Join fiber guru Brookelynn Morris at Williamsburg’s fiber shop, The Yarn Tree, in Brooklyn NY for this week’s CRAFT Video. She provides a great overview of fibers for felting.
Subscribe to the CRAFT Podcast in iTunes, download the m4v video directly, or watch it on YouTube.
Shop proprietor Linda LaBelle does a bunch of outreach to traditional fiber arts practitioners around the world, and is preparing for an exciting trip to Oaxaca, Mexico:
Last year many of you helped to fund my trip to Rwanda where I had the privilege of working with 10 genocide widows teaching them natural dyeing and weaving. On September 3rd, 2010 I will be making another trip, this time to Oaxaca, Mexico.
I will be working with a group of native weavers, most work on back strap looms, teaching them a technique called Ikat. This is a method of tying off the warp yarns prior to dyeing to create a pattern. I will also be teaching them how to make a chemical indigo vat using natural Oaxacan Indigo. There are areas where the climate is not appropriate for a natural ferment indigo vat. Learning this skill will enable them to dye with indigo whenever they wish.
I will spend three days working with the weavers at the museum. The following week I will have the opportunity to visit each weaver in his or her village. I will get to see the work in progress, photograph and interview the weavers. At the end of the week the weavers will return to the museum where we will conduct a show & tell/Q&A.
Ikat has a history in Mexico, although it seems to now be a lost technique. This will be a new skill for the weavers and the hope being that they will be able to create new and beautiful textiles that can compete in today’s marketplace thus bringing in more income. In turn these weavers will then be able to pass their new skills on to their fellow weavers.
You can support Linda by making a tax-deductible donation.
In the Maker Shed:
Feltique by Nikola Davidson and Brookelynn Morris
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