Wetfelting Tapestries

In January, Jennifer had the privilege of leading a wet felted tapestry workshop for teachers at the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education Conference. Teachers from public charter Waldorf school attended from all over the United States.

The workshop was held at the magical campus of Rudolf Steiner College in Fair Oaks, California.

Participants tirelessly and patiently drafted bits of luca sheep wool to create a base for their tapestries. We sang good-bye to Winter and welcome to Spring! 

Next, we drafted bits of plant-dyed wool from Mama Jude. She is a Waldorf handwork teacher in Georgia who dyes the most amazing vibrant colors naturally. Here is a link to her Etsy shop.

One of the participants joined Jennifer the following week for a Tunisian crochet class and she brought her finished (dried!) tapestry to share. Here it is! Beautiful.

Recreating the Human Vessel - Handcrafts...and a Baby!

Jennifer had the great fortune of attending a handcrafts conference at Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA this past week called "Recreating the Human Vessel: Educating through Rhythm and Craft."  The conference featured staff from Ruskin Mill Educational Trust in England (please take a moment to see what their amazing colleges offer).  Woodworking, iron forging, soap making and felting all occured throughout the week, along with in-depth lectures by Dennis Klocek, William Bento and Aongus Gordon, and a vibrant Movement class!

The felting group started off the week by observing sheep on campus.  We teased apart fresh (unclean!) wool and made felted balls.

A trek through Raphael Garden revealed lovely flowers for dyeing.  Using weld, indigo, cochineal, chamomile from England and coreopsis, we dyed up a rainbow of colors with our wool.

Felting pictures was an experiment in color and design, layering bits of brown or white wool on the bottom, and continuing with layers of color to form an image.

Then, it was time to do feltwork in 3-D!  Wool slippers were created by tracing feet for a template, cutting a piece of plastic, laying wool on both sides of the plastic, wet-felting, cutting open...then, voila!  Slippers were turned right-side out, and the design that was created in the first layer was revealed.

Wet, soapy slippers were massaged onto feet.  What a treat!  Molding and shaping continued with hands, and then fine details were needlefelted.

Here are some pictures of woodworking, iron forging and soap making....

The felting group had a little extra time and wool left, so each person felted a handprint, and then felted the hands into a large vessel (thus the theme of the conference!), complete with a lid.  The vessel was presented to the wonderful felting teacher, Marianne van der Tas, on the last day for her birthday.

The final plenum was filled with sharing projects and insight about reflection topics of the week: challenge, effort, rhythm, gift and gold nuggets...the words were profound and the projects absolutely beautiful!

Jennifer then found out that she truly had become "the human vessel" at the end of the week...pregnant with baby #4, due in March, 2011!

Biodynamic Gardening and Composting

Biodynamic gardening is a work in progress!  There is so much to learn.  We are starting off with a compost pile, built according to biodynamic principals.  Mommy took a workshop at Steiner College and got to see some large compost piles in action at Raphael Garden.

At home, we created our own pile with layers of straw, manure, greens, and lime/ash.  Soon, we will add the biodynamic preparations to it.

Straw

Manure

Greens

Lime/Ash

The kids helped shovel, cut and cover the pile. 

Once or twice per week, we check and record the temperature using a really long thermometer. We are hoping that the pile will get to around 130 degrees F.

Signs of decomposition!  Mushrooms, bugs, earthworms.... 

We drew about composting in our Main Lesson Books, showing how we layered the pile, the stages of decomposition, and the biodynamic preparations.

Next, we learned about the Zodiac and drew a wheel showing days that are good for planting and harvesting.

The Astro-Calendar is helping us learn more about when to sow and harvest.

More biodynamics to come....