Shibori Workshop coming in October

I'm so excited to be offering a Shibori dyeing with indigo workshop at Portfiber, here in Portland, Maine. Participants will be bringing whatever garments or materials they have on hand, or something special or dyeing on silk scarves. We'll be experimenting with a few resist techniques. Please contact me with any questions and the shop to sign up! Hope to see you there!

Fiber Workshops on Peaks Island

I'm so excited to start offering various fiber workshops at my home on Peaks Island, Maine. The idea has been cooking away in my brain for a few months now and it's finally going to happen. This past weekend, as you read from my prior post, I hosted an indigo dyeing party which was a blast and a great learning experience for everyone including myself. This coming September 22nd, I'll be hosting my first workshop at the house. It will be just short of a week from my return from teaching at Squam The Taproot Gathering. I've entitled this workshop, Home Dyeing Made Easy. We'll be dyeing with madder root, logwoods, black walnuts, indigo, and osage orange. I'll talk about and demonstrate simple steps for preparing for the dyeing, tools and techniques that just make things a bit more manageable when you don't have a dyeing space set up all the time. Sample yarns will be used including merino, cashmere, angora, mohair, and alpaca. You can bring your own as well if you have something you'd like to dye up or have been itching to change the color of. Not a fan of your yellow yarn? Come drop it in the madder root to create orange or the indigo to make a green. Bring your bag lunch and hang out on the porch and chat away in the breezy afternoon while the pots simmer away.

If this date and time does not work for you but you'd like to take a workshop or private lessons in dyeing or other fiber related forms, let me know, I'm happy to work with you to create a workshop that can accommodate your schedule, skill set, or group.  

Feel free to email me with any questions! 44clovers@gmail.com

Hope to see you in September!

Back in the saddle.

I write this from the computer lab at USM counting down the abstract days (because they are unknown to me) until I have my own computer back at home.

A teeny update of my happenings of the last few weeks. I've now been student teaching for 9 weeks. I still want to be an art teacher. I've enjoyed being with the middle schoolers more than I thought. My next placement will be with the elementary students at Breakwater School. One of my most favorite places on Earth and where I used to Work. I will write about how much I loved working there another time. I will continue this merry-go-round effect through the spring when in May I "graduate". Caring more about the actual moment I receive my certificate than about any ceremony. Having gone through a graduation ceremony twice in my lifetime- I know they are not that exciting. I will however, have a ceremony of my own when I land my first teaching job. I'm sure it will include a bottle of wine, my two cats and dancing around my shoe box listening to Nellie Furtado. Really loud. Until then, I continue to visit Lincoln Middle School here in Portland were I don't want to leave. The class room is calm and every time I observe and help my mentor teacher with a lesson, I learn something new. Tucking all kinds of informtion into my mental bank to be pulled out for later.

On another note, but related as well, I have been visiting this fabulous shop in Portland, The Fiber Gallery. It is located at the bottom of Munjoy Hill. I've been popping into this shop for about 5 years now every once in a while for a many reasons. To purchase a few onces of brightly dyed locks, to ask questions about carding wool, spinning to a certain weight, purhasing fiber for a family member's sweater, always coming out with more than I intended to come out with. This past Saturday I went in to ask another round of questions. First, I wanted to know if they rented out drum carders. I have much to card through and I am overwhelmed with how I will get it all done. I also need some extra cash, as we all do, and asked if they needed any help this winter in the shop. And thirdly, I asked about teaching classes. I got very unexpected answers to all my questions and more. The result is now I am working my own hours as an intern- when I can fit it in which consists of going to the studio to card fiber for the store and carding my own. I've been offered to put some of my own creations in the shop for consignment. They have offered to teach me to weave- using huge traditional looms- which I have never done before- in exchange for making a few things for the shop as I make things for myself. I will also be taught about felting, and dyeing. All things I've felt the need to take a class for or buy books on. To get hands on guidence for free is a dream. What seals it all up into a beautiful package is that the shop and studio is just down the road a few blocks from me. A wonderful weekend activity for me to do this winter. Look for new yarns and woven garments in the next few months on my etsy site at bosco44/etsy.com