Upcoming Workshops

I've got a full line up of workshops this spring and summer. 

A little something for everyone. 

Feel free to email me with any questions about any of them.

44clovers@gmail.com

You can also check out my new website at 

44clovers.com

I've been running a series of natural dye workshops in conjuction with Portfiber 

all this spring. 

I have 3 classes left;

Natural Dyeing Basics

1 day; Sunday May 18, 2014

11am-3pm

$75

Feel free to bring fiber/ fabric in 4oz lots for dyeing. 

Whatever you like from wool, silk, angora, camel, etc. 

You can also purchase fiber from a wide variety at Portfiber the day of. 

You'll learn mordant basics and shortcuts, over dying, heating requirements, and much more. 

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Natural Dyeing for Sewists

2 Days; Sunday June 1st, 2014 11am-3pm at Portfiber

Thursday June 5th 6:15pm-8pm at Z Fabrics.

$105 for both workshops and all materials included

You'll learn so many skills in these two days;

natural dyeing on fabric

shibori methods

hemming techniques

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Natural Dyeing for Needle Felters

2 Days; Saturday June 14th 1pm-4pm at Portfiber

Saturday June 21st 1pm-4pm

$140 for both workshops and all materials included

We'll be working with raw Irish Texel fleece I brought back from Ireland:)

Bring along picture of your favrorite songbirds if you'd like. 

I'll also have pictures from magazines and books. 

We'll work on those tiny beautiful details that make songbirds so remarkable. 

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AT THIS YEARS MAINE FIBER FROLIC

The fiber frolic is a 2 day wonder of fibery delights ranging from animals, demonstrations, beautiful hand made goods, fiber materials and equipment. 

It's one of my favroite weekend of the whole years. 

This is the first year I'll be teaching at the Frolic and I'm SO EXCITED. 

Under the Rainbow in the Dye Pot

Saturday June 7th, 2014

9:30am-12:30pm

USing just 3 dye pots, I'll show you how to use natural dye pigment powders to dye dye each color of the rainbow. Then using a special technique, we'll make a self striping rainbow yarn. You can then use both dyed batches of yarn to incorporate into any of your fiber projects, rugs, weaving, knitting, crochet, or fulling

workshop fee: $75

materials fee: $15

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Lichen Magic

Saturday June 7th, 2014 

1:30pm-4pm

We'll talk about properly collecting within a context, indentification of lichens, and their fascinating properties. I'll also show you to test and prepare lichens for dyeing in order to extract their exciting colors which range from golds, orange, red, purple, and blues. We will also be dyeing up samples from my lichen fermentation jars. 

Workshop fee- $65

Materials fee- $10

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Foraging for Color

Sunday June 8th

10am-2:30pm with lunch break

Every plant  holds pigment inside. It's through experimenting that we find out what colors our neighboring plant life hold. We will discuss foraging with an ecological context, identify, and test what we collect for color using non-toxic mordants on silk fabrics and wool yarn samples. 

Workshop fee: $75

Materials fee: $10

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PEAKS ISLAND FIBER ARTS CAMP

 Peaks Island Fiber Arts Camp was founded by Laura Glendening and Susan Hanley in 2004 - now in it’s eleventh year of sharing a unique blend of arts, crafts & outdoor fun on Peaks Island. Our camps offer a summer time balance of learning skills, exploring & creating, and time for hanging out with new friends in a kind and cooperative environment. This year Susan will be taking the summer off and fellow Islander and textile artist Rachel Bingham Kessler will be filling in. We are happy to offer individual and group lessons too, please contact us for information.

To reserve a place in a camp, send in the following info; Your child's name
Age
Parents' name
Address
Phone number
Email
Which week you'd like to attend

Each camp enrolls just 8-12 campers, so please, To register and hold your spot, mail in your non-refundable deposit of $100 payment to:
Peaks Island FIber Camp
Laura Glendening
17 Sterling St
Peaks Island, Maine 04108
207-766-5705, lrglendening@gmail.com

Early Summer Days

Whittling, creature making and mud oven granola baking!

Spend the early days of summer relaxing with new friends and a project or two. We’ll whittle a walking stick and knitting needles - visit beaches and share stories. We’ll make a piece of fabric from which little animals & creatures will grow. And we’ll heat up the mud oven and bake delicious homemade granola!

June 23-27, 8:30-2:30. Ages 7-12 $285

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Fabric Collage

Create a beautiful light & colorful collage. Using Matisse’s cut outs as inspiration campers will create their own colors, shapes, and patterns with silk cloth. We’ll experiment with designs and lay-outs. When all the pieces of the collage are ready they will be held together, not by sewing, but by felting.

June 30-July 3, 8:30-2:30 ages 8-14 $235
Four Day Camp

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Still Life and Lunch

Fruit salad, bread, blueberry hand pies, pizza and more. We’ll spend the first part of each day drawing & painting the day’s ingredients. Then we’ll work together to prepare the recipe of the day. Finally we’ll enjoy the good food we’ve made. On Friday we’ll sew together a book using our drawings and paintings, recipes may be included too.

July 21st-July 25th 8:30-2:30 ages 6-14, $285

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Bugs Tracks and Crafts

Follow the paths of snails, bumbles, and hermit crabs while we explore the beach, garden, and forest for these tiny creatures. We’ll inspect their track habitats, and nests. Then using various textile textures, techniques, and our imagination, we’ll create unique keepsakes capturing the nature of these tiny creatures.

August 18-22nd, ages 6-12, $285

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NEW ENGLAND FIBER ARTS RETREAT

an all inclusive fiber arts retreat where you will be fed so well, make wonderful new friends

go on farm and studio field trips and take some amazing classes with some of Maine's most talented fiber artists. 

Another favorite time of year for me! 

This will be my 5th year teaching at Medomak and we've all been working hard to being new classes to the table. 

I am only 1 of 4 other instructors. All of us veterans by now. 

Bill Huntington

Bristol Ivy

Casey Ryder

Dana Fadel

Here's a short list of some of our exciting offerings through out the whole week. taught by me, 

felted soaps * inkle weaving * rigid heddle space weaving * felted landscapes * weaving on a 4-harness loom * tapestry weaving * tunisian crochet * knitting outside the box * finishing techniques * windrow cowl * beginning lace * knitting in the round * intarsia & duplicate stitch * to build a hat * stranded/ fair isle knitting * diagonal knitting/ felted bag * coils and core spinning * drop spindle spinning * carding to spin * botanical embroidery * embroidery 101 * shibori & bundles * rainbows in our dye pots * foraging for color

Holy Moly! That is a lot of classes!!

for more information contact our Director, Casey Ryder: casey@medomakcamp.com

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I am so blessed to have the oppertunity to work with all these wonderful fiber folks who are also dear friends. 

When I'm not knitting, spinning, and dyeing, I'm drawing up new class ideas and refining seasoned ones. 

I will also be adding a few plant dye workshops that will be happening here at my home on Peaks this summer, so keep a look out. 

If you have questions about any of these happenings or would like me to come teach in your area, I'd love to hear from you. 

44clovers@gmail.com

ox, Rachel

Knitting, Technology, & Me...

Sure, I guess I should say "& I". That would be correct but it doesn't sound like me:)

Anyway, I thought maybe it be time I share the fact that it's not unusual for me to have on average 5 knitting projects on the needles at one time. I've thought about this as my need, curiosity, excitement, etc takes over the logical/ reasonable part of my brain. With the onset of Pinterest, Facebook, Etsy, and blogs, the way I research (aka peruse) has sparked my creative confidence and therefor enhancing my process in such a way that I've now gone from having maybe 20 new ideas in a day (way back in my awkward tween years of only thinking about painting, sewing, boys, sheep and cream) to the now Me, 35 years old, having 100 new ideas a day and all the while thinking about still; sheep, cream, and now a twinkle in my eye (a someday baby). And also enjoying very much being a newlywed with the most adorable man in the entire Universe. I am more than super lucky.

I love seeing what others make as it sparks a lot of confidence as I mentioned above to help me think outside of "my" box. Though I'm inspired often by others, it's usually for the texture, color, or whimsy. But not the whole package. Having trained in the visual arts, I learned early the importance of originality. I do enjoy using patterns in knitting for my own personal use because I want to wear them or gift someone with an item. And sometimes I want to push myself to learn new techniques that I don't often use. Patterns and books and guides and websites and pictures are all great and they have a nice place in my work, but what I love more and thrive on is thinking things up from my insides. Normally it's how I get to sleep. Tonight however, with a little *too* much caffeine, a little *too* late in the day and a little *too* much sugar, and a husband snoring just a little *too* soon.... I'm here pecking this out. It was what I was thinking about anyway as I tried my foods a-z trick to get me to sleep. The thing is I got to M and when I get that far I know I'm not going to go to sleep anytime soon. It's usually J when I don't remember in the morning.

So back to all these 100's of ideas.

This is what I think about on a daily basis;

embroidery- maps, flora a-z, favorite lyrics.

watercolor- flora, still life, nature, my two hens, nature studies- particularly the mushrooms I've been OBSESSED with collecting.

oils- landscapes of Maine and Ireland, still lifes, studies, color studies, my almost finished painting studio.

nuno felting- all the silk scarves I've foraged in thrift shops, landscapes, pillow, cowls, head bands, classes, stitchings, curtains...

dyeing- I have a grocery bag full and stuffed with smaller bags of dehydrated mushrooms waiting to get dyed up. I have sachets of kool-aid waiting to bond with the beautiful naked rovings I just purchased at Portfiber, the several leftover dye baths on my porch waiting for a 4th go around. And then there's the deep orange and rich brown that my heart is begging me to figure out. It's like my soul is craving this rich burnt orange. My eyes are thirsty for it. Or maybe I was once a maple tree in a past life. And more classes.

spinning- the plant dyed green cashmere, the plant dyed soy silk rovings, the creamy cinnamon icelandic fleece, the white finn fleece, the irish texel fleece, the sheltland fleece, the...OMG do I have eneough WOOL!?!?!

And then there is the knitting... Oh dear lord the knitting that has yet to be knitted!!!! When I get to this place I have to take a deep breath and rock myself to slow it all down.

I've gone through many guilty feelings, starting when I was younger feeling like if I started a second project when the first is still unfinished, I'd be neglecting the first. When I learned to spin then dye & then forage local flora, discovering beautiful local yarn shops, meeting local people who also made beautiful threads.... well, I gave up the guilt game, cast on a new project at the slightest whim. And like there was no tomorrow.  What a relief it's been to see some one knitting a delightful pattern & being so moved & inspired by the colors, shaping, texture, I'd go right out, get what I needed or dig through my stash to get 'er started. I realized with more of a liberating delight & less of a debilitating guilt that it felt exhilarating to have 5-6 projects going. Little thoughts of ADD did pop into my mind but I've since pushed them away with a reminder, usually saying out loud, I'll finish it! You'll see! It is a good way to live. 

So, with that said, what I've been working on of late. 

The rainbow mitts. So far have not found a proper name for them. And this, none of these are the best pictures. But here, the rainbow started from curly locks that I dyed while still working at Portfiber using acid dyes. After dyeing them up for the shop, I then couldn't help myself and bought about 9 ounces worth. I used the carder there and created a rainbow batt. I then spun the batt into a continuous rainbow repeat yarn. As I had just finished Bristol Ivy's Picot! Picot! Cowl I still had picots and eyelets on the brain and thought I'd incorporate a little of it into these mittens. Soon to be in my etsy shop, these are large, toasty playful mittens. Seeing two men try them on this weekend right as I finished them, not only did they fit them well, but they had a certain delightful look in their eye as the rainbow-ness filled their soul. It was quite enduring actually. Especially because the mittens have a sort of frill on the cuff. Will be in the shop by the end of the week:)

                                  

My Bill mittens, I call them because both this Climbing Vine pattern and yarn came from Hope Spinnery. For the past 4 years I've had the lovely and peaceful pleasure of teaching with Bill Huntington at the New England Fiber Arts Retreat in Washington, Maine. You can read more about that in another post here. Knitting this pattern was such a joy and crunched my brain in just the right spots as I haven't followed a pattern like this before. I'm in love the two color rib, the color change of the yarn and elegant design of the vine, thumb and how the top comes together. They are mine for keeps.  

                                              

Last week I cracked open my sock book to knit the Uptown Boat Socks. Using nature spun Lemon that I purchased for sale over a year ago in NYC at Knit City. It was on sale and I bought a ton of it. I love using this yarn too as its soft, sturdy and bouncy! And I've made a commitment to myself to start knitting all my own socks as socks from Target do not last one day. Very boring story of a tow making a premature appearance. This pattern is a simple twisted cable leaving an elegant honeycomb effect. I'm enjoying the slow procress and the "i need to concentrate just enough but not so much where I will bite your arm off it you make a noise while I'm knitting (like the fist pattern I knit from this book that included trelisis and traveling stitches and I was so damned determined to do something really hard because it was actually really satisfying. You can see those here.

                                     

I will insert a better and finished picture of the Picot! Picot! Cowl shortly. For now, Elsa is enjoying it. 

Here are the Maple and Birch fingerless mitts. Finished now and in my shop waiting to warm someone's hand up! Hand spun camel and silk. Dyed with madder and fustic dyes. Spun on my masurka wheel. 

As I've said before, these are my favorite favorites! You can find them here. The Squam Lake fingerless hand spun maine raised pygora and garden grown indigo will be an ultra elegant gift for yourself or a sweet someone. They are pure luxury and class. Also with an extra long cuff.  

If you feel moved, please share in the comments below what you've been working on. Feel free to include links to your raverly page, website, whatever. 

Damn.... I forgot sewing and weaving. 

Friends in Fiber

This is a little bit over due but, better late than never! I spent another glorious week for the 4th year in a row at The New England Fiber Arts Retreat in Washington, Maine. Though I affectionately call it Medomak as it's part of the Medomak Family Camp. I look forward to this every year. A whole week with my girlfriends. A whole week working on knitting, spinning, embroidery, dyeing, felting. A whole week talking about such things to many others who love to talk about fiber too. Exchanging ideas, encouragement, and advise on projects. And a whole week of indulging in ice cream, swimming, sitting in a rocker and making friends in fiber. As one of the five instructors, it has always been such a delight, refresher, awakening and rejuvenating week to spend time in such a place to share my knowledge and passion and learn so much in such a way.

This year we had triple the amount of participants sign up as last year. It was truly 3 times the amount of fun, friends and learning for everyone!!

I have a few pictures captured from the workshops I taught and just a smidgen of others. This one is from my first workshop: indigo and pigments. We used fustic for yellow, indigo for blue and cochineal for red. Everyone had several sample skeins and choose which pots they dipped them in. 

This fustic came in a liquid form. Fustic comes from a tropical tree back. Also known as Dyer's Mulberry. The tree can grow in Mexico and Argentinia. 

Cochineal can usually come up a mauve color with alum as a mordant. But when you add enough cream of tartar, BAM! It turns a perfect bright red!

My favorite in this gathering is the deep purple and the light subtle purple hanging from the light blue. everyone had so much fun playing with the color blending.  

Here are some pictures from my second class; Foraging. As I was coming up from the lake the day before, I discovered these Lobster Claw Mushrooms peeking out from a pile of leaves. Those are the huge bright orange ones. 

Those said mushrooms gave a lovely pink with ammonia and alum... We also collected golden rod, lichens and other mushrooms. It was such a blast. 

The golden rod is like a fluorescent marker! And smells kind of zesty. Dyeing with golden rod is one of my most favorite dyes. Also done with Alum as a mordant. If you add iron, it will give you more of a green. 

Bristol Ivy and Dana Fadel collaborated on a class of dyeing silk hankies and then weaving with them. The first day, Bristol taught how to dye the silk hankies with acid dyes. Dana taught how to weave with them.

It was so fun to see everyone with their card board looms working on this sweet project. It was quite the hit!

Every year I so look forward to the field trips. Going to Katharine Cobey's is always such a delight. Amazing surroundings, both the landscape and Katharine's studio. 

And she always has a new technique to teach us. After 4 years of visiting her, for me, it never gets old. Her energy, welcoming spirit and zest for knitting is contagious, inspiring, and empowering. 

She taught us to knit and purl back wards, from left to right. But really, when you think about it and trust yourself, you'll find that you DO know what to do. 

Here she gave us all a piece of rope and taught something I don't quite remember but it involved starting from three stitches. Can I do it again? I wonder....

We visited Swan's Island Company.... Where they use natural dyes for their yarns that weave their blankets. The yarn is for sale as well. This was such a treat as we were given a tour of the show room, the weaving room, the finishing room, and the dye house. Everyone was so warm, friendly, knowledgable and so transparent about their process. It was refreshing and delightful. The time they take for each piece is amazing. If your able to acquire their yarn or their blankets.... you will not be sorry. It was also a lovely way to connect two of my workshops to their process as it was inspiring and affirming to hear them say the same things about their dyeing process that I was talking about in my dye workshops. Afterwards, I picked the brain of the dye-master and he was very gracious in answering all my questions, giving me tips and even showing me the books he uses. Two of which I own too:) Such a lovely lovely visit!

Our last field trip we visited Black Locust Farm in Washington where Yvone an her husband rise cashmere goats. I blissed out on purchasing 4oz of green dyed cashmere cloud. Spinning it has been a delight and I haven't regretted an ounce:) I will be double plying it and creating a cowl.. to sleep in this winter....? Quite possibly. I mean, its the kind of fiber you want to curl up in and sleep. As it turned out, the fiber was dyed by Bill Huntington of Hope Spinnery. Bill is another one of the instructors at Medomak which I have such a pleasure of teaching with. Bill sells his yarn, patterns, and knitting loveliness at The Fiber Frolic and The Common Ground Fair, and know there are other fairs but off the top of my head I can't remember!! Bill also uses natural dyes:)

In another class I taught nuno felted head scarves. Carrie's is a perfectly felted gem. With felting I love how thick the wool becomes and the silk edging around it is all delicate and crinkly. Next year there will be a new twist on the nuno felting class:)

Even through down pours, we kept spinning, and creating with our fiber. Some times we didn't even notice it was raining. 

Until next year...