We’ve had a busy start to August with five classes in session during the first ten days of the month. Beadweaving, and then Mixed Media Fiber Jewelry with Francie Broadie, Finding Our Way: A Dyeing Journey with Stephanie Lewis Robertson, Batik with Anne Landre and Coiled Basketry with Lynn Stracka Schuster. Let’s “take five” and see a little of what each class did during their time in the studios. Francie Broadie’s Beadweaving: Lesser Known Stitches class allowed all levels to try beadweaving for the first time or to explore unfamiliar stitches, then in her Mixed Media Fiber Jewelry class, students created one-of-a-kind jewelry using fabric scraps, beads, found objects or pieces of old jewelry, upcycling and combining them in fun […]
1000 Words
The adage, “a picture is worth 1000 words” is the theme for this post featuring photos from our early August companion classes, Diane Fitzgerald’s “Beading: Inspiration from Everywhere” and Stephanie Lewis Robertson’s “Making Your Mark: A Fabric Journey”. As it turns out, one thousand words equals about two full pages of writing. We will forego all those words and share photos from the classes instead. First, just a bit about each class. The beaders had selected a theme that appealed to them personally, researched it, then developed a concept and based on that, created beadwork in class. In Making Your Mark, students used simple silk screening, direct painting on fabric, dyeing, block printing and more to create designs on cloth. […]
Without Boundaries
After learning the basics, there’s no boundaries to what you can create. Experimenting builds new opportunities and that was definitely part of our last two classes. We start by continuing with a few more fabrics; direct painted, dyed, printed and screened from Stephanie Robertson’s Making Your Mark class. A family tree branched out on one piece, and after preparing the first stage of this mountain scene, it was definitely time to sit back and admire it with feet up! An idea proposed by one of Stephanie’s students and carried out in class this year was to hand-dye cotton that could be used in the Washington Island-made Quilts of Valor. Each student participated to create this array of fabrics for these meaningful quilts. […]
Express yourself
There are so many ways to express yourself. Count our first two classes in August, Basketry: Covered Coiling with Lynn Schuster and Making Your Mark: A Fabric Journey with Stephanie Lewis Robertson among them! By completely covering the core material with various yarns and expanding or decreasing the spiral core while constructing a basket was the method used in this class. As Lynn related to the students, the basket will tell you what it wants as far as its shape, rim and embellishment. The students commented on the relaxed and meditative-type atmosphere that was inherent in the wrapping and stitching of their baskets. Expressing yourself and telling your own story through fabric is the basis of Stephanie’s fabric printing and dyeing class. Experimenting with […]
