a little bird just flew past my ear and whispered “today is the second of September, you know!” and i told him to check his birdy calendar, because that’s just crazy, there is no way it could possibly be September already! it is only somewhere around early-to-middle of August, i am quite certain. although i am preparing for september, that’s for sure… have been for some weeks now. i’m playing around with colorwork in my crochet, because i love it and just don’t see it happening much (now, colorwork in KNITTING, that’s another story).
anyway, i think i mentioned before that i am participating in a whopping FOUR craft festivals this month, so i thought it was high time (being August and all) that i gave you all the details in case you want to mark the dates and make plans to come out and say hello!
THIS saturday, Sept 4th, i will be at the Kingston Farmers’ Market from 9-2, with my cohort Jill representing Double Knot Studio. we’ll be bringing our handspun and handmade goodness and discussing our new classes! come check out the craft vendors AND fill your basket with local fresh veggies, cheese, fruits, honey, bread, pastries (omg the croissants from Gabriels are heaven!) and all kinds of good stuff…
also THIS Labor Day weekend, Sept 4-6th, my work will be for sale as part of my spinning guild’s booth (the Ulster County Handspinners) at the Woodstock New Paltz Arts & Crafts Fair at the New Paltz fairgrounds. our guild’s members are spinners, dyers, weavers, knitters, felters and crocheters, and we’ll all bring our best pieces. i will be there monday from 10-2 demonstrating spinning and helping at the booth. find us at booth DFAC 09.
saturday, Sept 18, 7:30-10pm Squam Art Fair in Holderness, NH (not too far from Boston, or anywhere in New England; get directions here). i will be back at Squam this month as a volunteer, to take some classes and sell at the Art Fair saturday night. i have no doubt it will be thoroughly awesome all over again! my super dear old friend Jen of Raeburn Ink will also be there with her gorgeous tees and other printed goods!
and finally, Sept 25 & 26 i’ll be heading further upstate to the 2nd Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival, where i’ll have my own whole booth of clothes, crochet, and even some yarniness if all goes according to plan. Jill will be here too, as will Jenna of Cold Antler Farm (i can’t wait to meet her!)
 
i’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now that next month i’ll be teaching for the first time at the new improved Purl store! i used to teach crochet and work in the original yarn shop on Sullivan Street for the first few months it was open (2002 perhaps?) and it has been a joy to watch it blossom into two shops with Purl Patchwork, and now into one combined large space on Broome Street. they really do carry the finest selection of fabrics, yarns, embroidery threads, patterns, books and notions, and always beautifully styled.
the class, on Sunday September 12, will be a 4-hour patternmaking workshop in which we’ll draft patterns for an A-line skirt and a sleeveless shift dress. you can find the details and register here.
i LOVE rainy days. and when it rains, i love how the colors of nature seem to GLOW in a way that is somehow, paradoxically, washed out by the sun. the greens are my favorite, and at my house, it is the lichens especially that seem to become luminescent. so this curated collection from my all-crochet all-the-time etsy faves is inspired by the colors of those doily-like frilly composite organisms…
 
  
my recent block printing class at Wing & Clover* was a really fun group with some serious natural talent! believe it or not the red and dark blue circular prints above were both made with a carrot, which is one of the practice exercises i use to work our way up to the rubber carving blocks. you may not realize at first but they are actually the same block, just spaced differently which changes everything. i love how much can be done with the simplest of materials and tools, and this class really got it.
*the new fall workshop schedule has just been posted and there is so much good stuff! paper cutting, lace knitting, digital story telling, furniture painting…
here are some photos from the very exciting, inspiring, potentially life-altering 5-day shibori dyeing workshop i took two weeks ago, with the extremely brilliant artist Joan Morris, at the Womens Studio Workshop. as usual when i love something this much, i have a hard time putting it all into words, as there were 5 long days (which flew by) packed with information, demonstration, and projects. although the official hours were 9-4, most days we worked until at least 6, and then more at home at night into the wee hours! hand stitching takes a long time, and two of the techniques required much densely-packed fine stitching to be done properly. believe it or not i still have a few that i haven’t pulled the stitches out of yet, because i didn’t act fast enough with my camera and it’s been cloudy and raining the past few days.
we had so much fun examining Joan’s collection of samples from all over the world (no, shibori is not just from Japan; various types of “shaped-resist dyeing” which is her preferred term, are made in South America, India, and Africa) and learning how to execute (beginner versions of) 10 different styles. all but one of which are extremely labor intensive! but the kind of labor i love, of course…
in addition to her 30+ years of shibori experience, Joan is also a master of natural dyeing. over the course of the week we used only natural dyes and got an amazing range of brilliant color. we used weld, madder, indigo, cochineal, black walnut, osage, cutch, and tea. i had been under the impression from past natural dye workshops that the mordants required were all toxic enough to negate the positive impact of using natural dyes, but Joan taught us that most of the dyes work well and remain permanent using relatively safe mordants (when handled carefully), such as aluminum sulfate which is what we used on both protein and cellulose fibers.
i would highly recommend the Summer Arts Institute program (next year) at WSW; the building and setting are lovely, the teachers are gifted, and the lunches ROCK. i was also particularly in love with the outdoor kitchen area that we used as our dye studio… one day i’d love to have something like it!
you can only stay in fantasy-land for so long. or so they tell me. shibori week was AMAZING and INTENSE, and i have lots of photos and details to share with you, hopefully tomorrow. while i was immersed in the 50-or-so hour workshop (including homework) i neglected just about every detail of my *regular* life, and then i had a super-fun visit from my BFF siri (who showed up wearing a total thrift-score shibori dress!), during which we ate our way through Accord and beyond. she brought some honey lavender goat cheese from nettle meadow farm which was better than manna could possibly be… we ate it with peaches, fresh mint and maple syrup.
and we are thoroughly enjoying our first-ever homegrown tomato season here at HPF. however, the reality is indeed returning and i am acutely aware that september is only 14 days away! it’s always my busiest month of the year, but this one may well be the busiest month i’ve ever had in my life. i’ll be selling at three craft fairs (no wait, FOUR!) and teaching in nyc (pssst: at the new improved Purl!) plus three upstate classes. AND of course it is the beginning of the fall selling season in my shop. yikes! ok, to the cutting table i go…
 
 ok, just a quickie note here to tell you what i’m up to this week: i will be taking a 5-day all-day intensive workshop on shibori dyeing with master dyer Joan Morris. i was so thrilled to learn that this class-of-my-dreams is happening just a hop and skip away in neighboring Rosendale, at the awesome Women’s Studio Workshop. i’ll be taking lots of photos and will try to post every night about what we’ve done that day. ok, must go to bed now as it’s late and i have to leave early!
p.s. in about 45 seconds of googling to show you some images, i found the bottom two photos on blogs i can’t wait to pore over more thoroughly: Shibori Girl and loveFibre. the top photo is one of Joan’s pieces…
   
i am such a slow poke, but over the past few weeks i have been re-stocking my shop with some summery pieces: two smock dresses, some blouses and a slew of sun hats. i always find it tricky to keep up with those pesky seasons, which eternally seem to be one step ahead of me! i sometimes think that one day maybe i’ll SKIP a season, so i can be ready in time for the following one, but honestly i don’t think i could do it…
anyway, i’m trying to shift into autumnal mode, but it’s so H-O-T.
what are you excited to wear for fall?
we spend a lot of time out here.
sometimes it seems like the pieces i make actually wait for the right person to find them. a patchwork scarf, for example, made from pieces of antique kimono silk, might linger in the shop for a while, even come to a few craft fairs with me, seemingly unnoticed until one day someone scoops it up, asking, “where have you been all my life?”
one of my new friends from Squam, the lovely and generous Arabella, has started a blog which i am enjoying very much. it’s about noticing the little things, and it’s called An Open Window. she describes it as:
“…one image each day. Something that evokes (for me) happiness, calm, beauty or love. Not in any particular order. I want to see what a little bit of gratitude and appreciation of the positive can do for me if I record it every day for 1 year.
Let the experiment begin.”
Arabella is also the new owner of the kimono scarf. she received it a few days ago, and it was nice to know that the package i sent was her documented happiness of the day…
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about me my name is cal patch and i love making things and teaching people to make. i am working toward wearing mostly clothing made by myself, or other handmakers.
i was proudly nominated for…
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