This feature program runs outside of our membership series of Patchwork Programming, and is an excellent starter commitment for folx interested in joining in to learn new skills, meet many of the artists that work with EartHand as well as some of our favourite plants that grow in the learning gardens. Week one (with CZarina) will be the building of a hoop-style willow basket frame and each monthly session is a chance to focus on a different plant coming into season in the gardens for weaving in the form. Plants to be used over the season include willow, english ivy, willow bark, blackberry and daylily and more. Techniques include forming willow hoops, Ojo de Dios bracing, twining, short rows, braiding 2 ply cordage, vine and branch splitting. Note, we have a special day planned for apple gleaning at MOP Sept 27 with our baskets, so add that date to your calendar!
Flax to Linen 2025 Grow Along starts on April 6th
6 Sundays, 11am-3pm: April 6, May 11, June 8, Jul 6, Aug 17, Sept 28
Led by Sharon Kallis, Sliding scale: $545, $ 515, $480
Includes all supplies except seeds for any personal planting.
6 Monthly sessions take the group through sowing, weeding, harvesting, retting and all the steps leading to spun linen. Participants will leave with a full understanding of the complete process from seed to spun line ready for weaving, processed and spun seed variety samples and some stricks for continued personal spinning. Using heirloom variety flax straw grown at Kwantlen University in 2023 as “learning flax” participants have the opportunity to practice breaking straw, hackling, and spinning stricks to linen thread. A small demonstration plot at Trillium gardens will also be grown, tended, harvested and retted by the flax cohort so all the steps from seed to thread are experienced. Register or read more at the full description here.
And, four exciting programs for members in April. Annual memberships start at $15, and come with lots of community perks! Get your membership here, and an invitation to register for the programs below will be sent to you right away.
Curious to know more about membership perks? More info here!
Introduction to Flint Knapping
Sunday April 12 1-4pm
Sliding Scale $125, $100 and $75 includes materials
Instructor: Harley Slade
Ground yourself in the local history of materials and methods of this and other regions.
Learn to strike flakes from a rock! Learn to pressure flake.
Local master knapper, Harley Slade guides a workshop introducing students to the various skills required to shape suitable rocks such as obsidian, chert, glass and ceramic into useful cutting tools, arrowheads, knives, spear points and chisels.
This celebratory day of printing on linens will focus on highlighting the high-tannin leaves of spring and offers a chance to explore the chemical and colour results from the exciting relationship between tannin and iron.
Linen square swatches suitable for quilting, small textile projects and patching will be provided and participants are invited to bring one small cellulose fibre garment –clean and scoured, tank tops, t-shirts or light weight linen shirts ready for a quick iron mordant before bundling.
Expect strong black/dark tone botanical image transfers and generally muted prints.
Participants are encouraged to attend stewardship sessions and the Friday socials leading up to the program to help in the gathering and preparation for the session.
This weekend program is a wonderful opportunity to spend time working with the beautiful willow bark coming from the urban learning gardens under EartHand’s care. Hosted during the spring bark harvesting window, participants will be able to strip some bark from our local willow, and explore techniques from plain weaving, twining and more with simple finishing edges. Expect other locally bountiful plant fibres to make some guest appearances too! Participants can expect to leave with a small completed basket (or two)
Please note this workshop is outdoors and undercover as required. Please be prepared to dress warmly for the weather, bring a cup for tea and your personal lunch and snacks.
Members are encouraged to attend the Friday night socials in the weeks leading up to the workshop for assisting in bark stripping, and the stewardship nights for branch harvesting.
Material gathering and processing dates: Tuesday April 15, 22
Membership is a direct way of showing your support and intention to participate in making our community a bright-spot of hope and generosity for sharing and learning together.
Annual membership cost is a sliding scale of $100, $50 or $15 and free for Indigenous community members. These fees help cover our annual expenses such as bookkeeping software, insurance, and costs connected to being a registered non-profit .
An annual membership purchase in EartHand gives the member the ability to register for our sliding-scale programs- get your membership early and participate in the vote for what programs we create.
Membership dues are not required to participate in the garden stewardship sessions. A limited number of both free and paid workshops are offered outside of the membership program.
Membership includes:
Inclusion in the EartHand Membership Slack Channel to connect with other members,
Access to the members list to help you find other makers curious to learn along-side or willing to share techniques.
An open invitation to Members’ Socials hosted 3-7pm most Fridays at Trillium Park through the growing season ( May to October).
Access to the Members’ Event calendar and booking system for registration in sliding scale paid programs.
A vote at the 26 AGM (to be held in Feb ’27)
An invitation to step into community! Bring your skills, curiosity, and generosity and participate in building and maintaining both our community governance and gardens.
Please select which sliding scale option for membership you are able to afford. (This has no bearing on which of the future sliding scale options you choose for workshops).
We are making this up as we go along, building up EartHand into an Urban Skillshed/Fibreshed Village-like community.
We each decide how we can show up, what we can bring, and know that each one of us is enough as we are and do the best that we can.
In the near future we look forward to working with our membership to further develop our conflict resolution process and other community-based structures that keep us collectively strong, accountable and resilient.
Purchase your 2026 membership through zeffy – link just above.
Note, Zeffy is our free, Canadian ticket provider – you can change the amount of tip you wish to leave zeffy to 0%, or choose a set $ amount instead of the preset 15%. Zeffy offers non-profits like EartHand Gleaners a no-fees ticketing service so 100% of your membership payment comes to us. Any tip you wish to leave zeffy is your choice.
After completing your membership purchase you will receive a confirmation email with links to support next steps in participating in EartHand’s programming for 2026, including:
A Member Profile form. This might take 2-10 minutes to complete, depending on how much you wish to say! This form is shared with other members as a way of finding our like-minded folx in the community.
An invite to join the EartHand Community Slack channel. New to Slack? – follow these instructions to download app and get started.
Watch your inbox for special membership emails with invitations to help shape the direction of programs as well as to attend member events.
Background:
Since its founding in 2013, beyond a volunteer board of directors that supported the volunteer work of the executive director /artistic director, EartHand has had stewardship at the centre of most community volunteering opportunities.
In 2025, we began cracking that open and finding new ways of creating spaces for meaningful participation. We are working to flatten our decision-making process and have composted’ the role of the Executive Director, while opening up what our Board of Directors can look like within the constitutional limits of our Non-Profit.
In thinking about programs, community activation and individual participation and self-defined roles:
What if we collectively agree just about anything could be a “pilot program”?
What can we learn from trying new models of gathering?
Let’s work our way into new networks that build up our social governance for collective learning and mutual support!
As the ecosystem for non profit operation funding gets more precarious and less sustainable, our primarily volunteer-based model for ‘getting things done’ makes even more sense.
Having more of us identify what our strengths and abilities are that we can bring to the organization, and collectively, slowly, sorting out our communication and operational systems of holding us all together in this shared network feels exciting, challenging- and perhaps most importantly in these times- hopeful work we can lean into together.
Thank you for being a part of the EartHand community!
What a year we have planned! The first two programs are our feature longer durational learning opportunities that we are offering as ‘stand alone’ programs.
After our year of research into collectivizing the way we tend to this non-profit and our community, we are excited to announce our first steps towards what’s next… read on to find out about our new Annual Membership for the Patch Work Programming with lots of social opportunities for new ideas and learning/discovery groups to grow!
All events take place at Trillium Park in our outdoor learning space unless noted otherwise.
BC “Flax Chat” 2025 Tuesday March 11, 7-8.30pm(PT) virtual program
Are you planning on growing flax for linen this year somewhere in the province of British Columbia?
Join us for a meet and greet of others in the province who will be growing- both small and large plots- of flax for fibre.
EartHand’s first in person Flax Grow-Along cohort took place in 2017, and since then our community has grow so much!
We know many individuals and community groups around the province- and beyond- who are invested deeply in the process of turning straw into gold through the processing of linen straw to spinnable line.
We are excited to launch into the 2025 year with a conversation amongst any growers/processers who are able to join in and share where they are growing and hear what adaptive plans might be in place from lessons learned based on previous experiences.
Those new to growing flax for linen are welcome to join in, listen and learn!
Host: Sharon Kallis
Seasonal Gleaners Basketry
5 Saturdays, April- August11am-4pm
Dates: April 5, May 10, June 7, July 12, Aug 23, and apple gleaning at MOP Sept 27
This feature program runs outside of our membership series of Patchwork Programming, and is an excellent starter commitment for folx interested in joining in to learn new skills, meet many of the artists that work with EartHand as well as some of our favourite plants that grow in the learning gardens.
Week one (with CZarina) will be the building of a hoop-style willow basket frame and each monthly session is a chance to focus on a different plant coming into season in the gardens for weaving in the form.
Plants to be used over the season include willow, english ivy, willow bark, blackberry and daylily and more. Techniques include forming willow hoops, Ojo de Dios bracing, twining, short rows, braiding 2 ply cordage, vine and branch splitting.
Includes all supplies except seeds for personal planting
6 Monthly sessions take the group through sowing, weeding, harvesting, retting and all the steps leading to spun linen.
Using heirloom variety flax straw grown at Kwantlen University in 2023 as “learning flax” participants have the opportunity to practice breaking straw, hackling, and spinning stricks to linen thread. A small demonstration plot at Trillium gardens will also be grown, tended, harvested and retted by the flax cohort so all the steps from seed to thread are experienced.
Some experience in spinning is an asset but not a prerequisite, those new to spinning will have a steeper learning curve for the spinning of line.
This group makes an excellent chance for learning the seasonal steps as they unfold while also gaining familiarity with the full steps of processing straw to linen ready for weaving or knitting.
September-/28 growers reunion!
Growers in the group bring back retted straw for collectively processing and “tactile-tasting of ” the ‘terroir in the straw’ that’s been grown in different places.
This will be a chance to do all the steps in the first retted straw of the 2025 crops for comparison of both different seasons and seed varieties.
Participants wishing to plant their own crops will be directed to a local seed grower for local flax seed.
Urban Fleece Sale
Sunday May 25th 12noon-4pm
A unique chance to purchase wool directly from the farmers in the heart of the city!
Susan and John Russell from Barnston Island will be present with bags of raw wool unwashed, and limited amounts of washed wool in smaller amounts. The day will include fleece washing demonstrations, spinning demos, displays of finished garments made with Barnston Island fleece. The Barnston flock is a beautiful small flock of sheep raised especially for their fibre. Fleeces are pure Gotland, or Gotland crossed with BFL, Romney, CVM, Charollais, or some combination of the above.
Find unique fleeces to spin for weaving, knitting or felting and dying. Many white fleeces and coloured fleeces, especially the blue tone grey fleeces for which Gotlands are famous for. Expect a full and fun day with other local fibre people. Bring a cup for tea, your knitting, spinning- and especially any Barnston flock items you want to show others!
Bring Cash for fleece; prices range approx. from $12-$ 30 a pound depending on the quality and breed for raw, unwashed wool. Full fleeces are between 4 to 7 pounds.
Patchwork Programs & Membership
For 2025 we are trying something a little different…
Announcing ourMembership Program that gives access to register for what we are calling our Patchwork Programming. Being an EartHand Member is a way to connect more deeply to a community of folx interested in learning together- how we tend both the gardens and our community network.
We hope this can serve as a ‘choose your own learning adventure’ style of programming for our community. Also, our Members’ Friday Night Drop-in Socials happening from late April to early October provide lots of time for people to meet each other, pollinate ideas for new skill-learning pods and slowly continue to build the collective infrastructure that keeps us gathering in good ways.
Expect a few public Open Studio dates to be added to our calendar, and other Patchwork Programs still to be announced.
Purchase your Membership soon to get early access to the booking form for these programs.
Ongoing on most Fridays 3-7pm from April 25 to October 3
First Friday each month- Friendly Fridays! Members bring a friend night
Sunday March 1612noon to 4pm
Meet and greet, work and garden planning launch at Trillium.
A start to our year of working together! Lets sow some seeds, literally and metaphorically… expect some seed tray starts and direct sowing in the afternoon along with conversations about what things we want to grow in our community ecosystem, what seed-like skills or ideas are you bringing to share? A chance to meet each other, drink garden tea, visit the plants waking up in the garden and familiarize with our seasonal calendar of tasks and find places you would be interested to participate.
Sliding Scale $125, $100 and $75 includes materials
Begin your journey to the ancient art of making stone tools!
Local master knapper, Harley Slade guides a workshop introducing students to the various skills required to shape suitable rocks such as obsidian, chert, glass and ceramic into useful cutting tools, arrowheads, knives, spear points and chisels.
Learn to strike flakes from a rock! Learn to pressure flake.
Ground yourself in the local history of materials and methods of this and other regions.
This three hour comprehensive course can serve both the novice and adept practitioner.
Botanical Spring Printing
Saturday April 12th 11-4.30pm
Sliding scale of $150, $125, $100
This celebratory day of printing on linens will focus on highlighting the high-tannin leaves of spring and offers a chance to explore the chemical and colour results from the exciting relationship between tannin and iron. Linen square swatches suitable for quilting, small textile projects and patching will be provided and participants are invited to bring one small cellulose fibre garment –clean and scoured, tank tops, t-shirts or light weight linen shirts ready for a quick iron mordant before bundling.
Expect strong black/dark tone botanical image transfers and generally muted prints.
Participants are encouraged to attend stewardship sessions and the Friday socials leading up to the program to help in the gathering and preparation for the session.
Bark Basketry Spring Intensive:
2 Days: April 26 and 27 Sa. 10am-4pm, Su. 11am-4pm
Instructor: Sandra Vander Schaaf
Sliding scale $ 280, $250, $220
This weekend program is a wonderful opportunity to spend time working with the beautiful willow bark coming from the urban learning gardens under EartHand’s care. Hosted during the spring bark harvesting window, participants will be able to strip some bark from our local willow, and explore techniques from plain weaving, twining and more with simple finishing edges. Expect other locally bountiful plant fibres to make some guest appearances too! Participants can expect to leave with a small completed basket (or two)
Please note this workshop is outdoors and undercover as required. Please be prepared to dress warmly for the weather, bring a cup for tea and your personal lunch and snacks.
Members are encouraged to attend the Friday night socials in the weeks leading up to the workshop for assisting in bark stripping, and the stewardship nights for branch harvesting.
Material gathering and processing dates: Tuesday April 15, 22
Tube Building Made Easy!
3 Saturdays 1-4pm, May 10, May 31, June 21
Instructor: David Gowman
$285, $250.00, $215.00 materials included
Are you tired of inhabiting a world without the skill to rebuild society from the tube up?
Do you find yourself staring idly at sticks and wishing out loud,
‘Gee, wouldn’t it be great if I could make that hollow?’
Look no further, friend, for these skills are not only available, but ancient and respected.
David Gowman, local instrument builder, leads a three day course in multi-purpose elderberry tube manufacture using hand tools and garden sourced wood.
Participants will learn to crack, halve, scrape out and rejoin an elderberry stave. Other skills encountered are scraper manufacture, mouthpiece carving, binding and tube joinery. Applications of wooden tubes include: flutes, trumpets, whistles, oboes, saxophones, clarinets, campfire puffers, underwater breathing pipes, storage containers and drinking straws.
Previous carving skill is an asset, but not required. Adults only.
Wild Fibres for Textiles and Basketry
5 Saturdays 10am-4pm, June 14, July 19, Aug 16, Sept 20, Oct 18
Instructor: Sharon Kallis
Sliding scale $750, $625, $500
These sessions will provide opportunity for seasonal witnessing, tending, gathering and processing of plants both native and introduced growing in The EartHand urban learning gardens.
Participants will leave each session with fibre bundles for personal use, a growing knowledge base of the seasonal support we can offer the plants we are working with and inspiration for personal basketry and textile work. Research time over the various sessions will include exploring retting and cooking treatments of barks for softening fibres and fibre processing to spun and twisted line. Plants we will be working with include nettles, fireweed, dogbane, blackberry, various wood barks and more. Each session includes some hand processing of fibres for collective equitable sharing amongst the group. Participants are strongly encouraged to come out to the Tuesday or Wednesday evening stewardship sessions as they are able.
Bast Fibre Spinners Cohort
Sunday June 22 12-4pm
Instructor: Sharon Kallis
Sliding Scale $130, $100 and $75 includes some materials
An intensive afternoon session focused on technique and skill building in spinning flax and other baste fibres. Let’s play around with fibre blending; spinning blended tow, work on spinning mid length fibres from the fold and get ambitious on dressing distaffs!
This afternoon session is a time to connect in-person with a group of similar focused fibre folx. A slack channel will be set up for the group to stay in touch virtually and find times informally to meet up. Cohort members are encouraged to keep gathering to spin at the Friday socials and to put September 20 on their calendar for the Worldwide Spin in Public day at Trillium!
Some previous experience with a drop spindle is required, some fibres are supplied, participants encouraged to bring fibres along to share if possible.
Tansy Green Day Wool Dye Session
Saturday June 14 11am-4pm
Instructor: CZarina Lobo
Sliding scale of $160, $135, $110 includes all materials
A focus on spring greens, especially tansy pre-flower, offering a lovely range from soft cool yellows through to vibrant greens. Iron modifiers and dying portions of both a white and a grey fleece will give a full range of green heathered tones. Washing and mordanting fleeces and some harvesting for the dye session will be attended to during Friday night member socials leaving the studio day for focusing on the plant processing, dye pots and post dye modifications.
Two Barnston Island fleeces that are a gotland/romneyX or gotland/BFL X that will blend together well in a finished project will be split between the three single dye sessions we are offering. Based on raw wool weight, we anticipate approximately 100 gms of dyed wool going home each day with each participant. Participants are strongly encouraged to attend either stewardship sessions or the Friday socials in the few weeks leading up to the studio day.
Willow Market Baskets with Catherine Langevin
Sat and Sun June 28 and 29 10-5pm
( Full program, waitlist being accepted)
Sliding Scale is $ 450, $410, $370
Extra Monday session $ 85
Participants will be making market-style stake and strand willow baskets with an oval base. Techniques include french randing, 3 rod wale, and twining. Leather cross-body strap in is included and participants will be using willow from Salt Spring Island.
Optional Monday: for folx wanting to be more ambitious and weave slightly larger baskets, a Monday session could give extended time to weave an alternate border with either a single willow handle or two rope-style willow handles. Minimum 2 people required for going forward
Monday June 30th extended time 12-5pm $85 ( must be confirmed prior to weekend start)
Instructors bio:
“Catherine Langevin is a willow weaver based in Qathet, British Columbia, with a focus on creating sustainable, functional pieces like foraging baskets, backpacks, and home decor. Her work is inspired by a deep commitment to living gently with the earth, with each creation reflecting this intention. Beyond her craft, Catherine is passionate about teaching. She offers weaving workshops across the Sunshine Coast, Lower Mainland, and Vancouver Island, where she shares her love of weaving and empowers others to create their own sustainable woven pieces, fostering a sense of community and environmental mindfulness.”
Summer Yellows Wool Dye Session
Sunday July 27 11am to 4 pm
Instructor: Carla Frenkel
Sliding scale of $160, $135, $110 includes all materials
Exploring the seasonal bounty in the gardens mid-summer including weld, goldenrod, mahonia bark and other plants/funghi in season offering a multitude of yellow dyes on a white and grey fleece.
Washing and mordanting fleeces and some harvesting for the dye session will be attended to during Friday night member socials leaving the studio day for focusing on the plant processing, dye pots and post-dye modifications.
Two Barnston Island fleeces that are a gotland/romneyX or gotland/BFL X that will blend together well in a finished project will be split between the three single dye sessions we are offering. Based on raw wool weight, we anticipate approximately 100 gms of dyed wool going home each day with each participant.
Participants are strongly encouraged to attend either stewardship sessions or the Friday socials in the few weeks leading up to the studio day.
Grass, Barks and Braids Exploration
Thursday August 21 5.30-8.30pm
Intructors: Carla Frenkel and Sharon Kallis
Sliding scale: $100, $75, $50
Join Sharon and Carla for an informal play night with the local grasses and expanding our capacity of braids. Let’s talk about all things bias- the benefit and utility of braids is in the flexibility! We will explore some core skills and make some samples that could lead to future ambitious cohorts such as braided hats, bags and more. Fibres we will have available to
explore include the abundant grasses at Trillium, as well as barks, fireweed, blackberry and sedges.
Members in the Wild Fibres for Textile and Basketry program will find this a helpful chance to explore techniques they can use with their own fibre stash, but all members are welcome.
Autumn Botanical Prints
Sunday September 21 11-4pm
(FULL PROGRAM membership waitlist )
Intructor: CZarina Lobo
Sliding scale of $150, $125, $100
This autumn dye session will focus on printing on post consumer linen using tannin and alum as a mordant for bright and bold colours and prints that celebrate autumnal abundance such as coreopsis, marigolds, fallen leaves and other seasonal offerings.
Linen square swatches suitable for quilting, small textile projects and patching will be provided and participants are invited to bring one small cellulose fibre garment –clean and scoured, tank tops, t-shirts or light weight linen shirts ready for a quick iron mordant before bundling.
Expect strong black/dark tone botanical image transfers and generally muted prints.
Participants are encouraged to attend stewardship sessions and the Friday socials leading up to the program to help in the gathering and preparation for the session.
Autumnal Reds Wool Dye Day
Saturday October 4th 11am-4pm
(FULL PROGRAM, membership waitlist )
Instructor: Sharon Kallis
Sliding scale of $160, $135, $110 includes all materials
Dying with our local madder and coreopsis, a journey from pinks to salmons, warm reds and burnt orange brings some warmth to our cold autumn days.
Washing and mordanting fleeces and some harvesting for the dye session will be attended to during Friday night member socials leaving the studio day for focusing on the plant processing, dye pots and post-dye modifications.
Two Barnston Island fleeces that are a gotland/romneyX or gotland/BFL X that will blend together well in a finished project will be split between the three single dye sessions we are offering. Based on raw wool weight, we anticipate approximately 100 gms of dyed wool going home each day with each participant.
Participants are strongly encouraged to attend either stewardship sessions or the Friday socials in the few weeks leading up to the studio day.
Mushroom Introduction and Appreciation weekend!
October 18th – meet at Trillium and carpool or at Strathcona Community garden
October 19th – at Trillium
Sliding scale $ 280, $250, $220
A local foray into looking for mushrooms in the Strathcona area, discussion around identification, ecosystems and reciprocity,
Instructors: Carla Frenkel and TBC, more information on this program to follow!
While the plants are dormant we can do both the garden work of harvesting willow, but also the big picture work of how we want to grow our community.
EartHand has spent the last year (not-so) quietly doing some deep-dives into understanding what our values are as well as researching systems for collectivizing ourselves. We are thrilled to bring this work back to the community for consideration and adaptation so we can co-create space for more individuals to step in and hold the labour of keeping the community functioning as a supportive community we are all proud to be participating in for our skill learning journeys.
Throughout this research time, an idea that kept popping up related to how our work circles around tending the two Environmental Learning Gardens of Trillium and Means of Production. The gardens are what we think of as the source for our Urban FibreShed, but how to think of the circles of individuals that gather with us all on varying learning and sharing journeys? I started to think of this as our SkillShed…. The collective of individuals who show up in various ways bringing what they can to join events or learning opportunities in a variety of ways.
Are you interested in being more involved in creating your dream SkillShed, a community formed around both tending the learning gardens, that also tends to our collective in a mutually supportive environment? I hope you can join us in person at the Strathcona Community Garden Eco-pavilion on Saturday January 25th from 10.30am to 4.30 pm. This date will also be an opportunity to hear back what we have heard folx are interested in learning with us this year!
We have also set the date for our virtual AGM on Saturday Feb 22, a virtual meeting that will also be the unveiling for 2025 program lineup. Get a ticket here to join us!
And regarding all that willow to harvest… over the coming weeks we will have periodic semi- impromptu harvests as the weather forecast and schedules allow. Often this will be on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon. Are you interested in joining in?
email earthandgleaners(at)gmail.com with willow in the heading and I will send along an invite to our Slack channel where all the good stewardship things get posted.
Meanwhile, I hope to spend as much time in the weeks ahead with view from the trees something like this…
For many years now, EartHand has hosted a community event at the beginning of November as a part of our participating in the Heart of The City Festival.
Guided by the theme Threads of Connection, the 2024 Festival features 100 plus live and online events showcased at 40 plus local venues over twelve days – both indoors and out – including music, stories, poetry, theatre, ceremony, films, dance, readings, forums, workshops, discussions, gallery exhibits, art talks, history walks and more.
This 2024 Festival is also a special ‘turning of the wheel year’. As fall rolls into winter and winter rolls into spring, Vancouver Moving Theatre / Heart of the City Festival co-founders Terry Hunter, C.M. and Savannah Walling, C.M. are announcing their retirement as of July 2025 following their final 2024 – 2025 season with Vancouver Moving Theatre.
For EartHand, we of course were thrilled at the theme Threads of Connection as fibre-work is at the heart of our community. It seemed a perfect time to celebrate a community relationship that has quietly been building with our neighbours at Ancestral Foodways in Strathcona park, especially since our “usual date” for the festival landed on Día De Los Muertos!
Threads of Support & Resilience – EartHand Gleaners Community Celebration at Trillium Park, and procession to Ancestral Foodways Día De Los Muertos Festival at Strathcona Park
Join Us!
November 2nd
12noon- 1.30pmMending Circle– free- pre-registration is required ( Trillium Park)
During our lives, cloth acts as our second skin and when someone dies their clothing can be the closest physical link that remains. The intention of this mending circle is to gather, converse, and care for our loved ones through the act of repairing their garments.
Bring your chosen garment to the circle (clean is best for mending). Handspun and dyed wool and botanically printed linen available for stitching and darning with instruction for visible repairs. Hosted by Jennifer Brant & Anna Heywood-Jones. Outside under cover, dress for the weather. Free, with limited space,
1-4pm Community Celebration at Trillium Park ( Corner of Malkin and Thornton Streets)
Free- no registration required
Join EartHand for an afternoon of ropemaking, weaving, mending and storytelling. and join us for the procession to the shrine at the end of the afternoon led by artists from Still Moon Arts Society.
Opening Welcome with Martin Sparrow ~ storytelling with Rosemary Georgeson ~ropemaking and braiding activities with Amy Walker and Sharon Kallis ~assist Corinna Hammond with finishing the mats EartHand has been making for the ancestors shrine created by Ancestral Foodways. Traditional nourishment provided. Opening Welcome at 1.30pm,
Outside, dress for the weather!
4.30 Procession:
Join us for a slow contemplative procession from the Trillium gardens to the ancestors shrine in Strathcona Park and help us deliver the beautiful handcrafted offerings made by many hands during open studio events this past summer. Wear solid footwear for uneven ground, if weather is favourable the procession route may include 14 stairs and a walk through Strathcona community garden. Dress for the weather, bring an umbrella, expect some covered areas at Trillium and Strathcona Parks . Images of loved ones who have joined the ancestors for leaving at the shrine are welcome. Gentle musical accompaniment provided by Alex Chisholm and Carmen Rosen for the procession.
4pm – 8pm Día De Los Muertos Festival –Strathcona Park | 857 Malkin
Then, join Ancestral Food Ways for the evening Día De Los Muertos Festival at Strathcona Park! Immerse yourself in a vibrant mix of tradition and culture with music, dance, flowers, ceremonial fire and harvests that connect the living with our ancestors. Food will be shared with the public. Everyone is welcome!
Thank you to Vancouver Park Board Neighbourhood Matching Program for making the events (and hand made objects) EartHand is contributing to this event possible, and thank you to the many people who contributed their time over the summer open studio sessions to make the beautiful woven glass lanterns and mats from upcycled linen bed sheets dyed with plants from our garden.
To Be Continued… picking up the threads of local textile conversations from travel in the UK
This slightly eclectic conversation series is Sharon Kallis’ way of bringing home the stories from some of the people met along the way on her summer research trip.
The name of this series is inspired by how sheep farmer Susan Russell ends conversations,” to be continued”, acknowledging there is always more to say, more to do, more to share.
As many groups and individuals work at building back local textile systems, or learning what it takes to truly clothe ourselves through respectful relationships to place, people, plants and animals, there is always more to learn- more threads to be gathered up and woven together.
This series hopes to amplify the voices of some of these folks doing work in the UK and inspire others for what might be possible in their own community.
Keep an eye on this post for updates as new conversations are scheduled, or watch our events page for new listings!
Claire will share her research into the rich history of hemp farming in East Anglia as well as share current successes, challenges and the next steps for invigorating the hemp industry. Learn how Claire and her partner Kitty Wilson Brown are honouring agricultural and textile traditions while looking ahead towards contemporary, small-scale, artisanal projects.
Part presentation, part conversation, those interested are encouraged to join for the zoom talk. A recording will be made available of the presentation, the conversation will not be recorded.
with Allan Brown- unpicking the labour of growing a garment from soil to closet
Over the studio days spent together, Allan and Sharon had several conversations that touched on notions of speculative future textile economies.
This conversation aims to pick up those threads:
Where do they each see moments for ‘curated inefficiencies’ vs efficiency through mechanization, in the many steps to growing a garment?
With these ideas in mind, what kinds of local grow-to-wear community ecosystems can we collectively dream up?
With luck, this conversation leads to some questions being generated that EartHand can return to as this series continues. The presentation will be recorded and shared at a later time on EartHand’s YouTube channel, but join us and be a part of the conversation!
Zoe was recently awarded a Churchill Fellowship to explore building resilience through bioregional material production centred on nature and community. Exploring Europe by train and North America online to look for knowledge, small scale machinery and cooperative models to support the growing, processing and production of bast fibres such as flax and hemp. Zoe has also founded the UK Bast Fibre Network and the Bast Fibre Commons to aid in collective learning; connecting groups and individuals pursuing localized small scale bast fibre production.
Join us for this presentation and conversation where Zoe will share highlights and reflections from her research and we consider what feels transferable to a Canadian scale of geography from some of the European models studied. The presentation will be recorded and shared at a later time on EartHand’s YouTube channel, but join us and be a part of the conversation! Read Zoe’s Bioregional Resillience through Bast Fibres Report here.
Keep an eye on this post for updates as this series continues to unfold…To Be Continued!
flax at trilliumlupins in bloomharvesting flax at MOPsummer nettle harvest
The learning gardens under our care have been hopping with activity; and at Trillium the new St Paul’s hospital continues to rise – look for the changes in the background of Trillium photos facing West!
Our Land & Body Tea-Care program included so many beautiful shared learnings from Jess Vaira and we hope we can have her with us again next year. Just a sampling of the flowers we spent time with in the garden include nootka rose petals, lavender, yarrow, plantain, mint, lavender, lemon balm and fireweed. We quickly realized the allotted 2 hours for this program was not nearly enough, and all agreed to stay an extra hour every week to let the sessions unfold as they needed. We also realized that there is so much to learn and share beyond the time constraints of this seasonal program- so expect us to be revisiting this type of program at different times of year too.
The Soil to Skin: Relational Clothing Cohort is meeting monthly with Sharon Kallis and collectively processing 4 fleeces, while sharing the labour (and some of the spinning), for local flax to become spun linen. The cohort is also active in tending plants during stewardship sessions that give us dye for our fibres. We have had a few side adventures into community, including helping the Sparrow family with salmon canning for the smoke house, helping at a mending night with Still Moon Arts Society, and participants will be present to help at future community events. It has been an incredible experience to witness the skills and strengths of the group come together, collectively making all the decisions for our collective- yet individual – colour range. There is an undercurrent of deep work happening here in practicing group decision making that will most certainly be brought forward into the Collective Land Care decision methodologies!
The Indigo Sessions with Anna Heywood-Jones cohort has been busy at work getting many plants started, doing the early-season work of pinching off plants to increase bushiness, trialing pigment extraction with the leaves removed and rooting new plants from the cuttings. The channel for this group on the communication system EartHand uses has been busy as folx test out pigment extractions, sample test fermenting leaves and more!
credit: Erin Brown John
Botanical Printing, Dying & Stitchwork: From Salvage to Future Heirloom
As we follow the seasonal palette of color offerings in the gardens led by CZarina Lobo, our colors so far celebrate the variations of chartreuse, cool greens, warm yellows, khaki, and many variations with plants such as weld, marigold, willow, and yarrow. In our prints, mordanting and print options have been explored, including Tataki-zomé and the potential found in lady’s mantle for beautiful prints on iron-dipped cloth due to its high tannin content. Autumn and winter will find dyepots shifting into oranges, reds, and purple tones before we head into our separate studios to continue our making/stitching time together online.
Our summer drop in open studios began the process of dying post consumer linen strips with plants from the gardens, and we are very excited at the test strips being woven by Corrina Hammond in her local studio as we to making mats as community gifts for a future project!
flower picking for future dye pots
EartHand has a weekly rhythm for tending the gardens on regular summer evenings, and many of these sessions become social gatherings and informal skill share and networking opportunities too.
If you are interested in being a volunteer steward in our gardens or being in one of our long durational programs such as those described above, watch for volunteer orientation opportunities or longer durational program announcements early in the new year!
felting name tags at volunteer appreciation eventtending to the plants at MOPEYA youth stewards gathering fireweed
Here are a few sweet dates to know about for where you will find us for more learning opportunities!
Sunday September 8th 11am-2pm
Community East Van Celebration
Find us at the centre of the action- right in the middle of McSpadden Park for the annual McSpadden County Fair! Anna Heywood Jones and some great community volunteers from our Relational Clothing: Soil to Skin Cohort will be on hand, teaching rope making, demonstrating spinning, and generally leading by example on where the fibre party is at.
Saturday October 26 10am-4pm
Exploring Basketry: an introduction to soft plant fibres
This one day immersive program is a gentle dive into handwork with natural materials such as willow bark, daylily, crocosmia, english ivy, dandelion, and other locally bountiful plant fibres.
Do you have a garment that belonged to a loved one who has passed on?
Does it need some special attention; perhaps a patch added, or a hole darned?
During our lives, cloth acts as our second skin and when someone dies their clothing can be the closest physical link that remains. The intention of this mending circle is to gather, converse, and care for our loved ones through the act of repairing their garments. This free event has a small # of spaces, registration opens on October 2, visit this page for more information and to register.
Saturday November 2 1-4pm- and onwards into the evening
Spend the afternoon with us at Trillium Park, then join our procession to the ancestor shrine Ancestral Foodways will be hosting at the Strthcona Fieldhouse.
There are so many things planned for this day- you don’t want to miss it! Book the afternoon and evening and stay tuned for more information as the day nears.
busy handsharvesting seasonal bountystewardship timeopen studio sessionstea gathering program
While the gardens and outdoor learning spaces have been active this year, ‘underground’, we are investigating how our collective roots might grow.
Last January, our group of researchers began the 9 week online program, How to Start a Coop with Young Agrarians. There was so much amazing information and learned knowledge presented to us! When garden work subsides we will be circling back to the resources we have now on file while meanwhile information gathering is still ongoing.
The Collective Land-Care research cohort (CLC) coalesced the learnings, sharing it with our board of directors, (it helps that 4 of the researchers joined the board) -and collectively the board and CLC cohort has begun drawing up a seasonal wheel to better understand the interconnected work rhythms of EartHand.
Sharon has also tracked hours for work in different divisions of labour from website work, program development, gardens, community and more – in general we are establishing a solid profile of what is required to cover the EartHand invisible care work that keeps us gathering.
Our next step is an online survey will help us assess the needs, desire and capacity of our community of skill holders- How can EartHand best support them going forward to both continue learning and growing while skill/knowledge sharing and be paid an appropriate amount?
As we navigate what it means to be the current witnesses and stewards of this Coast Salish stolen land, we are continually learning and evolving how we be good allies for Indigenous skill holders and skill seekers. This learning and self reflection time includes listening-work towards better understanding how the EartHand community as a whole and through specific actions of reciprocity can grow as allies.
Future steps in the months ahead will include an online poll to our wider community of skill seekers to better gauge interests in types of learning programs and various styles of collectivism we might envision.
Keep your eye out for ‘open house’ conversation jams both in person and online in early 2025 as we share what we are hearing from folx!
Meanwhile: Here are some of the resources shared in our workshop time with Young Agrarians we think are worth knowing about.
~ Have you heard of Holocracy? We thought it was a pretty cool business model for collective action and individual autonomy
~ Alternative collective accounting software- Open Collective
Jess Vaira in the gardenAnna Heywood Jones in the studio
Two programs start up this May that offer different types of opportunities to think about our relationship to plants, our interdependence and cultural connections.
Jess Vaira is leading our Land & Body: Tea-Care Cohort, a group that will gather over 4 Sunday mornings this Spring to tend the plants that offer nourishment, have time for gathering, taste sampling, and be drying and saving teas for personal use from the gardens.
Jess has been volunteering in the Trillium garden as a steward for a few years and we are thrilled to have her leap into this new role with us that brings one of her many passions and areas of knowledge to our community.
A serial creative, Jess Vaira is a maker at heart. Whether the medium is textiles, music, plants, or community she strives to create things that are purposeful, authentic and as gentle on the environment as possible. Jess knows the importance of connecting people with nature through art and community and has a deep passion for sustainable textile/plant arts. An avid gardener, she has participated in many community gardens throughout Vancouver, woofed on an orchard in the Okanagan valley, volunteered at the Trillium Garden with the Earthand Gleaners Society and is currently working on a Herbology diploma program through Wild Rose.
Other training she brings to this program includes Spagyric tincture making/herbs w Holger Laerad at Gaia Garden 2012 and the Herbal Integration Course offered through Urban Herb School with Garliq 2013.
Anna Heywood Jones will be no stranger to those of you who have been following EartHand for a while. Anna was our Artist in Residence in 2022 and 2023, producing the incredible fibre and dye resource for us that you will find on the Our Fibre Shed page.
In 2023, Anna’s research focused on a deep dive into all things Indigo and we are so excited to be able to offer this class for Anna to share all of the learnings about the intricate, numerous (and sometimes mysterious ) ways of extracting pigment from fresh leaves and holding that colour on textile.
This program is intended as a learning studio – not for production dying- every participant will leave the program with a deep understanding of the full process from seed starts to finished textile, and have personal sampler libraries using both local raw fleece and local linen stricks as the fibres for dying. Over 4 Saturday afternoons meeting in May, July and September, this small cohort will have a dedicated Slack Channel for staying in touch between sessions.
Keep an eye on our Events Page for new program announcements, and register soon to avoid disappointment, class sizes are small!
EartHand Gleaners Society 