Painting rocks and hooking..

I 

I have been having fun painting the beach rocks that I collected on my walk a week ago.

Just the hearts....

and hooked up some little circles that will become flower pins for my rug hooking students in April...

Had to paint some owls! These are now over in our shop in Solvang.

 I used acrylic paint and very small paint brushes.

Oaxaca ...stitching and dyeing

Meanwhile back at the Casa....

the workshop got underway. So many talented creative women created wonderful fiber jewelry and wall pieces.

Our hostress, Jane Robison, brought some of her textile collection to share with us. The Casa Colonial is our home away from home in Oaxaca and we are so grateful that she has created this wonderful art filled place for us to come to.

We all gathered in the dining area for our "show and tell"....so many lovely pieces were created..

Constanza's work in progress...

Mary Price's velvet heart...

Carol's necklace...

Susan's Healing Heart Milagros for 

Colleen and my broken bones...

Kaari and Kick's necklaces...

Amy's pom pom and milagro necklace

Kick's necklace..

Edith's indigo and velvet necklaces...

Edith's kimono silk necklace

Susan's pouch necklace

We made little dolls tied together in a little banner to leave for the Casa...

Here's Ellen! We met Ellen last year at the Casa and she greeted us again this year. Always full of great places to visit and things to see and stories to tell, she makes wonderful paper mache dolls and collage pieces using her finds from the local mercado.

And another local resident, Carol from Savannah, joined our workshop and made the beautiful necklace she is wearing.

We only had a little time to work with our Indigo textiles. We hung them up to dry on the clothesline at the Casa...

We all had fun seeing how our fabric turned out. Everyone did different shibori techniques and the patterns and color came out so nice.

so many things to do, we were busy every day with either workshops, field trips or shopping excursions. Ellen and Suzanne took me on a short visit to a small mercado  and the Stamp museum...with both postage stamp art, mail art and rubber stamps...

Suzanne and flower vendor...

fun little embroidered bags...

And there was time for a visit to a few of the museums that we missed last year...

a view of the Botanic Gardens from the Soledad Church...

fiber art bird at the textile museum...

and time for some last minute shopping for tiny fabric hearts and milagros and yummy ice cream on the plaza below...

We said our fond farewells to all of our inspiring creative companions and the Casa Colonial after a wonderful week of colorful adventures...it couldn't have been any better!

When I got home I got a new cast in indigo blue this time. And now it is off and my wrist is healing well and barely a scar where the pins were...

And I am back to making stuff once again for the Art Hus and getting ready for an upcoming 

workshop at French General in Los Angeles.

More Colors of Oaxaca 2014

On our first day Syd and I took a quick trip to the Mercado to look around and get a few supplies.

So much to see and beautiful things to look at...friendly people selling their wares. 

Handmade dolls and then a stop for  a delicious lunch.

Loved the handmade tortillas!

On our first field trip we headed off to visit the Mercado at the weaving village of Teotilan del Valle.

I had to get one of these wonderful aprons.

The Meng sisters, Molly and Kaari found some fun things to bring home.

I loved the colors on this shopping bag. I use if for grocery shopping now that I am home.

Our guide, Juan took us to the beautiful church next to the Mercado. Some of the ancient stone carvings were on display in the patio reminding us of the weaving we were yet to see.

so many beautiful statues of saints inside...

colorful costumes and painted walls...

Fresh and wax flowers adorned the church. 

We later got the visit the makers of these beautiful flower covered candles.

Syd in front of the weavers studio where both silk and wool are used to make beautiful blankets, rugs and shawls.

Some of the handspun wool.

Some of the looms are very large...needed to make the rugs this village of 5,000 weavers are famous for.

I especially loved the colors of this rug.

Next we were off to visit the Mendoza family of dyers of cochineal and indigo. We were given a demonstration of the processes to create the beautiful colors using natural dyes native to Oaxaca. The prickly pear cactus pads hang on a rack while the cochineal bugs grow and mature and are later harvested to make a lovely red dye.

Grinding the cochineal for dye. 

We admired the many

 beautiful rugs and yarn for sale in their shop.

And we got to visit the shop where the beautiful wax flower candles were made. The whole process from start to finish was demonstrated. The Candles are used for courting and in the many churches for decoration.

The shop had many lovely pieces on display.

So delicate...all white...nice for a wedding.

We got to have our photo taken with our hostess and exquisite candle maker.

After an amazing lunch at Abigail Mendoza's beautiful restaurant we headed back to the city of Oaxaca.  Got in a bit of textile shopping....loved the stitching of this blouse- both machine and hand embroidery.

Some fun pieces that I picked up from a shop specializing in Guatemalan huipils.

I could not resist this piece with the embroidered birds!! Not sure if I will ever wear it, but just to look at all the different birds is enough for me. 

We needed to prepare our cloth for the indigo dyeing at the Museo de Textiles and here are Carol, Amy, Kick and Molly getting their pieces tied up in preparation.

Mary, Madelyn and Pamela busy preparing their pieces at the Museo.

At the Museo we were given a great lecture on the history of indigo dyeing by director Erik Chavez. Our indigo vats were not quite ready for us so we left our cloth to be dyed for us and we picked it up a few days later and had our reveal at the Casa where we stayed.

Sisters, Susan Halme and Colleen Darling made our trip extra special. Colleen has been visiting Oaxaca and Mexico since 1969 and arranged all of the details for our amazing trip from our field trips to restaurants and shopping and museums to visit. Syd and I are still pinching ourselves that we get to share this experience with so many lovely like minded adventurers. We are already planning for our next Oaxaca textile workshop.

More Photos coming up....