Family Handwork

We love doing handwork projects as a family!  Our new eBook was written to inspire families to create beautiful handwork projects as a family at home.  Available in our Etsy shop.

Our eBook contains instructions and colorful photos for four projects:
1. Knitted gnome and bed
2. Crochet/Knit Baby Blanket
3. Natural Silk Gift Wrapping
4. Handspun Woven Table Runner

Information about supplies, planning, importance of family handwork and resources included. 18 pages. This listing is for one digital copy that is in pdf format. Upon purchase, you will be able to download it directly through Etsy. eBook is for your own personal family use, only. Schools and co-op groups may email us for information on a custom listing for their organization.

Dye and Fiber Retreat

Samples of our work from 2012: woven baskets, handspun yarns, knitting, crocheting, glass pebble bowls, sprang, embroidery, space-dyed roving, tie-dyed clothing, plant-dyed ribbons and silks, copper-etching

This year's Dye and Fiber Retreat, hosted by Griffin Dyeworks will be on June 14-16 near Castaic, CA (just North of Los Angeles). Spend three blissful days camping, eating (there is a camp cook!), dyeing, knitting, spinning, weaving, and more. Classes and demos in a relaxed atmosphere. To register: www.griffindyeworks.com. Jennifer will be teaching the basics of freeform crochet and Tunisian crochet.

By the way...I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because with a baby nursing in my lap, and children, cats and bunnies needing my attention (three litters born this month!), I have to type more quickly than ever!

Ricky learning how to make a drop spindle

Jennifer, Joey, and Linden selling supplies and teaching crochet

Our camping tent at the retreat.

Wilson learning how to space dye

Rick, Ricky and Joey weaving baskets

Easter

This year, we will celebrate Easter with extended family for a yummy brunch and egg hunting.

To prepare, we dyed eggs with natural ingredients: onion skins, turmeric, beets, madder root, grass and spinach, tea, blueberries, red cabbage.

Wilson and Mommy felted an egg for each child's Easter basket. The felt is cut open, awaiting to be filled with candy!

Our Ukranian-dyed eggs are hanging from the Spring nature table tree.

Happy Easter!

Dyeing with Plants

Plant-dyeing is easy and rewarding. It is a wonderful project for families, classes and groups of children and adults. We always say that plant dyeing is a bit of science and a bit of art -- and, always just a bit of a mystery! Part of the fun is seeing what kinds of colors will emerge each time.

Colors will vary, depending on the quality of the water, the freshness of the plants, the plant source, the weather, and more. Overdyeing is also rewarding -- dye with one color, then dip into another color to create a third color. Will yellow from onion skins and then a dip in the pink Brazilwood make orange? Hmmm....

Plant dyeing may be done indoors, but is usually easier to do in groups outside . Have space for a table with cook stoves and pots, a space for bins of water with mordant, a hose for rinsing, and a spot to hang dyeables safely for drying.

Jennifer recently had the pleasure of leading a workshop at the Alliance for Public Waldorf Education's annual conference at Steiner College in Fair Oaks, CA. We dyed yards of silk gauze with onion skins, Brazilwood, logwood, cochineal (which are bugs that live on plants!), and copper. Beautiful!

To learn more, we highly recommend Griffin Dyework's eBook on dyeing, available in our Etsy shop. If possible come to one of Griffin Dyework's Fiber Frolics or the annual Dye and Fiber Retreat in Southern California! This year, the retreat is June 14-17.

Handwork eBooks

Need some ideas for handwork projects at home?  Our seasonal handwork eBooks are available through Little Acorn Learning.  Each one features a variety of handwork, verses and pictures.

Autumn

Winter

Spring

Summer

Spinning, Dyeing, Weaving!

As homeschoolers, some of our best projects are the ones that we do as a family.  Handwork is no exception!

For the third year, we have made a woven table runner together. We use it on our dinner table, for nature tables and other displays in the home.  Here's how it goes:

1.  Spin fiber into yarn on one of our spinning wheels.

2.  Dye the fiber with plants and natural materials at the annual Griffin Dyeworks Dye & Fiber Retreat in Castaic, CA.

3.  Warp up the Ashford Knitter's Loom with a crochet cotton.

4.  Wind our yarns onto stick weaving shuttles, singing: "Up and down, up and down, we are making figure eights. Up and down, up and down, we are loading shuttles."

5.  Weave the weft (yarns on shuttles) into the warp.  We take turns and do a little bit each day.

6.  Trim the ends, tie knots for fringe, and we are done!

2008 Table Runner

2009 Table Runner

2010 Table Runner

Click here to see books and supplies for weaving, dyeing and other handwork projects!

Tie-Dyeing

Tie-dyeing is one of our favorite crafts to do while at the Griffin Dyeworks Dye & Fiber Retreat each year.  This year, we dyed a shirt for each of us, socks for Joey and a silk scarf.

Ercil is the best teacher!  She taught us how to prepare and fold the fabric.  We soaked the shirts in water and soda ash. 

Then, we squirted dye colors on, bagged them up, and let them sit overnight.  We also dyed shirts for children who were flood victims.

The next day, we rinsed them, and then washed them when we got home.