skill level, my mood, my decision-making, and my environment during the years in which I made it.

If I hadn't had Anna in my ear, subtly guiding me towards freedom by modelling a different way of making, I would be sitting in sadness as I was quilting; knowing that I wasn't quite crafting a piece that was technically perfect. Instead I sit with my quilt on my lap with a feeling of joy, knowing that I am creating a piece of tangible history, that contains a part of me in every stitch.

Much love to you Anna, for being my friend and leading me to the water.

Felicia x

Stash Less - The Tipping Point

This post has another title. It's also called "How stashing has wreaked havoc on my kid's wardrobes." Now some of you might say that wreaked havoc is a little harsh - and maybe I'll concede on that point. I do have a point though - and that is that they definitely aren't the wardrobes they would have had if I hadn't been stashing for all those years. I need this post as a reminder - reminder that buying without thought leads to chaos.

See the thing about stashing is that I bought without thought. For many years I didn't use my visual diary to consciously determine what I like and then purchase accordingly. Instead, on a whim, I purchased pretty sparkly things that I fell for on the day. My stash became a stash filled with fabrics that are attractive but that aren't my "deep style". And now, because I am the kind of person who wants to use up what I have, (due to this Stash Less Project I started and my desire to be a more conscious consumer), I am now making them clothes with what I have.

My “deep style" can be seen on my kid's Pinterest page. Lots of plain fabrics in soft colours. My kid's wardrobes however, are full of bright colours and lots of prints!

Don’t get me wrong. They look cuuute. Adorable even – when they aren’t kicking one another and complaining about having to eat “broc-ol-leee agaaain” - but that kind of isn’t the point. The point is that if I hadn’t stashed to the extent I did, and had put just a smidge more thought into coordinating my purchasing, then maybe they may have looked a little less circus-chic/urchin-unwashed and instead looked something more akin to “turned out”. And once in a while that would be y'know, nice.

I feel like now is the time I need to add a clarification. I love their look. But I guess sometimes as I look into the mishmash that is their wardrobes I wish that there was a teensy bit more coordination and a teensy bit less chaos. And I can see how my purchasing on a whim, and excessive stashing has contributed to this.

Their look is, however, theirs. As soon as my kids were old enough to talk they were picking their own outfits and wanted to have a big say in what I was making. They weren't/aren't dolls to be dressed. I have very limited input into their choices, and as such, if I offer them a plain fabric for a frock then they look at me with total horror. Like I am causing them physical pain. They will always go for the bright, and the mistake I made in the past was that I had bright on the shelves. Accessible and ready to go.

“What does all this have to do with a tipping point?”, I hear you ask. Well I've happy/sad news to report my friends! Happy because I've finally hit a tipping point in my quest to Stash Less. A point whereby I can see unequivocal progress. The stash – especially the fabric stash - is massively down in volume and my purchasing habits have changed - hopefully for good.

The tipping point occurred sometime over the last few weeks. I went to the fabric shelf, and lo and behold, I was stuggling to find exactly what I needed. Now I'm definitely not out of fabric and there are still about 15 pieces with some kind of meterage but at a guess I'd say I've at least halved what I had a year ago. And I’ve used many of the fabrics that I had hoarded for years due to their specialness. Big yay to me for being an achiever!

What this has to do with the kid’s wardrobes is that I’m now using the leftovers, smaller pieces and odds and ends, in order to make what I need to clothe them. I did a wardrobe edit a few weeks ago and the making list looked like this…

• The boy child needed shorts x 4
• The middle kid needed shorts x 2 and tshirts x 4
• The smallest one needs dresses x 3 and shorts x 2.
• The middle kid also wants some dresses. She has grown like a weed.

None of this is unusual; it is a time of year thing for me. October time is get-ready-for-summer time.

But what was unusual was that I didn't have endless choice. I made the shorts but am now out of boy short fabric. I literally have nothing left that would work for boy shorts. Then in order to get the aforementioned dresses cut out I had to do a bit of scrounging. Not quite enough of this or that fabric. I’ve been piecing things together, adding panels to the yokes and frills on the bottom, cutting on the crossgrain. Scrounging, using all that is left and thereby using fabric I don’t actually like to make dresses I’ll see twice a week for the next year or three. And I can't tell you how thrilled it is making me.

I’m thrilled because it’s finally got hard to find fabric; and because I’m really enjoying the challenge of figuring out how to use the dregs. I'm thrilled because I still have some special fabrics I can use for special projects. I’m thrilled because I’m enjoying sucking up the fact that their wardrobes are getting even crazier with weird fabric I don’t like. Thrilled because I can see the fabric stacks are small and I’ve used fabrics I love over the course of Stash Less. Thrilled because the preciousness of precious fabric is now has a more healthy perspective. Thrilled by how light I feel.

While I’m not there yet Ifinally feel progress has been made. We are exactly 13.5-months-and-a-bit in, and these last weeks have felt like total joy. I'm proud of my progress.

For those of you who are making your own changes to your stashing - how is it going?? Anything to report?

Felicia x

What we can learn from watching kids craft

My kids craft a fair bit. Not because I am some generous, kind, and nurturing mother, who sits for hours on end with her kids, helping them to create wondrous things. I don't do that. I'm not that patient and I often have stuff to do. Instead they craft because they are surrounded by materials and I give them the freedom and the autonomy to start stuff. And make a mess. 

Want to make a bag out of felt for your sister? Sure thing. There is the box of felt, there are the sewing needles. Off you go kid.

Want to dye some yarn? Here is some yarn, there is a jar. You could use onion skins or turmeric or grab some leaves out of the garden.

You want to do some finger knitting? There are the scraps. Off you go. Please don't make a lasso and put it around your sisters neck. 

I help when they are trying something totally new. I help when they get stuck. I help when they are making something special as a present, and sometimes I help when they have an especially grand idea. 

Occasionally I give some advice on a way of doing something but I always position it that the advice is one way of doing it. Not the only way. I always add that they might come up with a better way. 

I want them to get that I don't have the answers, and that they control it, direct it, own it. 

So they make stuff.

They don't always finish stuff and that's OK too. Their idea of what is finished and my idea of what is finished are two separate things. 

I try really hard to stay out of it. Sometimes biting my lip in the process. Sometimes hard enough to draw blood :). Who doesn't want to control things.

Why do I try so hard to stay out of it? Why do I try not to "teach" them how to do stuff? Because I've seen that they actually have an advantage when learning to craft that we grownups don't have. And I believe that if I were to start trying to teach them stuff then I may kick that advantage right out of them.

Unlike many grownups, most kids - if left to their own devices from an early age - will experiment.

Experimentation and curiosity is how we learn. It's how we developed from apes, to tool-using apes, to upright walking bipeds, to the crazy, big-brained, inventive things we are. Experimentation allows us to be flexible and to run with possibility. Some of my favourite projects have come as a result of experimentation or accident. And for me the learning that comes out of experimentation feels different to the learning that comes from being taught. I feel more connected to it, my understanding is deeper and I retain it longer. 

As we get older, our willingness to spend time experimenting seems to fade.

Collecting dyeing materials.

I have a few theories about this. One issue for many of us seems to be that as we get older, we become more time poor and for many reasons, both cultural and personal, we start attaching judgements about our time. The simplest judgement about time is that we need to be productive with it. This judgement is so prevalent (and so culturally strong) that we then lose our natural inclination to experiment. We want results. We want an outcome. And we want that outcome to look like what we imagined. We place narrow parameters around what is a successful project.

And the situation actually gets worse. When something doesn't quite go how we planned it, imagined it, or dreamed it, we assign blame and often translate a projects "failure" into a judgement about ourselves. We say things like "I'm rubbish at ....." or "I'm not patient enough" or "I just wasted those materials" or "I obviously did something wrong ". Blah bloody blah. For some reason we turn the fact that the project wasn't a success into some kind of meaningful message about ourselves. 

It doesn't need to be this way as those aforementioned kids show us.

Unconsciously they allow themselves the time and space to just play. Because really they are just having a good time. Figuring it out. For fun.

We could allow ourselves to play, with materials and with time, thereby allowing ourselves the space to fail without it meaning anything. It doesn't need to mean anything. It just means the experiment failed.

Imagine how much more we could enjoy the process if we took the pressure off? 

You I know I love an example so here goes....

Over the last year the girls (who were 7 and 4) have been doing some natural dyeing. I need to stress that I actually don't know anything about natural dyeing. It isn't a skill set I currently possess. I've never been to a dyeing class at The Craft Sessions (nor any other class really - a small tragedy of being the event runner :)) and I don't understand anything about mordants and light fastness. I guess the one thing I do know is that you might want to use a mordant and think about light fastness. Obviously I'm not going to be very helpful. 

It started about 6 months ago when I showed my 7yo that Belinda had dyed some yarn using plants from our garden and jars. We talked a tiny bit about some of the things you could dye with, before the kid walked out of my sewing room. She got herself a jar, some onion skins, some flowers and some fabric, and chucked them out in the sun. And dyed some fabric.

About six months later the younger kid got it in her head that she wanted to dye some yarn. She was four and she just began. She got jars and avacodo pips and onion skins and purple carrots. Her kinder teacher had just done some dyeing with purple carrots and the kid knew she could get a result. 

So she began. She did this awesome kind of solar dyeing that we think we made up. We did solar dyeing without sun (as it was the middle of winter) by putting the jars on top of the hydronic heaters. This meant that the jars heated up during the day and cooled down at night. I made up mini skeins of scrap yarn for her and she went for it.

She decided when they were finished - sometimes she left them for two weeks, and other times she left them for two days. I didn't say anything. I simply gave her some bowls and some tongs and told her to rinse them and put them on the heaters to dry. 

She ran with it. She got results with her first round (which I will show you another day) which she totally loved. She then came to me asking what else, and so I told her I thought that sour grass (oxalis) worked, and turmeric, and black beans, and so on we went. 

Making the mud.

Then not long ago, I met the very knowledgable and kind Samorn from Eastern Weft, and she told me that to get the black yarn they use in their weaving they dye using mud. I told my girls this, and so they found some dirt, made some mud, and put some yarn in it. They left it for a few weeks before trying to rinse it outside by the tap.

There were some issues. Firstly it was impossible to get all the mud off the yarn. And secondly, the yarn was still white. The mud washed off and left the yarn the same colour as it started. *

Rinsing the yarn a few weeks later.

The final "result".

And do you know what they did? Literally they shrugged, walked inside and got another jar some more yarn and some gum leaves. 

That was it. I don't think they gave it another thought. There was no sadness about wasted time and materials. There was no judgments about their abilities with natural dyeing. 

The other interesting thing about it, is that while they like the yarn they have dyed, and want to play with it, they don't seem to consider it as a precious/amazing resource that they should use carefully and sparingly.

Personally if I had dyed yarn then I would be endowing it with some kind of "specialness". I would consider carefully how to best use it and probably get frozen in indecision. I might just leave it sitting there because of it's preciousness.

The girls don't think anything of randomly using it for a collage, or cutting it up to make bracelets and finger knitting. They have used it to make a leash for a stuffed toy dog. I have to bite my lip and smile admiringly at their creations.

It is their process, not mine. And I learn so much from watching it.

Are you still an experimenter? Were you ever?

Felicia x

*Samorn has since told me it is a special kind of mud.