NewsLetter – Page 22 – Jane Stafford Textiles

Posted on April 11, 2011July 31, 2018 by Jane — Leave a comment

The Tea Towel as a Canvas

As so many of you know, I (Jane) love to teach and I try to teach skills that will help weavers develop their own design sensibility, encourage them to try out their ideas and most of all become independent thinkers and problem solvers. I love to work all this out with tea towels, simply because they are a small and inexpensive way to experiment without the financial stress of expensive yarns. If you have an idea that you might like to try but you’re going to weave it in silk or cashmere, you get pretty darned stressed out about getting it right. However, if you have an idea and you make a warp with 2/8 cotton and things go wrong, you’ve really only blown around $10.00. A small price to pay for a great deal of learning.

Learning what not to do, is just as important as learning what you should do. And so……….I encourage tea towels.

Once you have a successful towel you can look at it as a design sketch for a blanket or a placemat or a piece of yardage. A stripe in it could become a scarf…….the possibilities are endless and tea towels make wonderful gifts.

We had the tea towel wall in my studio which became the tea towel corner, which has recently had a 2nd layer added to it. I have over 200 tea towels now and they have all been woven by my students who have taken the Colour and Design workshop or Twills on 4. Students in these workshops often do exchanges between themselves to share what they have learned and sometimes I get lucky and get one for the wall.

Several of them came from the 2010 “Twills on 4” groups who had to create their own twill threadings during the workshop………they took their threadings home and interpreted them in these towels……..pretty darn awesome.

Thank You to Marianne, Jennifer, Karen, Sasha and Linda for helping our towel wall grow! and thank you to all the weavers who have contributed to the wall for many many years.

Posted on March 30, 2011May 9, 2019 by Jane — Leave a comment

On the Road … to Social Networking (kicking and screaming the whole way).

Big Announcement! JST is on Facebook!!!!!!!! Haven’t you been waiting your whole life for this to happen? Come be our friend, we’d love to keep you up to date.

This weekend JST is off to the Vancouver Island Weaver’s Retreat at the Grand Hotel in Nanaimo! The Vendors are open to the public, so come check us out!

Over to you, Charlotte (my roving reporter):

I’d never been to a fibre show before so I thought I’d tell you all about my experience. On March 17 Jane and I went to Fibres West in Abbotsford and man, we had a blast. Maggie from down the road came to help us get ready. We work really well together, even when things get tough.

It took the three of us a full day to get the books, yarn, shuttles, winders, bobbins and what not all packed up into Jane’s trusty minivan.

Our first stop was to Maiwa on Granville Island to see Charllotte, Sophena, Dani and Tim. It was the first time Jane had seen everyone since she left India. It was so lovely to visit the beautiful Maiwa loft and for me to meet the wonderful team behind the Maiwa Foundation.

After some coffee, seeing more photos of India and planning Jane’s next Maiwa Workshop, we headed over to Abbotsford to unload and set up the booth.

It was great that we were able to get into the trade building at 2:30 because it took over 5 hours to get it all unloaded and displayed beautifully.

I got to see so many of you that I’ve only met on the phone or through email. It was such a treat to make the connection between everyone’s smiling faces and sweet voices!

One evening a whole bunch of us went to a fabulous restaurant in Ft. Langley. Thanks Christa for inviting us! And many thanks to Brenda of Penelope Fibre Arts for putting in all of her time and effort to organize the event! It was such a great weekend!

Posted on March 15, 2011May 9, 2019 by Jane — Leave a comment

March Newsletter

SPRING!

Today as we are working on this newsletter, the sun is shining outside our windows. The leaves are beginning to work on their Spring glow.

Soon my kids will begin to tease me, apparently, I never stop talking about the magnificent vibrancy found in the greens of Spring. I’m not talking about salad, I’m talking about the leaves on trees. The crocuses and daffodils are all up. It is so wonderful to see the earth’s rebirth again.

The start to this year has been spectacular. As many of you know I went to India in January with Charllotte Kwon of Maiwa and some of her staff, Sophena Kwon, Danielle Bush and Tim McLaughlin. We were joined by Gale Anderson-Palm from Rimby, Alberta and Catharine Ellis of Woven Shibori fame. When Charllotte invited me to accompany them, it was a dream becoming reality and as anyone who has ever been to India will tell you ~ you are changed for life. I loved it and I hope to return someday. I went for the textiles but my favourite thing about India turned out to be her people. India’s people, are what I still think about everyday. Their immense generosity and kindness, even though most of them have so little is simply staggering. I have so many stories to tell but I am still processing and in time I hope to share most of them. I know that I am not good at keeping up with the blog, but little by little the stories will appear, I promise.

Field Trips

I brought back 2 suitcases of stunning fabrics and I took over 2000 photos which I’m trying to put into a few slideshows. I would love to share some of this with you. If you’d like to organize a group visit (minimum of 6 people) to hear a few stories, see a few pictures and touch some fabrics, please give us a call and book a date.

When I got back I hit the ground running. On my 1st weekend back I taught Twills on 4 for the Denman Island Weavers Guild. They were very considerate and patient with my jet lag. The next week we prepared the studio for the first retreat of the year, Colour & Design. It was awesome ~ 8 weavers … retreating for 5 days … lots of weaving … food, wine and laughter.

Up Next!

JST will be at Fibres West in Abbotsford this Friday and Saturday, March 18 & 19. We will be taking a good sized booth, but every year we are missing things that some of you want. If you have specific requests, drop us a line before Wed. @ 4:00 and we’ll put it in the van for you!

April 1 & 2, JST will also be at the Vancouver Island Spinner’s and Weaver’s Retreat being held at the Grand Hotel in Nanaimo. The Vendors are open to the public so, even if you’re not participating in the retreat, come for a visit!

Our second Colour & Design retreat here at JST starts April 11. There is still one spot left for that lucky someone. Just give us a shout at 250-537-9468 if you’d like to sign up.

Check out our Retreat Schedule for openings in our other workshops throughout the year. There are just a few spots left, so be sure to let us know if you’re interested.

March is Mohair Month! ~ 10% Off

All of our brilliant Mohair is on sale this month. Here are just four of our 34 stunning colours.

Online Patterns

After years and years of production weaving Jane has decided to put all her designs into patterns and make them available to everyone. We are trying to put a few patterns up each month. We have just added 3 Chenille Scarves to our online store. Our patterns give you all of the information that you need to get weaving right away. Every pattern Jane writes exemplifies all the design theory she teaches in her workshops. Not only will you make a beautiful piece, you will also learn great design technique.

Jane Stafford’s Helpline

Every week Jane gets email from her students and customers asking questions. We have decided to make her answers available to everyone. There is now a new button on the homepage called Jane’s Helpline. You can ask your questions anyway you want, on Ravelry, in an email or on the Help Line. We will publish the answer on the Helpline so that everyone can see it. Your questions will be anonymous, so don’t be shy! Sometimes it takes a few days to answer your questions so please be patient.

Remember, we are always here to help :^)

Maybe someone you know would like to be on our mailing list. Please consider forwarding this newsletter.

Posted on March 3, 2011May 9, 2019 by Jane — Leave a comment

A Day in Jaipur

**** A Note From Jane ******

I am traveling with Gale Anderson Palm from Rimby, Alberta and I’m so glad that she is along for the ride. She is becoming my experienced guide book and so far she is still patient with me answering all my questions about, well … everything.

We both woke at 3 in the morning listening to completely new sounds … the call to temple so early in the morning, the most amazing car horn sounds you’ve ever heard and music blasting from passing trucks (much better music than boom boxes). It is my first morning in India so I have to record every memory. Later in the morning we head to Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan. It is known as the Pink City because of the colour of the earth in that area.

We started our day with Sweet Lassi’s, yum, yum, yum.

Later we visited the Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing in the historical Amber town amongst crumbling havelis and temples. It is dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of hand printed textiles. The museum is a UNESCO Heritage building.

The hands in the photo of someone printing are mine. I took a stab at registering a small print. One layer was printed, then another printing on top and then the border. It is definitely a 2nd :^)

We ended our day in Jaipur visiting an Anokhi store where believe or not, I had to buy a few things. After seeing the mud resist printing in Bagru and now after visiting the Anokhi Museum I am just beginning to understand that the creating of a hand blocked printed piece of fabric is an astounding achievement.

I have watched it happening in videos but to see it in real time puts the entire process in a different light. Oh my gosh, it is amazing.

Each piece of cloth is resisted, printed, scoured, resisted again, printed again, scoured again, resisted again, printed again, scoured again…..until the final fabric has all its colours and pattern. Some patterns are handled 14 times.

Posted on January 27, 2011May 9, 2019 by Jane — Leave a comment

Beautiful Language

A Message from Jane:

***

After several days of traveling we are now in Bagru, 30 miles south of Jaipur in Northern India. We arrived in Delhi around 1 in the morning and drove though the night. I could never in my wildest dreams have imagined our drive.

Trucks travel at night because they are not allowed into the cities during the day . This means that 1000’s and 1000’s (and that is no exaggeration) of trucks carrying the goods that supply a city of 31,0000,000 people travel on a somewhat divided and completely under construction 4 lane highway. For the first hour I couldn’t look ahead without covering my eyes and trying to swallow my gasps. The moon was full and provided overhead lighting the whole way, perfectly illuminating the terror in front of me. Everyone else in the car had been to India before and were completely at ease with the situation. I was paralyzed with fear. I will never, ever again, complain about tourist drivers on Salt Spring in the summer. We drove all night and arrived in at Maiwa’s block printing and dyeing studio around 8 am exhausted but alive.

Within moments I was looking at a way of life that has existed for 1000’s of years. Walking through the farm I saw 80 or 90 lengths of cloth laying out on the ground drying after being printed and dyed.

Indigo Kaka (indigo uncle) has been dying Indigo forever. Beside him were bolts and lengths of fabric that had already been dyed in Alizarine (a vegetable dye like madder) and then printed with a mud resist, waiting to go into the indigo vats.

The word Maiwa means ‘beautiful language’ and the language of cloth was spelled out in it’s many syllables all around us. We saw vats of indigo, madder and huge scouring vats. Oh, what a site!

***

Stay tuned for the next week’s installment of Jane’s adventures in India.

Category: NewsLetter

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