Art 101 Week 3, DLP, & Folk School!

Wow, what a wild week! I have been volunteering in the tie dye, batik, hammer prints and more “little” class at the John Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC (the link is to pictures on their facebook page from the week). My boys also took classes and loved it. It was extremely exhausting, but incredibly awesome! 🙂 I didn’t take any of the pictures in the link above because I was too busy in the classroom! Here is the one picture I managed to take of 1 of our 4 daily classes (all elementary school age) with some of their creations and the main teacher, Susie Duncan.

It was a wonderful experience! Susie was the kind of teacher I always wished I had and I’m grateful to have had the experience with her as an adult volunteer that I didn’t have as one of those lucky kids in her classes. 🙂

It was a very full week and therefore, this week was a collaborative effort for days 16-20 of the art 101 challenge. We helped the kids make batik fabrics on Monday, shibori (a Japanese tie dye technique) fabrics on Tuesday, tie dye shirts and pillowcases on Wednesday, hammer prints on Thursday, and sewing fabrics together into bags, banners, and flags on Friday. I “played” so much that I almost collapsed at the end of each day! 😉 And I have never sewn so much so fast before!

While helping the kids, I learned a lot myself and even managed to make a shibori fabric for myself during the last class on Tuesday, which I plan to use like a Tibetan prayer flag. I love the way it ended up looking like sun rays shining down from the corner.

In spite of the fact that I was born on a hippie dirt farm, this was the very first tie dye shirt I’ve ever made! Thanks to Tina Rice, of Tina’s Tie Dye, who was teaching the older tie dye classes and helped me make one the day before we did them with our younger class (so I would have a clue how to help the kids!).

The boys and I finished these hammer prints (that were started as examples in class) at home on Saturday. They loved collecting various leaves from the yard to see how they’d dye the fabric and I had to add some of our rose petals. These might become prayer flags as well. I’d love to have a strand of prayer flags for our home and eventually offer some in the Loving Rd etsy shop as well.

Being a constant collector and recycler, I saved these paper towels from the tie dye process to use in future projects. I just could not throw away all this lovely color (they are drying in the sun in this picture and held down with scrap wood to avoid blowing away).

In addition to all these class projects, I squeezed in a few more crocheted hope hats on Sunday before the week began and a few throughout the week during the evenings. I forgot to take pictures of the two I gave to the teacher and other volunteer in our class, but I do have a photo of the two I made for my brother and his baby boy on the way. 🙂

Finally, I added hangers to these signs I made months ago so they can find homes.

I even did a quick catch-up one night for weeks 23-25 of the documented life project! The 3 challenges to express gratitude, use old book pages, and use hearts on the flap insert were combined to make this quick heart page, which is sewn in. Combining the 3 weeks also kept from adding too much bulk since the journal is bursting already. 🙂

Another awesome week in the Art 101 and DLP challenges and at the folk school! 🙂

My boys had a fun, creative week as well. They made coasters and hot pads in weaving, some really cool jewelry including a bubble blower, lots of neat journals and books and some silly cartoons (not pictured). We are lucky to have the folk school nearby!