Sharing the Warmth and Spirit of the Hartsbrook Holiday Fair

Dear Hartsbrook Families:

We hope that this note finds you and your family well and looking forward to the Virtual Holiday Fair on December 5. 

For those of us who've attended a Holiday Fair in years past, you know that invoking the warmth and festive spirit of our community is a hallmark of the event but doing so also requires a significant amount of planning and coordination—and that's during a typical year. Going "virtual" with this year's event has presented different logistical challenges and programming changes, but one thing that we want to remain unchanged is that sense of communal spirit and warmth. 

The planning committee has been hard at work designing a program that embraces and encourages community participation, and we need your help. Understanding that the current reality has us all stretched thin, with competing priorities and the needs of our children tugging (often literally) at our pant legs, our hope is that you receive this as more of an invitation than a request.

In the days ahead we will be preparing a take-home "Holiday Fair in Box." The box is designed to be a companion to the virtual event on December 5 and it will contain craft projects, recipes, and surprises for the family. While these little care packages can't possibly duplicate the real-life experience of the fair, our hope is to bring a little of the experience into your home. As in years past, and in an effort to encourage community participation, we are inviting Hartsbrook families who wish to do so, to contribute several small, simple, handcrafted items for the Fair in a Box. These items could range from hand-crafted mementos to thoughtful notes, poems, or drawings. (Additional craft item ideas here.)

Whether your family participates in crafting these items, buying a Fair in a Box for your family and having a festival day at home, or simply joining us online, we look forward to celebrating the spirit of the season with you and yours on December 5!

Crafting at home and for the community

Sewing masks for medical staff (such as over their surgical masks so those could be reused, as there is a shortage). For more information about the medical/CDC situation  and pattern/instructions see:

https://amp.courierpress.com/amp/2865273001

Note: Check with local medical establishments for their needs before you start sewing!

Crafting at home 

Chatting around the crafting table is what some people show up for, but these days you might just be looking for ideas of crafts to do with children at home.

Crafts and games for at-home days:

https://www.sparklestories.com/blog/post/sparkle-crafts-crafts-and-games-for-at-home-days/

10 crafts with descriptions 

http://www.thecityschoolla.org/10-great-waldorf-craft-tutorials/

Making a pocket doll

https://www.themagiconions.com/2016/04/making-a-waldorf-pocket-doll-free-pattern-diy-tutorial-discovering-waldorf-education.html

"Sundays with Sarah" videos:

• Finger knitting
• Four-finger knitting tutorial
• Butter churning with children
• Felted soap
• Wet-on-wet watercolor painting
• Bread baking with children

Waldorf-inspired multiplication learning crafts

http://www.multiculturalmotherhood.com/2017/07/waldorf-inspired-multiplication-crafts.html

The Waldorf Handwork and Craft Curriculum

http://thewonderofchildhood.com/2011/04/the-waldorf-handwork-and-craft-curriculum/

Please share more crafting links in the Comments!

Hearts for community

Ongoing through April 30, 2020

For a couple years we hand-crafted hearts and put them up in our community on Valentine's Day, but this year we will again distribute them (and other items) as our contingent marches in the Northampton Pride Parade on May 1, 2020.

2019: These hundreds of hearts, with The Hartsbrook School paper tags attached, were warmly received by parade audience. Thank you all who helped make them and the rainbow finger-knitted garlands!

2018 hearts still on tree outside sanctuary church in Amherst 

Because making the hearts is heartwarming in the middle of winter, and heart-shaped things appear in January everywhere we look commercially, we are making them now and will continue to make them until May. Hearts made of wax, wood, jute, wire, beads, etc. as well as yarn, felt and fabric... anything that is relatively sturdy for storage and handing out would be wonderful.

If you can donate fabric, felt, yarn, wool roving for felting, or other natural materials for making hearts, please leave in the box in the Hartsbrook Hall foyer. If you need materials to make hearts, please help yourself from this box! There are some paper patterns for shapes.

Feel free to make hearts at home and place in the basket by the main office anytime on or before May 1, 2020.

For reference: Hartsbrook heartburst

Waldorf dolls

Louise Spear, long-time Hartsbrook handwork teacher, will be giving a 3-session workshop on making Waldorf dolls, which is also taught in middle-school handwork classes.

When: Thursdays 8:30-10:30am February 13, 27, and March 5, 11Where: Hartsbrook Handwork room
Cost: Lessons are free to the community, materials and supplies estimated $15-20

RSVP BY WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020 to join group order for doll fabric and stuffing materials. You may respond after that date and still participate in doll making if you have your own materials.

Registration form

Materials:
= Special doll fabric (group order to save on shipping, specify color)
= Stuffing and tubular gauze (group order for bulk stuffing)

Supplies to bring: Needles, thread, embroidery floss, hair (yarn)

In the first session we will create the inner head and torso and add the skin fabric to the head and sew this down, as well as do facial features if we have time. The last step could be done at home once everyone has an idea of what to do.

In the second session, we can create patterns and cut out the body and arm pieces. These then need to be sewn before we can stuff and attach to the body.

As most of the crafters can probably crochet, starting a wig for the doll can happen anytime after we have made the heads. I have always sewn on hair at the end but it could be done earlier by careful adults.

In the third session, we would stuff the body pieces and sew them all together. Fast workers could also work on hair or clothing but these last two items could be done at home.

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.