Creative Retreat #2 - 2018 Fabric Printing and Stamping

On Day Two of our Creative Retreat last weekend, I taught Fabric Stamping and Printing. It was a smaller class than Day One but so much was accomplished. Unfortunately I didn't remember to take as many photos as Day One. Oh well. 

I envisioned this day as teaching Fabric Stamping in the morning and Linoleum Block Printing in the afternoon. With only three students there was more leeway to design the day to capture their interests.  In the morning we did do Fabric Stamping. I have a photo of 2 of the 3 projects. 

Stephanie has been here several times. She designed a pillow top that she will embroider to match the pillow top she printed and embroidered last year. Here is her foam stamp and the finished pillow top. She used a cork to make the circles.  

Here is a photo of Stephanie's stamped and embroidered pillow from last year and the new pillow top. Stephanie travels a lot so she is finding the embroidery a great thing to take to do on planes and public transport. (I'm with you on that Stephanie!)

I don't have a photo of Jan's bag she made - oops. 

Here is a project Cynthia has been working on for a couple of years. She is printing on navy and white ticking. I love how the shapes play together and how the colors overlap. I think this would make awesome fabric for upholstery (but that would take more time than I know Cynthia has). 

Just after lunch I showed everyone how to take a photo of a stamped motif and bring it into Photoshop. In PS, I tweak it a bit and saved it. Then I brought the image into the Spoonflower website and showed everyone how to use the program. I know there are many people who are very adept at Spoonflower but there are also folks who would like to try it and don't know how to start. 

Here is the photo of my stamp. 

Here is the page from Spoonflower where I demo-ed how the site works. 

Later in the afternoon, we went back down to the studio and Stephanie and Jan kept working. Jan continued work on her painted tabletop. Stephanie had brought a very cool project to work on.....

Stephanie's husband David had use of a laser cutter at his office. Stephanie asked him to cut out a series of different size ovals and circles out of a piece of adhesive foam. She brought both the circles and the piece of foam from which they were cut. We were all so excited about the possibilities of a laser cutter. I have never had the use of one and perhaps one of my readers might be able to give me a headsup to a scaled down home version vs the $5,000 model. Julia used a laser cutter and engraver in her woodshop class a couple of years ago and I was jealous. 

Stephanie mounted the circles and ovals onto foam. She used a brayer and block printing inks to apply the ink.

Here is her block and a piece of fabric which is printed with 4 of the blocks. 

Next she mounted the sheet of foam that the circles were cut from with the laser cutter. She inked that block and printed on the same green linen and on a canvas bag. 

Imagine the possibilites! I was so excited about her project. Maybe the laser cutters will come down in price so that individual artists can use them. Maybe they already have. For any of you familiar with the Cricut machine - does it cut adhesive backed foam that is about 1/4" thick? 

As with each Creative Retreat* - we had a bit of a hiccup when the plumbing pipe from the kitchen clogged and the basement sink filled up. Ooooppps. This has happened to the sink one other time in the 20 years we have lived in our farmhouse. Of course it had to happen when I had guests! Cynthia tried to plunge it out. No luck. I put some high power plumbing green blaster down it. Still no luck. Stephanie called her hubby David who was staying in the area with her. He went to Home Depot, bought a snake and was a real hero. After lots of work, 20 feet of the snake and a change of clothes, David cleared the drain. Thank you David. I do need to call the plumber who cleared it once before so I don't have the same problem this winter. I guess the clogged pipe will be a memory for everyone! 

*In past retreats, Nessie, the Border Collie, got skunked the night before and the toilet clogged on the very first retreat. Country living! 

Thanks to everyone who came to the second Creative Retreat of 2018. It was such a great weekend and I am still reeling from all the conversations and ideas that were floated around. I hope some more of you might be able to come to a future Creative Retreat here at our farm in western Massachusetts. 

Creative Retreat #2 - 2018 Day One Furniture Painting

I hosted another great "Getting Stitched on the Farm" Creative Retreat this past weekend. This weekend's class featured one day of Furniture Painting - inspired by the Bloomsbury Table project in my new book Crafting A Patterned Home. 

Each student brought their own small piece of furniture painted in a base coat. The day was spent figuring out how they want to decorate their table and then doing it. I supplied many colors of latex paint. 

Here are their projects before they were attacked with pattern and color. 

Here the students are cutting paper, making sketches and figuring out how to work with their individual pieces of furniture. 

Jan looks to be in intense concentration. 

Now I will share photos from each person's project as the day progressed. 

Stephanie's project was a navy blue wooden tray. You can see her original sketches and how the design progressed over the day. We used hair dryers to speed the drying. 

This is Stephanie's tray at the end of the day. She has further plans to add lines and shading to the flowers and decorate the sides of the tray with stripes and polka dots. 

Cheryl brought a sweet little side table. She designed a water lily motif. She lives on a lake and is painting a room with a mural of undersea designs. She used sponges to create the texture. 

Here is the side of Cheryl's table with Jan poking her face through. Doesn't Jan look like she is having a blast? 

The finished top. She took the table home and will be coating it with some polyurethane to seal it. 

Gail's project was a colorful bench for her granddaughters. Gail is an author and has a hand-dyeing business called the The Kangaroo Dyer. I love how her design is reminiscent of the mottled colors that her yarn is dyed in. And it is bright and cheerful like Gail. 

Gail plans to add some glitter and sparkly bits which I can only imagine will make the bench a favorite place for her granddaughters to sit when they visit. Someone in the class named it "The Sisters Bench."  

Jan who came the furthest - all the way from West Virginia. She has an antique store and also sells painted furniture. She brought a cute little side table. Here are her process photos. Her design was inspired by a rug she saw at a hotel. In order to fit the motif onto the oddly shaped table, we cut a pattern to fit it. She has more work to do on it when she gets home including outlining the shapes and adding more dots and spots. 

We enjoyed a gorgeous lunch cooked by friend Cynthia. 

The tablecloth is made from one of my fabric designs. You can purchase a tablecloth made by the folks at Roostery (a division of Spoonflower) here. The fabric design is available in my Spoonflower shop here. You can purchase the design printed on 26 different fabrics, 2 types of wallpaper and gift wrap.  

It was a great day of sharing ideas and stories. I love hosting these retreats because even though each student comes knowing none of the others, by the end of the day they are all friends. For me, it is so rewarding to see the projects and each person's confidence develop as the day goes on. And meeting fellow creative spirits who are brave enough to come to our farm is one of the best parts of each year here at our farm - at least for me (maybe not my family :) ). 

Creative Retreat #1 2018- Day Two - Ceramic Tile Painting

On Day Two, we did Ceramic Tile Painting. Oh wow - what beautiful work the students did. 

Maureen came to this same Retreat last year and brought her friend Betsy with her this year. Here are Maureen’s tiles. She is thinking of making either a table top with them or using them as a centerpiece for a table. I can’t wait to see these fired. 

Betsy is a water color artist and so we all were looking forward to seeing how she handled the ceramic glazes. She came with her source material and had her tiles planned out. Can you believe how beautiful her tiles are? 

Mariana grew up in Finland and shared her interesting life with all of us. She hadn’t painted since her days in school. He design idea came from a Scandinavian napkin. At first she struggled with the glazes and painting but by the end of the day she was adding details like a pro. Won’t these tiles make gorgeous coasters? 

Here are the finished tiles. Now I will fire them once to set the glaze. Then I will add a gloss glaze to them and fire them a second time. 

In less than two weeks, I am hosting the second Creative Retreat of 2018. We are doing Furniture Painting and Fabric Printing. I have quite a few students for that retreat. Hopefully The Farmer will be a little more mobile and be feeling better. I’m looking forward to sharing another weekend in my studio with wonderful women.

Creative Retreat #1 of 2018 - Fabric Printing, Crewel Embroidery - Day One

This past weekend I had the first creative retreat of 2018 here at Leyden Glen Farm. If you read yesterday’s post, you know that The Farmer had his hip replaced a couple weeks ago. The surgery came up rather quickly — his hip was in such bad shape and he was in such pain that they worked him into the surgery schedule earlier than they normally do. This of course was after I had scheduled the 2018 retreats so I had no clue that I would be dealing with an ailing husband, trying to run the sheep farm, and holding creative retreats all at the same time. Luckily I have had a lot of help from friends, family and neighbors and somehow most of the sheep have survived (darn coyotes), the house and studio were cleaned and polished, and the students had a good time. 

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The first day of the Creative Retreat, we did Fabric Stamping and Crewel Embroidery. I don’t have a lot of photos from the day - unfortunately. I think I was just so exhausted that I forgot to take step by steps of everyone working. There were five students but unfortunately I forgot to snap a photo of Maureen's printing. 

In the afternoon, we added Crewel Embroidery to the printed fabrics. I forgot to take photos so I will share my most recent project that I have been working on...... I am adding Crewel Embroidery to this handprinted fabric.

More photos tomorrow. 

Things...... And Webs Appearance June 2nd - next Saturday

My friend Gail often uses the title "things" in her emails. This is one of those blog posts that seems like "things" is an appropriate title. 

The fine folks at Webs are hosting a Crafting A Patterned Home Book Event on Saturday June 2nd from 2-4. More information here. It is a completely free event but they like to have  people register so they know how many cookies to buy! Hope to see some of you there. It will be inside so I will have plenty of samples available for looking and will probably do a demonstration. 

My Farmer is in rough shape. All the physical work he has done over his six decades has taken a toll. He is having one of his hips replaced July 17th. We are getting prepared for the operation and his healing. Needless to say, as a farmer there is never a good time to schedule a surgery like this. I was hoping he could wait until November when things slow down a bit in the cycle of life here at our farm but he is in such pain that he can't wait. He is counting the days. It looks like the other hip needs to be replaced too. Please bear with me as we go down this surgery journey. Financially this is going to be very difficult for us. When you run your own business, there is no vacation pay or sick pay. We are looking forward -- not backward -- and Mark hopes to come out better on the other side of surgery and recovery. 

I have rescheduled the first retreat of the season. Decorative Furniture Painting and Fabric Printing will now be held on August 11/12. Check out all the classes now here. One Day Retreats have just opened up. 

Julia is done with school until next fall. She will help me take care of her Dad as he recovers. After all her time being a patient in the hospital, she is a good nurse and I will be counting on her. 

I myself am trying to re-group after all the work I have done launching my new book Crafting A Patterned Home.  I've got to make some "NEED TO DO" lists to get myself re-motivated to move on with my Creative Life while still trying to drum up some interest in the new book. There is so much to do around here in the summer. Need to get the garden tilled and then planted, continue with the Farmers Market season, plan and teach the Creative Retreats, take care of my family and try to find my Creative Self again, care for My Farmer after his surgery. Tall orders. Life throws us plenty of challenges and we must keep moving forward even if sometimes we feel like we are moving backwards. 

You can still purchase copies of Crafting A Patterned Home here on my website. I will throw in Free Shipping, some lovely Rikki Snyder photographed postcards, and a Kristin illustrated bookplate. Thanks so much for your support of our farm and family. 

Big Announcement #2 - Creative Retreats for 2018 are Now Available!

What began in 2009 as some kind of crazy dream (really - I dreamed it) is continuing in 2018. I've just announced the new classes that I will be teaching here at our farm this summer. Here's what I am offering - 

Weekend 1 - July 21/22 - Decorative Furniture Painting + Fabric Printing

Weekend 2 - July 28/29 - Fabric Printing + Decorative Embroidery + Ceramic Tile Design

Weekend 3 - September 22/23 - Color and Embroidery for Knitters and Crocheters + Crazy Quilt Swatch Afghan

Click on over to my website to learn more about the classes. Here is the link. 

Questions? Email me at kristinnicholas AT gmail DOT com

Hope to see some of you at Leyden Glen Farm this summer. Want to read about past classes at the farm - check out this link and scroll through where you will find wrap-ups of past classes 

Creative Knitting Retreat 2017 Wrap Up

What a great weekend we had here at the farm for my last Creative Retreat of 2017. I hosted 8 enthusiastic and fun knitters for two days of color, knitting, embroidery, and afghan making. I could tell as they were walking in the door that it was going to be a good time. Most of the women came alone but it didn't take long for them to all become friends. 

On Day One we talked about color and I introduced them to an easy way to make up their very own color combinations for projects. 

Then we moved on to embroidery on knitting. 

They all picked it up quickly and produced some beautiful little samplers. 

In the afternoon, they worked on their Sunflower Fair Isle Pillows. They all learned to sew and cut a steek, how to pick up stitches, and how to make a mitered corner. And then they began embroidering their sunflower swatch.

And that was Day One! It was a full day to say the least. 

Day Two's Subject was my Crazy Embroidered Swatch Afghan. This project was featured in Crafting a Colorful Home. It is a project I had been thinking about for many, many years - turning all my swatches that I used for designing sweaters into a blanket for a bed. When I was deciding what to to teach at the Creative Knitting Retreat last March, I thought this might be a fun idea. Luckily, my intuition was correct. 

The students came armed with bags of swatches that they have been making all summer. 

I taught them how to turn them into an afghan. We also learned how to dye their swatches with acid dyes so that they could turn their "wrong color" swatches into a shade that would work with the rest of their swatches. Here is some of the progress that was made.

We even experimented with painting a swatch with fabric paint to change the color of the fabric. 

It really was a fun weekend.  I hope they all finish their projects and keep building their swatch afghan. It really could become a lifetime project. 

If you want to be notified of Upcoming Creative Retreats that I hold a few times a year at our farm, sign up for my Newsletter on the top right side of this blog. You'll get notice when the classes open up for registration along with monthly news on the creative things I have been doing and finding in my world.