Art Birmingham May 15-16

Join me this weekend on Old Woodward in Birmingham for what should be a perfect art show! The street is at least 40' wide - plenty of room and it is being produced by The Guild with plenty of experience under their belts producing quality shows. There will be plenty for everyone, including some intriguing crafts for kids to create their own!

It will be Saturday 10 - 6 and Sunday 10-5.

My booth is at the corner of Old Woodward and Merrill #158.

I have just finished some new silk jackets and they turned out awesome! The dye did exactly what I wanted and gave me some great surprises to boot! The iridescence is incredible - so lush and intriguing. Stop by and see them! Or, if there are any left, I will post some pics next week....

Fibers Through Time ~April,2010~ Phoenix, AZ

First a quick apology to my readers for such a long stretch between blogs. Last year I was given the opportunity to participate in an artist's co-op at our local mall. Needless to say I jumped at the chance! Turned out my scarves started selling as quickly as I could make them! But, I have caught up now and vow to blog on a regular basis.

Thanks for sticking with me!

On April 15-18 I was privileged to participate as an instructor at the Arizona Federation of Weavers and Spinners Guilds conference in Phoenix. I was teaching a 2 1/5 day "Taste of Shibori" workshop to 10 participants. They had 4 workshops that required water, so we shared a tent outside. It turned out to be a nice set up that worked well. I was very impressed with the entire conference - they were well organized and I was very comfortable teaching there.


I had 10 students in all and because we were outside everyone had their own 8' table to work on. Really made it easier to work! The way I like to structure this workshop is to give everyone an overview of the techniques, make some samples, and then let them free to explore whichever methods attracted their attention. I always find it fascinating! Here are some of the examples of what they came up with:

Lovely eye candy isn't it?

They really stuck in there even though it was a bit unseasonably warm. Every day there were some who came early and/or stayed late.

One of the things I love about shibori techniques is that no matter how long you practice, there are always new avenues to explore and surprises to discover!

It was a lovely conference - the vendor area was packed with new goodies. And yes, I gave in and brought back a few things to play with. As I try them I will tell you about it. One thing they had was a raffle. Many fiber goodies were donated to the cause and tickets were sold. They even had a Macomber loom as one of the raffle goodies. Trouble was, no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't figure out how to get it in my suitcase. So, I didn't use one of my tickets for the loom but there was plenty of other fun things to try for. I didn't win anything, but my roommate (Susan Wilson) won a pile of old monographs and samples! There was a dinner on Friday at a local Cajun restaurant for the instructors and a grand banquet on Saturday. One of the traditions they have is to gift the instructors with handwoven scarves. It was a lovely undulating twill using the colors of the Phoenix sunset as their inspiration. I want to thank everyone who participated in the weaving for my lovely scarf. I will treasure it.