February Blahs

Double weave log cabin Lemieux blanket woven by Darlene Haywood. It felt luxuriously soft after washed and brushed. A beautiful job that took several months to create. The pattern was taken from Handwoven January/February 2012, 

Do you feel the  stresses of your everyday life are getting to you these days? Do you feel that negativity and aggression are wearing you down? Its that time of year when we fall prey to the rigourous hardships of the winter, and this winter has been especially punishing. Our positive feelings seem to erode, our negative   ones may come to the surface, or we may be easily discouraged. Compounded with this are the hardships of life that constantly seem to bombard us...whether it be friends and/or family member who are facing serious health issues or have recently passed away. With this in mind, its especially important to be extra kind and compassionate, practice random acts of kindness and perhaps at the weaving class we can consider playing it forward to get us through the remaining inhospitable temperatures. So next week, when you come in to weave, be prepared to be extra kind, extra nice, extra patient, extra understanding. Bring a gift to give to someone else. We'll bring all our gifts together, and draw for them. We can then trade them with each other.  'Play it Forward'.

For me when I'm feeling this way I think of weaving as a retreat. A place to find inner peace and calm, and shelter from the storm that life can sometimes be. My eyes alight anew with excitement and inspiration when I see the colours of the yarn, which seem to arouse my joy once again, or touch the fibres that seem to soothe frayed nerves. This is something that we don't want to relinquish easily once we have found this place in our weaving practice, regardless of the many technical challenges a weaving project may present at the outset. We have all come to see weaving (and our weaving class)  as a sanctuary, and I hope we can keep it that way, despite increasing challenges and demands that may create tensions.

WEAVING RESOURCES, EXHIBITIONS, LINKS

Woven Shibori, Woven pleating and crimping and Jacquard Weaving in Florence. Spring summer one week workshops being offered through the Toronto Weaving School. Contact Line Dufour for more info: tapestryline@sympatico.ca.

Conrad Dueck sends this educational weaving link: http://www.weavezine.com/audio

Here is a review I wrote on the Digital Jacquard Design book by Julie Holyoke: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1970F2QMDDD3Q

Click on the this link to see who from the weaving classes is featured on the Toronto District School Board Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/TDSBLearn4Life. Tina Patsourakos, Office Assistant for the

Toronto District School Board Continuing & International Education Marketing & Communications, came by to pay us a visit and check us out. 

A Thousand Threads: a story told in textiles http://www.textile-forum-blog.org/?p=992 The exhibition, taking place from 23 November 2013 to 1 June 2014, is the result of a collaboration between Lillehammer Art Museum and Maihaugen (Open Air Museum in Norway) on a presentation of textiles past and present. 

Interested in Shibori and other courses in China ? go to this link: http://shop.slowfiberstudios.com/collections/events

Textile conference in Europe:The 17th ETN (European Textile Network) Conference during the 2015 tulip flowering season in Holland

Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde (ethnographic museum) in the old town of Leiden

16th and 17th May Conference http://www.textile-forum-blog.org/?p=980

and lastly, someone secretly placed a ROM magazine in my briefcase while I was in the weaving class. They opened it so that I would notice that the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum)  is having an exhibition featuring akotifahana from the Madagascar region. A wonderful article entitled "Chasing Silk: A search for meaning and memory in Madagascar's illustrious textiles"  by Sarah Fee will enlighten you.