Want to sew clothes?

Sounds like we have some interest in a sewing workshop, maybe a weekend, BYOSM (sewing machine). Stay tuned!

https://www.vogue.com/article/sustainability-2020s-circular-fashion-textile-recycling

See also 

https://www.fibershed.com/

Felted wool slippers

December 5 & 12, 2019 

8:30-10:45am

Handwork Room

Experienced felt artist Karen Lavalee-Tente will lead this workshop to make felted wool slippers over two weeks. 

RSVP is needed for planning and preparation, including support for gathering materials and equipment. The workshop is free.

Please reserve your space here: https://forms.gle/Hu5CxGeKhVcJqBUq8

RSVP by Friday 11/22/19

To bring:

Your feet for tracing (or a tracing of the feet the slipper is for)

Dishpan

Dish soap 

Towels - many (one a large bath towel)

Plastic bag

Tulle, if you have some (or sheer old curtain; square yard)

To buy:

Wool roving/batt (210-290g total: divided between 2 colors for inside/outside. Try soft merino wool for inside color and wool batt for the outside). 

We will organize a group order and/or field trip to Woolology in Deerfield. 

https://m.facebook.com/woolology/

Welcome 2019-20

Welcome all crafters--those who want to learn, those with lots of expertise, those with large mending piles, those who want to knit because it is in their children's curriculum...

No experience required to participate in Hartsbrook Community Crafting: an opportunity to get together with other members of the Hartsbrook community and do handwork. Sometimes we all are learning a new craft, sometimes everyone is working on a different personal project, and sometimes we all work together to make something.

Join us Thursday, September 5, 2019 to finish a yo-yo quilt we started in the Spring to raffle at the Farm2Table event on September 21st. Most likely we will be set up under the canopy outside the main entrance of the green Hartsbrook Hall building, and newcomers are welcome to join in after the orientation program. We will also be selling raffle tickets for the quilt! $5.

Community Crafting gathers on Thursday mornings from 8:30-10:30am in the handwork room, upstairs in Hartsbrook Hall.

Yo-yo quilt 2019

This year we decided to make a yo-yo quilt as our group project for a fundraiser. We learned how to make the fabric yo-yos during Thursday morning community crafting sessions, and then a few nimble-fingered parents and grandparents hand-stitched hundreds of them at home or on the go. (You can carry them with you and make them when you have a few free minutes!) Karen has gathered all the yo-yo squares that everyone made, she and Kelly laid them out in a pleasing pattern, and Karen and her mother will sew them into a quilt, ready for the raffle drawing in September! Tickets are available now.

We will be raffling off this quilt in September to benefit Hartsbrook!

The story of fabric yo-yos

The ruched fabric rosette known as a yo-yo in North America and a Suffolk Puff in the British Isles and elsewhere is a curious little thing.

A yo-yo is produced by forming a fold on the edge of a fabric circle with a running stitch, and then pulling the thread to form a gathered round. It can then be combined with others to produce an “open-weave” quilt top, or used singly as an embellishment for three-dimensional appliqué.

It is one of those novelty techniques that’although closely associated with quilts—does not of itself produce a true quilt. Many yo-yo “quilts” have no batting or backing, and are more like coverlets or throws. Even those that are attached to a backing are usually tied rather than quilted. Nevertheless, quilters love yo-yos.

Most commonly associated with the 1930s and ‘40s, yo-yo quilts of that era frequently mimic hexagon mosaic patterns popular at the time [see our granny hexagon blanket project 2018], such as Grandmother’s Flower Garden. Yo-yos were also used to create remarkable pictorial quilts, such as Texas Under Six Flags created by Leila Chaney in 1936 (pictured), which features over 10,000 silk yo-yos of varying sizes.

(continues, click link to see full article)  

The Yo-Yo quilt was a popular style of quilt making in America from the 1920-40s. Yo-Yos, or tiny circles of fabric, were gathered up at the edges and sewn together to create a three-dimensional effect. Yo-Yo quilts were popular because women could carry the little circles of fabric with them and make Yo-Yos whenever they had a free moment. Another way to explain the popularity of the Yo-Yo quilt may be its association with the toy called the Yo-Yo, very popular in the 1930-40s. There are many theories or ideas about how long the Yo-Yo has been in existence. But we know that a wooden toy with a string looped around the center axis was developed in the Philippines over 100 years ago. Some people believe that the Yo-Yo comes from the Filipino word for “come-come” or “return”. In the 1920s a man named Pedro Flores brought a Filipino Yo-Yo to the United States. A businessman named Donald Duncan bought the Filipino Yo-Yo Company around 1928. In 1932 Mr. Duncan received a trademark for the word Yo-Yo.
Source: https://museums.alaska.gov/QuiltExhibit/quiltspdf/YoYo.pdf

"Yo-yo quilts were popular in the 1930s and 1940s, and we see lots of lovely examples sewn with fabrics from those eras. Some were structured, with the rosettes arranged to form a pattern, but many of the examples are scrap quilts."
 - The Spruce Crafts blog

Internet resources:
https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/how-to-make-a-yo-yo-quilt-2821444
https://www.guidepatterns.com/how-to-make-a-yo-yo-quilt-super-cool-instructions.php
https://www.quilts.com/sfancy/suzy-s-fancy-the-story-of-fabric-yo-yos.html
A Pinterest board of yo-yo quilts: https://www.pinterest.com/purplebug61/yo-yo-quilt/?lp=true


Basic instructions with our real quilt start.

Crafting schedule Spring 2019

Crafting activity history

2018-19

• 5/9 ~ Yo-yo project - final squares laid out for quilt!
• Hearts for community (through May 4th, distributed at the Northampton Pride parade)
• Spring school break April 15-19
  Pesach/Passover April 19-27, Lailat al Bara'ah 4/20, Christian Easter 4/21
• March Needle felting animals (2 weeks)
• Feb 28 & March 7 ~ Pysanka batik egg decorating
  Location: Earth Sciences lab in the North Mod (near Piening Hall, closer to the cow barn)
  Thank you alum parent Kristin Hall for providing everything for us to learn!
• Feb 14 ~ Making Hearts for community and eating sweet treats! Bring something to share. Materials for making paper valentines will also be available.
• Feb 7 ~ Learning to make "yo-yos for a group-project quilt to auction in September as a fundraiser. Bring cotton fabric if you have extra to spare, sewing needle, scissors. (See Granny Hexagon project from last year.)
• Jan 31 ~ Paper cutting and other items in honor of festivals at this time: Imbolc - Lughassad & Candlemas 2/2, Asian Lunar New Year of the Pig begins 2/5 (see Lunar new year crafts), Valentine's Day 2/14...
• ...Hearts for community ongoing
• Jan 24 ~ Hot water bottle covers (knit one or make from an old sweater, patterns available) and/or Upcycled wool sweater children's pants.
• Jan 17 ~ Planting bulbs in jars in honor of Tu B'Shvat(New Year of the Trees) on 1/20 
  (Bring narcissus or other bulbs, and sturdy jars or vases; optional glass marbles etc. We have stones to share.)
• Jan 10, 2019 ~ Hearts for community (ongoing)
• Dec 6, 13 & 20 ~ Knitting socks
• Nov 29 ~ Straw stars
• Nov 8 & 15 ~ paper window star folding
• All October Thursdays + 10/24 evening ~ small Crafts for the Holiday Fair, EC families especially invited
• Sept 13, 20, 27 ~ Twining small baskets
• Sept 6 ~ intro crochet or help with final touches on our Granny Hexagon blanket

2017-18

• May 3 & 10 ~ Making jump ropes AND blocking out our Granny Hexagon blanket
• April 26 ~ preparing raffia, fabric, and ribbon braids for May Day flower crowns
• April 5 & 12 ~ Granny hexagons
• March 22 & 29 ~ egg gathering baskets
• March 15 ~ batik egg decorating
• March 8 ~ Granny hexagons
• March 1 ~ Masks, hats, and crowns (with hamentaschen)
• Feb 15 ~ We did paper cutting in honor of the Asian Lunar New Year, year of the Dog. See Dragons & Roosters
• Jan 25, Feb 1 & 8 ~ making hearts for the Heartburst project (we also did crochet hearts!)
• 1/11/18 & 1/18/18 ~ Crochet! We learned crochet basics and how to make "granny hexagons" which we will make into a blanket to auction for the school -- if you want to make some, please contact Jennie to get the yarn.
• 12/21 ~ Candle decorating
• 12/14 ~ All kinds of paper and foil stars (bring paper and patterns if you have them)
• 12/7 ~ Shaker Stars ~ Thank you to the school store for sponsoring our reed! This was a record attendance of 16 crafters! (Never underestimate how many clothespins you'll need.)
• 11/30 ~ Mending bee (some mending, some lantern making!)
• November 9, 16 ~ paper window star folding
• Oct 19 ~ special occasion: we joined the Land Stewardship walk on school land, with poetry and painting related to our beautiful landscape
• Sept 28, Oct 5, 12, 26 ~ various personal projects and crafts for the Holiday Fair
• Sept 21 ~ School closed for Rosh Hashanah
  On our own, with instructions: Dyeing silks
• Sept 14 ~ We began making crafts for the Holiday Fair, learning/preparing for dyeing silks, and working on personal projects already underway. 
• Summer break

Batik egg decorating

Inspired by Pysanki Ukrainian egg decorating (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pysanka), we will be decorating eggs using this method, though you may make any design or pattern you want! We will have books on hand for ideas.

Pysanka comes from the verb "to write," as designs are written with beeswax and the colors applied like batik. This is a cozy indoor craft with candles and beeswax smell.

Requires specific tools and materials, which you can obtain online (https://www.ukrainiangiftshop.com/) or maybe still at Guild Art Supply in Easthampton (see https://www.bigwheelpress.com/).

Please bring an egg or two to decorate. White eggs provide more options of colors in your design.

More about the tradition and some video instruction:

• Bella Luna Toys blog post Decorating Ukrainian-inspired pysanky eggs
  
• Typically made over winter and given as gifts when Spring arrives... Pysanky, a Ukranian tradition
• NPR: Easter Egg Art: Hatched From An Ancient Tradition To Celebrate Rebirth

Note 2019: February 28 and March 7, 2019 
***8:30-10:30am -- note time, as we need to vacate the room for high school class
Earth Science room of the North modular building between the cow barn and Piening Hall.
Please RSVP to Jennie or sign up on the list in the lobby.

Note 2018: you will probably need to spend more time decorating your egg and may not finish in our 2-hour session. This was the only Thursday this month a room was available where we could do this craft, due to the hot wax required for the batik aspect of it.

March 15, 2018 we did this in the Physics room, in the science "mod" building near the high school, closer to the pig pen. 

Making yo-yos

We will be making these all spring, so stop by a Thursday crafting morning to learn how, sew a few, pick up or drop off fabric, or bring in what you've made!

Tip: When sewing multiple colors and patterns together, as we are doing, light gray or beige thread is recommended.

Cut circles ~3 1/8" diameter cotton fabric
4 circles per 5 1/2" square cotton fabric
With inside of fabric circle up, fold 1/4" over and sew a running stitch all around, gathering as you go. Cinch and tie off.

Appliqué 4 circles at the center of each square: "finger crease" cross-hatch and sew at edges just underneath each yo-yo.

Asian Lunar New Year

In honor of East Asian Lunar New Year festival beginning this coming weekend, we will be making dragon puppets and also doing some paper cutting for decorations.

In 2019 begins the year of the Pig! Join us Thursday, January 31 to cut paper pigs -- or any paper cutting!

We will have materials to share.
If you want to bring materials, we may be using:

• Pointed paper knife, cutting board
• Colored paper
• Felt
• Yarn
• Needles
• Popsicle/craft sticks or chopsticks
• Embroidery thread
• Scissors
• Colored pencils

Many thanks to Mao Mao for showing us how to make the "Spring" character paper cuts and the paper lanterns, plus the rooster pattern for Year of the Rooster in 2017.

2017: Welcome the year of the rooster!

Hot water bottle covers

January 24, 2019

For chilly nights, cramps, or belly aches, a hot water bottle is just the soothing thing... if it's in a cozy cover! We will make hot water bottle covers from old sweaters or you can knit a new one to suit. Pattern ideas, some materials, and willing helpers available.

Bring yarn and knitting needles (or a crochet hook) or a sweater you're willing to cut up and repurpose.

Some examples from a collection http://grandmotherspatternbook.com/?p=10292

And an example pattern: http://dottiebowles.com/blog/up-cycled-sweater-hot-water-bottle-cozy


TIP: Hot water bottles are often available in the School Store.

Wool pants from sweaters

First in 2015, Grandparent Eline helped us make patterns to size, and then to sew wool pants using the arms of wool sweaters (not felted!).

We will be doing this again on January 24, 2019. Bring old, adult sweaters, a pair of pants that fits your child, thread, 1" wide elastic for each waistband, and if you have: a portable sewing machine that can do zig-zag stitching. We will have some extra sweaters and thread to share, and paper for making patterns.

If you have a portable sewing machine that does zigzag stitching, please bring it! 

Design notes:

Make sure top is long enough to keep tummy covered. Need more than you think for folding over for elastic.

Photos from December 3, 2015

Repeated this craft December 1, 2016