Teaching Marathon

Well hello!  Long time, no see.  I will begin by wishing you a very Happy (belated) International Women's Day!  There were so many fantastic events all week long, and there seemed to be flowers and roses everywhere.

(I apologize for the quality of my images.  They are all from my cell phone / IG account)

Over the past week I've been on a teaching marathon. Last weekend I began with a birthday party!  A young fan of sewing turned 12, and for his birthday, I came in with all my classroom machines and taught the small group of friends how to draw with a sewing machine.  We started with collaging a fabric background onto cardstock paper, and then each child drew out a picture of their choice on another paper.  That drawing was then transferred onto the cloth as a continuous line drawing with black thread.  They did fantastic!!

Here I am explaining the project to the children and showing samples.

Here they are stitching out their line drawings.

Kids are so great at this.  Not a single machine needle was broken.  Everyone stitched at a terrific, steady and even pace.  They were all so focused.  And honestly, the boys love the mechanics of the motorized machine to make pictures.  I'm pretty sure none of them had much sewing experience with the exception of the birthday boy.  Didn't they do fantastic!?

ta-da!

A couple days later, I was on Broadway Ave in Saskatoon, teaching Threadpainting to a group of women at Periwinkle Quilting.  The colours...   gosh that shop is so gorgeous!

Michelle, the original / former owner, now runs a long arm studio in Saskatoon!  I'll have to check that out.  My friend Patti is the new owner of the quilt shop now, and she encouraged me to come in and teach there. Since my studio would take FOREVER to tidy these days, I was up for using a space elsewhere.  Thank you Patti!

The first day, I taught Threadpainting.  The second day I taught postcards to a good sized group!  I haven't taught that class in a year and half.  It sure was fun to do.  It's a very relaxed and light hearted energy compared to the technical work of learning threadpainting.

Our theme was 'hot and cold'.  That could be interpreted by the weather, hotflashes, or the colours of fabrics.  I plan to do a couple of bigger postcard classes in Rosthern this summer with the Station Arts.  Keep a watch for that!

Now I'm preparing for a 2 part workshop with an immigrant and refugee women's group at the Saskatoon Open Door Society.  It will be along the lines of visual storytelling, and I am excited to have established a public exhibition space for their pieces a little later this spring!  If you have black cardstock or coloured scrapbooking paper scraps or small fabric scraps or embellishments to donate to me for this project, please let me know and I would be happy to pick up.  I would pass the remainder of the supplies on to the group for future use.

I think I mentioned that I work at Open Door every Friday.  Art & creative expression is always welcome there.  And so, at the end of the day on Friday, a coworker and I spent the last half hour 'yarn bombing' some of our office supplies.  : )  I filled a mesh wire pen holder with woven fabric strips and it looked so great, we thought we'd do more.  They make great canvases.

I start the Creative Women's Group project on Wednesday, so I have lots of supply shopping & prep work to do before then.  Have a good weekend everyone and enjoy the warmer weather coming your way.