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Autumn at Erindale Tapestry Studio--Let's Create Together!

Greetings students, colleagues, friends, and patrons from my fiber studio.  I want us to be able to keep in touch and build a creative and supportive future together, even when we must remain apart.  In this newsletter, you'll learn about upcoming online classes, the launch of a host of new project kits, availability of new roving colors, a spotlight on works-in-progress, the saga of the rodent attack on my studio yurt (I know, it was terrible...ugh 2020!) and more.  Read on to explore.

I am Laura Berlage, an interdisciplinary artist with a passion for liberating the creative soul.  I am dedicated to creative resilience during these trying times--join me in this initiative!
2020 has brought so many changes to our family's farm and social entrepreneurship.  Sometimes the journey could be entirely overwhelming, especially when paired with the national and global suffering seen each day.  My art practice has become an even more critical part of my methods for staying grounded and open.  I would like to share elements of that practice with you, whether through storytelling right here in this letter or through the many ways my teaching and designing work invites you to join in.  My hope is that my efforts can offer some respite amidst the stress and suffering we all experience when facing change and trial.
Flower Fantasy is not only the first kit in my "Painting with Wool" needle felt series, it also offers the Zen of a coloring mandala in a fiber arts form.

Fresh Kits--A Great Way to Kickstart Creativity

 
Sometimes stress can leave you yearning to do something creative but without any ideas for what to do.  Or maybe you're not sure how to do a project, and that holds you back from trying.  With the needle felting kits I create, not only do you receive the materials you need (including beautifully hand-dyed wool from our sheep) but also access to video tutorials where I show you step-by-step how to create the project, while also inviting you to bring your own creative flare.  You can work at your own pace and enjoy the process. 

This fall, I've been creative a whole host of new kits (with more to come too), including:
  • Pumpkins
  • Chickadee
  • Classic Gnome
  • Mrs. Gnome
  • Santa
  • Flower Fantasy (first in the painting with wool style)
These also make great gifts, if you are looking to help share creative and hands-on learning inspiration with others.  Suitable for ages 8-108.
Love the idea of a kit but your medium is knitting or crochet?  I design in these mediums as well, with colorful one-skein-wonder kits for you or lovingly packaged gift kits for a fiber-loving friend or family member.  Autumn is a great time to think about projects with wool once more.  Treat yourself or someone special to a unique kit!
Explore Kits
Love the idea of a guided project but want live interaction?  There's a host of new Zoom classes coming up!  This is the last week so sign up for intermediate level Mushroom House (deadline is Thursday).

Zoom Online Classes Going Strong and Gaining Diversity

 
Since mid-June, nearly every week I've taught a fiber arts class on Zoom, transforming the Fiber Loft space at Farmstead Creamery into my online classroom.  With students tuning in from as far away as Canada, Alaska, and Hawaii, as well as throughout the continental US, kits are sent ahead of time and then we all tune in together for the project.  It's been fantastic to be able to interact with students again, sharing my passion for creating and wool. 

So far, these have been hosted by North House Folk School, but now Marine Mills Folk School has invited me to teach online for them as well.  There's plenty of delightful needle felting classes on the horizon but there's some new mediums as well, including crochet and wreathmaking!  Here's what's coming up.  Remember to register well in advance of the class, as we need time to mail materials.

Click the title of the school to find their registration pages.

North House Folk School

 
  • Oct 16 & 17, Needle Felt Mushroom House (intermediate level)
  • Oct 29, Painting with Wool, Needle Felt Owl Moon
  • Nov 6, 13, & 29, Celtic Cabled Crochet, Scarf and Shearling Headband
  • Dec 3, Holiday Wreath Making (Webinar Style)
  • Dec 10, Needle Felt Santa
  • Dec 11, Make Your Own Holiday Wreath
  • Oct 11, Needle Felt a Loon
  • Oct 25, Needle Felt a Fox
  • Nov 8, Needle Felt Santa
"Loved the class!  Keep adding more online classes.  "~D. R., North House Student

"I was very impresses with Laura's Zoom abilities. 2 cameras, screen sharing, etc.  So well done, I don't have any suggestions. I am looking forward to my next two classes with North House and Laura, later this month!"~Nancy, North House Student
Already have project ideas but are looking for materials?  Our spring shearing is back from the mill, so we're restocked with roving colors plus some fresh new choices like this deep teal (shown above), chick yellow, and pine green.
View Roving, Yarn, Patterns, and More
Since 2007, the 16-foot diameter yurt on our farm has been home to my tapestry weaving practice.  This is an image before the attack.

The Yurt is Attacked!


Living with nature offers both beauty and pain.  Earlier this month, I had a goodly dose of both.  To share the fully story, below is the article I wrote as part of my weekly "Down on the Farm" column that paints the picture in context.  Update:  I've trapped numerus chipmunks and am still dealing with mice, but the cranes tapestry in progress remains untouched (thank goodness!!!).
 
Attacked
Living with nature can be a beautiful, peaceful experience, but not always.  Some weeks, it can feel like the farm is under attack, and this was one of them.
 
It started on Friday, when I left Farmstead right after closing time and all the delicious to-go dinners had been picked up.  Dusk was arriving, and it was time for evening chores.  It seems like that time draws earlier and earlier each day noticeably as autumn approaches.  I had herded all the ducks in their houses, locked the doors on the pullets and young turkeys, and was just closing in the adult turkeys when I heard squawking from the laying hens out in their mobile housing in the pasture.
 
Every two weeks, we pick up all their electric mesh fence and pull them with the truck onto fresh ground, so they have new grass and bugs to peck and their manure fertilizes the soil, growing even better pasture grasses for the sheep next year.  With each move, we’d pulled the hens further and further out into the field, until at this point they were waaaay out there.  At the sound of panicked squawking, I leapt into the utility golf cart “The Blueberry” that is my chore-time vehicle and booked it out to the pasture—I mean really booked it.  The whole back end was rattling, the headlights jumping, the engine whining.  I didn’t care how jostled I was—I was saving my chickens.
 
Anyone who has ever had chickens knows that there is a litany of creatures that want to eat them.  We take many precautions and over the years have learned what does or does not work to deter predators, but every now and then one still slips in.  I arrived at the scene of the crime to find terrified birds huddled at the edges of their mesh fence, others holed up in their hay wagon coop, eyes about ready to pop out of their heads.  Whatever had been attacking (likely a fisher) had fled upon my noisy arrival, with one hen dead in the yard and a pile of feathers but otherwise unscathed second bird.  I had arrived just in time to prevent a total massacre.
 
The chickens felt completely under attack, spooky and screaming.  Meticulously, I walked all over the large pen, finding those tangled in the fence and helping them back into the coops, which I locked securely.  Next morning, we hitched up to the wagons and pulled them into the yard, out of the field.  If there’s anything we’ve learned from predator control, it’s that once you’ve had a strike, you must move the birds out of the area or the foe will be back.
 
Then, there was Sunday.  Sunday afternoons after closing time is my time to be in my tapestry studio.  I look forward to it all week.  This artful, round structure sits near our house and holds several of my looms, a tremendous stash of yarn, patterns and designs I’ve created over the years, weaving books, and more.  It’s a place where I can leave projects out and they’re not in anyone’s way, and it’s where I’ve been making the beautiful cranes tapestry.
 
This Sunday, I closed up shop after scooping our signature sheep’s milk gelato and finishing a needle felted puppy commission and headed off to the yurt, a song in my heart.  But when I opened the door, I found that disaster had struck.  Yarn had been pulled from baskets and drug across the floor, fairy lights knocked off the walls, crane feathers askew on the floor, and there was a terrible smell.
 
I wanted to sit down and weep, but my realist side kicked in instead.  It was time to assess and evacuate as much as could be salvaged from this mess.  Every basket, every drawer, every tote had to be emptied out onto the floor and sorted.  Any loom with a project on it that could was carried out and into the house.  Tiny turds everywhere, pee on papers, whole skeins of (of course some of the most expensive yarns) shredded to bits.  My mind felt in total shell shock as my body kept working, making endless trips to the house with armloads of materials and product that might be saved.
Upon greater inspection, I found that the assailant(s) had chewed a hole in the window screening, which meant squeezing through wrinkles in thick Velcro that holds on the vinyl window covers.  With the scale of the damage, our estimate is that the intruders were red squirrels.  It would seem unlikely that mice would have drug yarn all over the room and between cabinet drawers.
 
By nightfall, the space was stripped down to nothing but wood and metal, with the only fiber item I could not remove being my beautiful cranes tapestry in progress.  Even when the family came home from cutting wood that evening, we could not discern a way to remove the massive Varpapuu loom from the studio.  It had come in as pieces, and there was no way for it to fit out the door whole.  Dismantling it would have threatened the ability to re-stretch the piece again later.
 
So, we set live traps, stuffed Bounce sheets into any cracks around the vinyl windows, tied more around the feet and top of the loom, and wrapped the tapestry in sheets. I’m still a bit in shock over the violation of my artmaking space, but I know we’ll move forward to make it secured once again.
 
Hopefully, that will be the end of the attacks for this week!  The chickens are much happier in the yard, slowly calming down from their terrifying night, and I’ll be working to replace that screen in the chewed window.  See you down on the farm sometime.
 

Works-in-Progress Spotlight

After the attack on the yurt, ALL of my yarn came into the house.  Yes, all of it!  Not only did I have to make sense of what was damaged or destroyed, but it also gave me a chance to assess what has been in the stash for a long time.  This included rug-grade yarn from one of our former sheep.  Ever eager to explore new ideas, I decided to take the concept of felted knits and give it a try as felted crochet.  The first experiment is a great success, and I'm well into creating the second rug.  Dense, durable, yet inviting to the toes, the natural gray interplays with the warm hues of autumn.  Watch for this as an available product soon!
My first felted crochet rug, serving as an excellent mat next to our ofuro soaking tub.
Visit Erindale Tapestry Studio Website
Thank you for reading this newsletter!  I hope we may stay in contact to inspire creativity, expression, and learning.  Please feel free to forward to anyone you feel may benefit from knowing about my studio and offerings.  Best wishes to you on your creative journey~Laura Berlage, Erindale Tapestry Studio
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