Organic Geometric

This embroidered Uzbekistan organic geometric textile reminds me of my Vogue Rug... want to wind that project up by this September's end. You can read more about the embroidery and it's traditions here.

I'm drawn to things like this, I love it's wonderful wonkiness. I'm creating the same crazy in the Vogue... shapes not matching colours, not aligned, not anything expected but just it's own wonderful self. Like you!

Why Private Lessons are Wanderful LOL!

I've been quiet the past week or so because I was in heaven!

You know the song:

Heaven... I'm in heaven,
And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak.
And I seem to find the happiness I seek,
When we're out together dancing cheek to cheek.

I would just change dancing to dyeing or hooking. I had such an amazing experience watching my students expand and expand. What a blessing to see them do what they wanted to, living what they dreamed of doing. Creating what they desired. You could have this too if you wanted.

Go to my website and click on Contact me for more info.

Isak Dinesen says:

Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist:

Give me leave to do my utmost.

That's what I'm in the business of here in my studio, giving my students or as I prefer to call them; my proteges, leave and aid and support to do their utmost, whatever that is.

Sometimes it is learning to create their own patterns from their own ideas. Sometimes it is doing their own dyeing for their whole rug. Sometimes it's tapping into their own marvelous creativity, WE all have it. People are such a wonder and a delight!

Last week we grew and spread and developed ways to achieve long held desires. Though these wonderful people sent my way last week worked with me one on one, this magic also happens when hookers come in groups on demand or join my classes that are preset 3 times a year.

Traditionally I hold a class the last week in June, keeping the cottage rental rates still in the off season, in September also off season, and the dye mentorship class is in October.

This year I decided to hold them close to one another so one could attend both so desired.

Here is the blurb from my web page:

Get Fired Up!

September 27 to October 1, 2010
9:30am til 4pm each day

Do you feel stuck in a rut? Come to Wandaworks and get fired up again about your artform.
This week's class will help you go beyond expected outcomes. Work on a project of your choice.

Cost: $525

Dye Mentoring Class

October 4, 5 and 6
10:00 til 4 each day

Wanda will help you improve and refine your dyeing skills.
You will never look back. All dyes and equipment are provided.

Cost: $350 You supply the wool.

I wish I could adequately explain the benefits of these small classes and private ones also. A hooker I've known for awhile was congratulating me yesterday on doing my own thing in this way. Not traveling as is expected but doing things to suit me.

I told her though I'm a bit of a poor traveller the real thing I want to do my way is to provide good instruction and care for my students, to gain understanding of what they want and eradicate as much frustration from the learning process as I can. I want to provide a rich, loamy, wet, hot- house atmosphere in which they can grow in their own direction, not in the direction I want to push them.

She related that many people say they are happy if they only learn one thing.

She felt that was a bloody expensive hope people arrive at camp with and they frequently don't even achieve that or achieve the lesser quality learning, the negative learning experience of going home knowing what you don't want to do.

That makes me say ARRRGHHHH. So frustrating for me and for the student.

She has a point.

Lots of us only want or desire a social experience from our rugging excursions and that is great but if you want to go beyond what you are doing now and have the time I'm your magic Wanda!

I have a few spaces in either class. You could expand both important aspects of your artistry.

Plan and develop a pattern, then dye for it!

Sounds incredible doesn't it?

Seize the day...

It is easy to get here from Toronto, Buffalo, Detroit airports.

It is a beautiful place.

I treat you like kings and queens and I never push for sales as so often happens.

I work with you for you. I collaborate, not dictate.

Nothing makes me happier!

Happy Wanda and Claude conclude their 4 day class, great talks + good eats + good laughs = great project! We dyed in the mornings for the project and work on the hooking in the afternoon, it is a masterpiece!

Dyeing With Lynne!

Yesterday was Lynne's big day. She came for her private class all the way from Calgary.

She learned to dye with pizazz and abandon and make some beautiful wool in the process.

It was the hottest of days especially to be dyeing, what a trooper she is!

Here we are getting rid of some unsightly white rash ( undyed parts of wool in a spot dye).

I use the electric frying pan to dab on an appropriate colour of dye with acid added to it and it fixes it almost immediately. In this case we used YELLOW! The magician of the dye cabinet!

My hands are going so fast they are a blur!! LOL!

Jeez Lueeeze I'm starting to feel like Oprah on the cover every single issue of her magazine.... when I look at my blog. Every photo... there I am!!!

I hope that will end soon for your sake.

Tonight's Interesting Date

I have a hooker friend Sue Waddington, she lives in Hamilton. She has an amazing hobby.

She and her husband Jim seek to photograph the scenes the Group Of Seven painted. It has led them on some merry chases!

Maybe I'll see you there!

Answering Design

A beautiful middle eastern tribal design from Fibercopia

So many things to be inspired by!

I love it's inexactness, makes it much easier to look at.

Also the random colour changes, let's do more of this in our work!

I received a question in our online design class in The Wanda Way Studio about where I find it appropriate to use my painterly approach. This references an article I wrote long ago for Rug Hooking.

In it I talked about using the natural light to dark rotation of the colour wheel to inform our shading, and various other way to understand what we do when we make something take "form" or use up 3-D space in our work.

This person asks me the most wonderful questions. This question asking is the greatest thing for me. It makes me think about things to a deeper level which I appreciate so much.

Dear Design Class Student

About my painterly technique ... I use it in everything I do.

I don't hang by techniques saying to myself now there is a place that I could use Joe McGillicuttie's stained glass style.

Yes, try new things, you will mostly find they are old, give them a whirl anyway because they have worked for eons. But don't let you work or your learning rest there. These bits of knowledge you are garnering ... accumulate them, accrue them put them away into a savings account. And when you are ready to blossom out with your own work spend them like MAD.

Using this "painterly" way and look out for that language, many instructors use it. Does the person's work look like painting? If not keep looking for proof of a deeper understanding of it.

It is something I do everywhere in everything. It is what comes out.

For instance there are millions of styles of painting, yet all are using a painterly way.

It is that way with hooking too. There are a million ways to represent something, which one comes out of you and how?

That's the one to be respected. After all we learn about basics at rug school we really have very little to hang onto when it comes time to stride into our own domain.

This is because we are learning the wrong basics. We are learning applications instead of foundations. We are learning to put on wall paper instead of how to build a good wall.

There are fundamentals to be learned in the art of visual representation, that is what we are learning and will continue to learn right here. This is the basis for all we will do. This is painterly as it's finest.

Learn these and you will never be bound by parameters again unless you want to be.

“Sometimes questions are more important than answers.”

Nancy Willard

I'm fully awake now!/ Day tripping

A trip that is presented backwards- Me back home on the deck with Birdee!

You'll have to forgive the getup, parts of the trail out are pretty rocky and I had to be dressed for it.

Tobermory Harbour

At the grotto

The Grotto

Looking out and down

A rocky beach just before the grotto, look at the colours!

The shore line east of the grotto

Cyprus Lake

Okay... here is man at the grotto... look into the background, do you see that guy on the cliff edge? A millisecond later he jumped off the edge, even though there are many signs asking people not to jump in. They even point out 2 people have died doing just this.

What's up with that?

It made me wonder if we all have things like that in our lives we need to do even though the signs are pointing otherwise.

The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
C. S. Lewis

Notan Cat

I'm too sleepy to post right now

Cat picture from here

To read more about Notan ( something we should know about ) go here

We wish you were here today

Delight comes in the Mail!!/ What's on the one Frame

Here is what's on one of my frames, a time travel rug! I started this one at Northern Teacher's Workshop in 2004 or so. It is going to be a bed pillow I think, it matched my 2004 colorations, not so much now! I look forward to the sun doing it's work here. Mellow is something to develop in a rug through time and exposure! I still kinds like it though.

Look what I got ! What a cornucopia of delights! I can't wait to use these spintastic things to make some of these


Or these

Or these

A Trip is Worth a Thousand Inspirations

Me at Craighleith

Yesterday I went to a larger centre, did you know I live in a small town but in a rural area? It's a two hour drive to Starbucks in other words. Not that I drink the devil's brew but just to illustrate.

What did I do that made such a difference, what inspired me?

Driving out of my comfort zone in air conditioned comfort.

Spending a peaceful, happy day with my man.

Seeing new colours in fashion then discovering I'm being drawn to white right now over and over and over.

Bringing home some new issues of magazines that never fail to spark me in some way.

What is it about a bookstore that calms me so and excites at the same time?

Looking at things other people made and displayed creatively.

I saw a 1 gallon teapot, at a great store called Our House ( met another Wanda!!!) a hooker needs that teapot for friends on Thursdays.

Have my favourite, a Thai salad, Som Tam and a whole Thai meal

Stick my feet into a bath tub warm ( I can't believe it even now) Georgian Bay, here in Wiarton there might still be the odd ice pan in our section of the Bay, well it feels that way!!! Refreshing is the word I'd use.

Seeing the same thing from a different view.

Drawing a picture of what I saw and disappearing for an hour in it, I love that feeling which once frequent is now rare as hen's teeth.

I gained a fresh idea for hooking a rug, also as rare as can be.

ICE CREAM!

I've got riches today my friends, riches stored up and ready to share.

Life begets life. Energy becomes energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.

Sarah Bernhardt

Cedar Point- An Inspiration

Cedar Point

2002 hand torn on linen

As you might have noticed I like to return to certain parts of my area again and again.

I'm like that in all parts of my life, there is always something new to discover both about myself and my surroundings.

Several years ago I took this photo in the very late winter or very early spring.

I wanted to make a rug of it but I wanted to do it in the style of strip piece quilting. Hooked in straight rows, I didn't make the shapes of the shore or water and then hook around them I went row by row.

It was amazing fun to do. I needed to really edit and it was very hard to set aside my right brain to make the shore disappear down the bay. As soon as I remind myself to do what I see, I was on easy street I used this photo and another one to flesh out the right hand area more and allow me make a landscape rectangle instead of a portrait style one.

“You don't develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.”

Epicurus “Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, everyday, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.” Christopher Morley

A Dragonfly

This month's free pattern on The Welcome Mat is a dragonfly. I made a simpler version of this pattern I made long ago.

I used scraps to hook the flowers and the dragonfly and for the glass pebbles in the border.

Would you like to learn to hook the more complicated version ?

Why not come to my September class? We can explore the creative universe together, it will be great fun and I'll spoil you rotten!

Great News: Lorraine Finished her Chair Pads

Lorraine! Hats off to you girl, you did a terrific job of these fruits... well done! They are curved and they have dimension and look good enough to eat. Fantastic!

Drawing by the shore/ Broccoli Heaven

I'm a dastardly blogger this summer. I can't seem to settle down at the computer unless it is cool out or I have company in the house. The two things seldom coincide. Man it has been a steady run with the dehumidifiers, it has been so hot and wet.

Lots of good things have been happening in the steam bath though.

Happy at the shore post picnic

My sketch

I'm teaching my online design class and I'm working myself on the the Line portion of class.

Here is a picture I drew by the shore or if I want to be all arty like I'd say a sketch instead of a picture.

Here is the amazing incredible broccoli island floating in a sea of mac and cheese! It grown by the gifted and green thumbed Peter Allemang, I cannot believe he and Erin gifted us with one. It was a whole new eating experience! Thank you guys!

Rugs to look at tomorrow my friends....

Can't wait to show you..

PS This week on the Welcome Mat we are having a Back to basics week, I hope you'll drop in with your fine self to have a look see!

A good letter from the Mat

On the Welcome Mat group Styles we went here to see the amazing work of Scott Prior.

This compelled Gail to write this:

Yes, the quality of the light here is very compelling. I especially like his kitchen pictures (great colors), and the ones with bottles lined up with light playing through and off them. I would like to own the one of the bottles painted in the window sill at sunrise. Wanda, do you think; I think you do; that a hooker can get the feeling of seeing through and object like the bottles and seeing light and color beyond? Where on earth would I start? Have to do some hecka fine dyeing I think. Comments always welcome.

Here is what I said:

Yes Gail you know I do.... we are just so afraid of using soft edges and extremes in value we make it hard for ourselves. As part of my portrait class I show students portraits done with chewing gum on birch plywood. They are picture perfect. Our restraint comes from ourselves, not from our materials. Amazing eh?

You start by looking for shapes, then assigning colour specifics to it, right value, right saturation, temperature and colour though the specific colour is really the last thing on the list... It ain't in the dyeing, though it helps to have hundreds of colours on tap, the great thing is you don't need too much of any one thing, what fun! Make sure you create a fulsome stash!

Be a thorough and slow looker babe.... your sketching is teaching you to do just that.

Well done.

An Encouraging Letter to My Students

Birdee's Reaction to Day 3- a coma

Dear Students,

Thank you for coming here to class. You both blessed me and encouraged me and enriched me with your presence.

Here are the things I think we should remember from our time together and I'd cherish any additions you can make to this list, please send them to us all.

1 There are no experts except the ones you make.

2 You know better what to do than any one else, trust yourself.

3 You should have more fun while you dye and hook, life isn't a dress rehearsal.

4 You might not be here and think you can't do it but I'm telling you, you were doing it and you can do it and I'm in charge of knowing that. Just do it!

5 Don't put off doing what you want to. Seize the day.

6 Strong works require strong ideas, great work requires flexibility.

7 You can use what you have with value blending to make amazing things, results are frequently better than using store bought wool.

8 Plans are good, adventures are better.

9 Be magical with colour, just be sure the assistant you choose to do this fits in with the crowd... Las Vegas show girl will not fit in at the Quaker meetinghouse.

10 Put a little bit of extra work in the beginning... plan out where you think you want to go. It will save you time in the long run.

D!

You are a loving blessing.

Do not outline, those days are done, paint strokes with your hook, let your inner goddess of the brunch blossom, imagine what you can do and then do it! I know you can. Each thing you did on your rug showed growth as the days passed, the water was a revelation....The cats bless you every day, they seem to have built a shrine with the snibbles you left behind, do you feel like a deity? I cannot wait to see what you will create next. You held me to the task and I'm grateful to know you.

C!

Girl, you are one hard worker and that's just what portraitist needs to be. I saw such amazing development as the week progressed. You were editing, you were making needed changes artistically, I know with out a doubt you got what it takes to do any damn thing you please. Look away from the portrait. Get a reducing glass, it will help you get an overall view. Keep at it, you are near a break through with this concept. I love your tenacity and your humour... your dislike of hot food I'm overlooking for now LOL! Build in relaxation or you are gonna blow, been there, done that. Be smarter than me.

B!

You are a loving person and I relished your hugs! I admire your enjoyment of the obscure and enlightening.

You did a great job with your sunset and with your farm field scene. Don't get hung up on executing the perfect concept, let artistry happen!

Your search for style is officially over. All you need to do is dream up and execute your ideas. You'll need to take lots of catnaps because you will be so busy !!!

Let your two sides shine, they both have things to say. Accept your unique self and expand in all ways possible. I'm so glad to have been with you and I'm thankful for the opportunity to know you better. Beware the gold...

A!

I'd like to use you for a poster child when I explain it is best to have few or no plans when you come to class here. You were open, relaxed, had a few things you wanted to accomplish in mind and set out to do them. I'm proud of your abilities. I can see if you wished it you could become a leading light in the hooking world. You did me a world of good, your humour, appreciation of my pets and not pets and looking at my rugs with a fresh eye was inspiring. You did a fantastic job with your projects, keep on, you have an amazing potential. I'll be saying, oh I knew her way back in '10. Trust your mensa mind and your gut!

Bless you,

Wanda

PS I'm taking out the names and I'm gonna post this on my blog, so others might be encouraged by our week too.

That Leo! So Smart

Every now and then go away and have a little relaxation. To remain constantly at work will diminish your judgment. Go some distance away, because work will be in perspective and a lack of harmony is more readily seen. – Leonardo DaVinci

More Class Photos

Splendid dyeing work Kay!Celie stakes her claim on Jen's wonderful wool!

Helen and Terri can't believe their results!Here is something else delicious we ate...

Chocolate Oaties

2 cups brown sugar packed

¾ cup soft butter

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

2-½ cups bisquick or gluten free pancake/waffle mix if you need a treat for those special people in your life.

3 cups oats

1 ½ cup of chocolate ( squares or chips)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2 tsp butter

1-cup nuts ( optional)

2 tsp vanilla

Mix first four ingredients; add oats and bisquick ( or gluten free pancake/waffle mix) Melt chocolate, evaporated milk, butter (2 tsp), nuts and vanilla and mix into chocolate mixture. Put 2/3rds oat mixture on to the greased pan. Press to cover bottom of pan. Pour on chocolate mixture; don’t let it touch the edge of the pan. Drop remaining oat mixture on to the top by teaspoons as though making drop cookies. Bake for forty minutes at 350˚. 9x13’’ pan. Cut while still warm. Wait until it cools to remove from pan.

Class in the late afternoon

Stumpwork and portraits , landscapes and colour were topics of study yesterday.

Today we dye and get rolling on our dream rugs.