fabric printing | Tasha Miller Griffith

fold dip print 3

Hello all!

First, I’m very happy to announce that I’ll be traveling to teach at a new venue this fall; North House Folk School, way up in northern Minnesota! I’m teaching two classes: Fold, Dip, Print: Natural Dye on Fabric and Creative Mending. It would be nearly impossible to say which of these I’m looking forward to more.

I have a new batch of fabric samples for natural dye printing just waiting to test (I’m working with tannin this time, and how it interacts with other mordants) so I should have even more to share in this next workshop. Figuring out things that I can’t just look up in a book keeps pulling me deeper and deeper into natural dye mysteries—I love it! (If you don’t know what a mordant is or why tannin might be one, maybe you would like to come to this workshop …)

I’m equally loving starting to prepare for this next mending workshop; thinking about what I know and have taught before, bringing topics together, trying new ideas, and wanting to integrate as many options from the different crafts I know as possible. We’re going to see how weaving and knitting work, what makes fabric behave how it does, and learn a whole bunch of ways to patch/darn/repair/decorate all kinds of textiles. It’s going to be great!

creative mending 1

Second, I have been doing some long-overdue website updating (it’s always overdue, right?). You may be surprised to click on one of the tutorial pages (like the mending one, speaking of) and find it reasonably complete and up to date. I am (ever so slowly) learning a little more about html, which will hopefully make it easier to keep up with this stuff as I go. Come look around the site if you haven’t in a while.

That’s all from me for now. If you want to be updated when I have new classes scheduled, the best bet is to follow this blog. No spam, and only occasional posts … you can also check in on the Classes + Workshops page.

Cheers!

jccfs-projects-2017

This year promises to be a challenging one in a lot of ways, as we’ve seen already. And yet there are good things on the horizon too. Personally I’ve been looking forward to 2017 since about this time last year, when I found out I would be teaching at the John C Campbell Folk School this summer! At last my classes are up, I can tell you about it, and you can go check it out on their website. In case you hadn’t guessed, I’m just thrilled for this!

I have two felting classes, a weekend and a week-long one, both of which will give students an opportunity to sink their teeth into wet felting. In the week-long one there will be lots of time for exploration of your own designs and ideas, with plenty of guidance of course!

The third class will be a full week of diving into printing with natural dyes, covering all aspects from preparing the fabric, making screens and designs, to printing and finishing. A longer workshop is really the only way to cover this whole process, and I’m really looking forward to sharing what I’ve learned over the past couple of years working on these techniques, and having the quality time to grow together with my students! Please sign up and spread the word.

healing-the-heart-of-democracy-cover

On another note, but related to finding the cracks where the light gets in and finding ways to come together, I’d like to recommend this book to everyone in America (and maybe in other democracies too), especially to anyone who is worried about the direction we’re headed in. It made me rethink what it means to be a citizen, and to live with people we disagree with, in a really good way.

Anyone else have good news to share?