Next week in Easy Weaving...

On next Tuesday we will be making little handwoven purses on the carboard looms in the photo on the right. These are fun to make...you weave around and around on both sides of the loom making a sort of tube. It is a great way to play with lots of different yarns and fibers and recycled fabrics...I'll try and get a better photo of the bags...One of the weaving students even owns her own Yarn Store in Ojai...how wonderful is that!!!

Warping time at the Studio

Here we have Wo and Hilda helping the students wind their warp for the "Easy Weaving" class. Don't you love the pirate hat!

Fibre studio classes

another piece of painted and stamped fabric ready to be cut up into strips and woven...

This week at the Fibre Arts Design Studio

A student warping her loom at the Easy Weaving Class on Tues. Last week the ladies prepared painted fabric to weave into the warp.

Ojai Film Festival Poster

I love this poster with the wonderful art by Ojai artist Wendy MaHary. It depicts the festival's theme, "Enriching the human spirit through film."

some funny little hearts...

that I've been working on for Syd's "Queen of Arts" show...the tiny ones will be pins, might add some tin or fabric wings to the back. The velvet hearts with buttons will be ornaments to hang.

The drive to Ojai...

passes through old oak forests and along the edge of this beautiful lake. Very few other cars until you get close to town.
Today at the Fibre Arts Design Studio we had a very fun and busy Recycled Fibre class making cool jackets out of once loved sweatshirts transforming them into funky altered wearable art. Still working on mine and will post a photo when I get more done. Wo came up with great ideas and provided felted sweater remnants from Crispina Ffrench...so twice recycled parts to play with. Everyone created great pieces that will be fun to wear and share once it cools off a bit!

The Fibre Arts Design Studio celebrates Ojai Day...

I was inspired to make a felt sign for the back of the booth. The girls at the Studio came up with the hanging ribbons attached to felted beads.

The Ojai folks set up the booth starting at 6am.
Many new students signed up for classes and the marbled paper book marks were a big hit. Brand new Fibre Arts Design Studio tee shirts were available for sale and to embellish at the booth. Wo's son did the design work and they came out great. I had to work at our Hardware store for most of the day, so I didn't get to Ojai until 3pm but the cozy little town was still lively with music playing, arts and crafts for sale, a very delectable food section, Chumash crafts, dancing in the street and a huge mandala colorfully drawn by adults and children on the main intersection of town. My father lived in Ojai for many years and it still feels a bit like home to me, so it's always a fun place for me to visit. After cruising through the many fine craft booths I found my way to the food street...I was starving after work and decided to give the home made tamales a try. I choose the goat cheese, sun dried tomato, and basil tamale with mild salsa....I have to say it was the best tamale I have ever had! What a fun day....and we got a lot of interest in the Fibre Arts Studio.....

Ojai Day...2006

Marbled paper book mark samples that we made for Ojai Day. The kids got to try marbling at the Studio's booth all day.
here we have the giant mandala made with chalk on the main intersection downtown.

The boys...

My latest gnomes amid the herbs and with a mosaic covered bowling ball that I did a while back...It is rather a tricky thing to hook faces....

Fibre arts Monday

We had a class by Candace in silk painting...I did some birds with gutta outlines in copper and black.

Happy October!

Pumpkin gets a little friend.....
These wonderful antique folk art pincushion dolls were given to me by my artist friend, Penny for Christmas one year. I just love them so much and the pincushion part looks kind of like a pumpkin! Thank you, Penny!
And just to clarify things...the recycled bowls and trivets are samples for the class I am attending on Monday...I did not make them myself....but I hope to be able to ! And I will post my attempts if they turn out OK...so stay tuned...and thanks for your visits!

Recycled Paper and fiber class samples for next Monday

A circular bowl of recycled papers...

a trivet made of connected little squares...

ready to be embellished...

Here we have the fiberous back side of the paper.Then Justin's blue piece and our piece that we made together and finally my piece that is begging to be played with.

More soy paper making photos..

Justin adding some silver glitter to his piece and the finished papers hanging to dry.

making soy silk fiber paper...

at the Fibre Arts Design Studio with Wo, Hilda,Lisa and Sharon. My son , Justin and I attended a wonderful class on Wed. making paper with soy silk and bamboo fibers! This is the beginning of the process.

The crows get their feet...

and the amazing thing is that they can stand on their own. I was afraid that they would need their tails to balance themselves, but somehow their wire and cloth wrapped feet are holding them up! I tired paper mache on wire, but it wasn't working that well so I dipped the little black wool strips that I use for hooking into the glue water mixture and that did it! I did a little touch up with acrylic paint, let them dry for a day and sewed them into place. My favorite Steiff gnome, Pucki, is in the background watching the crows go by.

Hooked Toadstools with little doors that open...

I finally finished these toadstools which may go off to a shop soon, so I took a quick photo with one of our garden gnomes. Inside the little door I glued a small Gnome by the magical artist Ida Bohatta from Austria. I love her children's books. This picture is probably from "The Gnome's Almanac"...which I had when I was growing up.

A good day to Dye....among other things...

Our first day of classes at the Fibre Arts Design Studio in Ojai went well. The founder, Wo Schiffman, gave us great information on fibers and presented a felting demonstration using recycled sweaters. She also gave a demonstration on braiding fabrics to make rugs or hot pads using recycled materials and how to sew them together. Hilda, the classroom assistant gave us a fashion show of her cool outfits made from some new and some recycled clothing...re-using tee shirts and turning them into skirts....sweatshirts into jackets...lots of fun things...and while watching the fashion show I got the ladies started rug hooking on their hot pads. We ran out of time so everyone took their projects home to work on them. Next week the recycle fiber class will be on paper and cardboard ...great samples of bowls, boxes, and trivets and furniture!Then we go back to fiber and I will teach again...
Photos of the Studio, Wo Schiffman, fiber artist,weaver and organizer extrodinaire, large workroom and smaller "dry" workroom.
If interested in taking or teaching classes call: 805 640-8228 Address: 960 E. Ojai Ave. Ojai, CA 93023

After our Recycled Fiber class we had an hour to prepare for the "Dye Happy" class from 3 to 5pm. A new group of students showed up and we got to work dyeing...Japanese style!

at the Studio

Displays of some of my hooked work and other projects using recycled fibers....The afternoon class was Dye Happy and we did marbling on paper, silk and cotton using several different methods. Photo of Wo and a student putting dyes into the tray prior to marbling on cloth.

hooked hot pad

I am teaching a class today at the Fibre Arts Design Studio in Ojai,CA !! The class is on Recycled Fiber and I will be teaching the students how to hook a small hot pad with wool strips. We also have braiding with fabric and altered clothing using no sewing complete with a fashion show while we are working on our pieces.
On Wed. my son and I will attend a Silk and Pulp papermaking workshop...many great classes and I am so excited to be a part of this new venture.
I also will be teaching a doll and puppet making workshop and hope to get a banner made for their event in the park Oct. 21.....

A fiber bead by ALMA

This is a close up of one of Alma's very cool beaded beads...made with hand painted and stitched fabric, stuffed and beaded and hand sewn together...
it is resting on a piece of fabric I painted earlier this week....

Surprise!

What a fun surprise! I just received a wonderful package today filled with hand painted fabric, hand made beads, block printed faces and a cool card all from the very talented East coast fiber artist, Alma Stoller almastoller.blogspot.com/. I can't wait to start playing with all these colorful presents. She has some great tutorials on her blog and just this week I was inspired to do some fabric painting on both cotton and silk. Thank you, Alma!

Pumpkin mini wall hangings

a couple of little wall hangings I made from recycled wool sweaters and embellished with some fun novelty yarns and embroidery thread.
I think these could work for a kids art class.

Pumpkin, squirrel # 2, and crows...gather for a Fall portrait

Here is what I've been up to lately. Those are supposed to be crows...I still need to make some wire feet for them and I am having problems with the wire holding them up. Last week I found this great pumpkin colored wool skirt at the Thrift store and had to make a Fall pumpkin. I've always wanted to make one so here he is, looking sort of forlorn....didn't want to make him too cute. Maybe he knows I love pumpkin pie???
So these are all made from recycled wool..mostly skirts from the local thrift store and some re-dyed by my friend, Maren with Magic Carpet dyes.

I love this guy!

Isn't this a great pumpkin! Made by Jenny Rupp and in the latest issue of Rug Hooking Magazine. I found it after I made my little orange hooked pumpkin.

Here is Tiger boy...

my daytime companion. Of course he likes to sit on what ever I may be trying to photograph.

A funny dog textile...

that I found at the thrift store while looking for wool to recycle for my hooked rugs. Couldn't resist this piece...only $1.95! I think I may make a pillow out of it...

French knot heart and a very plump Squirrel....

that I just finished last night. And you can see his friend over on the other side (upside down) that I am still working on. For some very fun squirrel photography visit: http://jujulovespolkadots.typepad.com


And the French knot embroidery above is influenced by my love of Mexican folk art and their bright cheerful colors.

Bad kitty...

or maybe it's Grumpy kitty...
A little embroidery thing I did just for fun.
I tend to go back and forth between rug hooking, embroidery, and felting among other things. Right now I am playing with French knot embroidery for little gifts..might be pins or sewn onto ornaments....we'll see.

Keeping an Open heart.....

message from the Dalai Lama...

Couldn't help but post this message I read in the paper today:

Dalai Lama urges teens to open hearts

The Dalai Lama urged thousands of teenagers at a world peace conference Saturday to keep open hearts, practice peace in their daily lives and accept people from all countries as neighbors and collaborators, not rivals. "There are no national boundaries. The whole globe is becoming one body." he said at the PeaceJam convention. "In these circumstances, I think war is outdated....
Destruction of your neighbor is actually destruction of yourself.
War creates environmental problems, trade gaps and humanitarian suffering that everyone must bear," he said, speaking for more than an hour at the convention, which brought together 10 Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

The Art of the Book...

After my shift at our store in Ventura I made a stop at the BookArts show in a gallery down by the ocean. Lots of fun presentations...from very large to tiny....actual book format to resin wall pieces and others in fabric and metal. I loved Syd's book (1st photo) and all the other offerings. Just included a few photos to give you an idea of variety of book arts included.

My next stop on the way home was in downtown Santa Barbara for a quick stop at CPK for a chipolte chicken pizza for the boys and while waiting I wandering over to State St. and was drawn to a free Drum concert by a local kids group....they were really good and they were playing in honor of one of the boys from my son's Jr. High that died last week in a car accident.
It was very moving for me...and I felt what a neat way to honor Jake's memory. I was all teary eyed when I went to pick up my pizza....
One of the things I like about Santa Barbara is that there is usually lots of art and music happening some where.....providing inspiration and a sense of community.