restructuring

this month has seen the start of many changes here, not only the beginning of spring here in southern california but in the structure of how i will be presenting both my work and teaching going forward.
first off, i will say that i am making the move from etsy to big cartel. it will take me a bit of time to complete and i will let the etsy shop rest there indefinitely (until i decide otherwise) to allow my regular customers time to get used to the change, slowly. for now, i have opened up my big cartel shop taking jude’s lead with the lunar cycle and offering a selection of indigo moons and some indigo scrap collections.

i call these collections “something boro’d, something blue” . these are fabrics gifted/traded to me from various places- they’ve all had previous lives. i’ve just borrowed them, turned them blue with indigo and created small collections for you to use in your “boro’d” projects. you can read the full description on my shop site. of course there are moons, not too many yet-as they take some time- but by the new moon there will be more. and bookmarks too, a few.
something i made using some of these scraps- a little lavendar filled pincushion-

more indigo fun-

indigo drying

my online class is taking up much of my time this month-from in writing and photographing the lessons, manning the very active forum to the enhanced features i added as an experiment- video chat office hours and videos that complement the lessons. all a lot of work and since i am on the learning curve with some of this ….phew! the students in the class have been very enthusiastic and eager- making it a very enjoyable experience. my goal is to give them some new techniques to incorporate in their own work and to make shibori dyeing less mysterious and more accessible. it still is something that takes an incredible amount of practice to perfect (i’m still on that road myself) and i like that the students understand this.
my personal victory in this class is that i have a 14 year old young man taking the class who has big aspirations in fiber and textiles- he chose “shiboriking” as his screen name in the forums! i couldn’t be happier. he has taken to skype chatting with me like you would expect any one of the younger gen to – they are so very open to technology and its uses. i have plans for restructuring all of this down the road.
it takes time.