The season for workshops

Our friend Amy has been hosting a Monday morning co-working session called Creative Company... when we last met we talked about structures, structural editing in particular, finding the right form for the thing you are creating.  And I realized that, especially this past year, we have really been paying attention to the best season to do things.

This season, the new year, into Spring, it is a good time for workshops.  We are content to contemplate, to do the work before and after, to spend time thinking about structure and format in a way that we have NO interest in doing in the Summer.

We had TWO workshops this last week in January, and really enjoyed both of them,

It took a while to crank up into workshop mode, to shift seasons from making and regenerating to structuring and leading;  the Scraps workshop was a good challenge, in the way that dealing with scraps is- how best to share joy, how to organize for future use, what the small says about the large, the stories they tell and how to honour that.

Here is a most good slideshow that Marnie Saskin put together. We will share more about the workshops- still and show and tell in a future blog but here is this for now.  The whole workshop is posted on the Textile Museum site here if you missed it. The video below is an excerpt from that workshop:

Also, the most asked question during the workshop was what is the recipe for the cornstarch glue? (along with Q: can you unfelt a sweater? A: no)

Cornstarch glue aka Gaw gaw (Filipino name for this great homemade clear glue)

1 cup cornstarch

1 Tbsp white vinegar
2 tsp salt
4 cups hot water
Whisk over high heat, bring to a bubble. Starts to thicken & turn translucent within minutes. Remove from heat and let cool.
Dries clear, does not go mouldy. Non toxic. Can use for wallpaper paste, crafts and textile sequestration AND to undo, just soak in warm water to dissolve.