Many of you will join me in my excitement over this announcement — I’m finally teaching  a workshop on how to make the woven slippers! thanks due, as always, to Vladimir Yarish and his book, Plaited Basketry with Birch Bark.
Saturday February 6,  9:30am to 6:00pm including breaks
MacLean Park Fieldhouse, Strathcona
$125 including materials
Register on the Workshops page at EartHand.com.

For those of you who haven’t seen these slippers before, here’s a bit of background and some of my thoughts, based on a few years of making them in a variety of different materials:

I’ve been in love with Lapti, the Russian/Scandinavian woven slippers, since the moment I first saw one, on display at the Museum of Anthropology at UBC.  I swoon over their fascinating structure, and being able to make each shoe in one piece out of any flat, weave-able material, without needing a mould.
(I know you’re rolling your eyes and thinking “Geek!”, right?)

But these slippers catch the eyes and imaginations of everybody; when my kids went to school with their felt slippers, I had parents coming up to me to say they’d seen them and asking how they could get a pair for themselves or their kids, too. When I wore a pair of yucca slippers running an errand in the DTES, the street folks were equally keen to know about what I was wearing. Why is this? I wondered.

Well first of all, they’re cute, but not gooey; not amorphous like most felt footwear, slippers, and non-leather footwear, they look both comfy and sophisticated at the same time. And if you’re into the Luxe Handmade a la Etsy aesthetic, these slippers made in felt are an instant classic.

Second, they’re conspicuously hand-made. All baskets are hand-made (even the plastic $2 easter baskets at the dollar store…), but these look so obviously un-machined that they’re like headline ads for human ingenuity. Even non-weavers are instantly curious about how they’re made.

Third, going a bit deeper (and maybe being a geek about this), these slippers make the idea of making a pair of shoes more accessible to all of us. Making, and knowing how to make, imparts a powerful sense of agency and self-sufficiency. You don’t have to be a dedicated urban homesteader to feel the pull of a more direct experience of things, the satisfaction of making something real with your hands instead of touching buttons on a screen.

​So if the idea of making your own woven slippers appeals to you, please go to the Workshops page on EartHand.com — scroll down til you see the buttons to register for the Slippers Workshop — and grab yourself a spot in the group on February 6.

Citizen Science is something that we’re passionate about at EartHand, and we’re pleased to present this guest post by ecologist and EartHand Board President Jason Jones about the Audobon Society’s Christmas Bird Count – the longest running Citizen Science Bird project in the world – and birds at Trillium North Park.

If you would like to join our Citizen Science and Stewardship Group, please contact us with ‘Stewardship’ in the subject line.

All across the Americas in December and early January, wild bird enthusiasts bundle up and head outdoors to participate in their local Christmas Bird Count (CBC)

Started in 1900 by members of then-very-young Audubon Society, the CBC has grown to be one of the largest and longest Citizen Science projects in the world. In the 2014-15 CBC period in Canada alone, over 14,000 people participated in 460 separate counts tallying over 3.5 million birds. Data from the CBC allow scientists and conservationists to track changes in bird populations and distributions over a long period of time, thereby providing clues to how best protect species at risk and to provide an early warning system (a canary in a coal mine, if you will) for population declines of common species.

A critical aspects of these counts is that they are conducted in your backyard, both figuratively and literally. Indeed, one of the key findings of the CBC is an appreciation for how important green spaces in urban and suburban environments (including backyards) can be for birds at all times of year. In Trillium North Park alone, over 20 native bird species have been recorded in the past year in the small park, including some of the West Coast’s signature species like the Stellar’s Jay. Keep an eye out to see who you can see the next time you visit us at the park.

The first CBC in Vancouver was conducted in 1958. The 2015-6 CBC in Vancouver occurs today, December 20. The City’s 24-km radius count area is centered in Mount Pleasant and extends north into the North Shore Mountains, west to encompass all of the UBC peninsula and parts of Howe Sound, south through Richmond, and east to Burnaby Mountain. For more information on local CBC efforts and on local birding activities in general, check with Nature Vancouver

There are many things we can do to improve the value of our personal and community green spaces for the birds:

1. Keep cats indoors. Feral and pet cats kill millions of birds in North America each year.
2. Ensure that there is a source of clean, fresh water. Water can be a tremendously limiting resource for birds. Change water frequently to prevent stagnation and breeding of pest insects (e.g., mosquitoes).
3. Cultivate and encourage native plant species that provide food or shelter for birds (e.g., red flowering current or nodding onion for hummingbirds, elderberry for fruit eaters) and beneficial insects (e.g., asters, camas, yarrow).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we are very fortunate in Vancouver to have so many parks to visit and enjoy. It is important treat our communal public green spaces with the respect they deserve, not only for the value they provide wildlife but the value they provide our communities.

If you would like to join our Citizen Science and Stewardship Group, please contact us with ‘Stewardship’ in the subject line.

Jason Jones is a terrestrial ecologist and the president of the board of EartHand Gleaners Society.

Marina is an artist we respect very much, for the integrity of her practice, its breadth, and how she has helped to shape our city’s culture. Sharon interviewed Marina for the chapter on Celebrations of Honor and Respect in Common Threads: weaving community through collaborative eco-art, talking mostly about Marina’s work with Paula Jardine on the Night for All Souls held annually at Mountain View Cemetery in Vancouver.

Marina is often the mastermind behind the scenes, but she can also stand in front of you, and with genuine warmth and connection, open some windows on new ways of being and doing. Marina joined EartHand Gleaners at the Heart of the City Open House at Trillium Park last weekend, November 8th, bringing her ‘Travelling Apothecary Tea Room’, and giving us a taste of her practice in herbalism. Marina brings to her herbalism practice the same qualities that mark her art practice: empathy, compassion, and respect.

Marina will be leading a workshop in herbalism, Plant Based Medicine-Making for Community Immunity, on Sunday, January 17. Find the link to register on the Urban Weaving Retreats Fall 2015 page — scroll to the bottom.

Our Urban Cloth Project video is now complete, take a look, and find it and more videos on our new video and resource page.

https://vimeo.com/143698614

Many of you who follow us and have been to some of our events know how crazy we are about flax and linen.

For those of you who are new… did you know that linen and cotton are from completely different plants, and made from different parts of those plants? Linen is made from fibres in the skin of the flax plant! Did you know that flax grows readily in northern climates, while cotton does not; and that flax is one of humanity’s oldest know agricultural crops?

We’ll be exploring the wonder of the flax-to-line process and some of the stories and mythology that surround it in two Free, Family-Friendly events next weekend – outdoors, so dress for the weather!

1/ Saturday October 3 (10am-noon) Aberthau Flax=Fibre+Food Reprised! Aberthau Mansion (WPGCC), 4397 West 2nd Avenue, at Village Vancouver Demonstration Permaculture Garden (north of the Mansion, off of Marine Drive)

Register:  Ross Moster at ross@villagevancouver.ca or on the Village Vancouver website.

2/ Sunday October 4 (10am-2pm) Hastings Learning Garden Place-Making Festival, 3096 East Hastings

No registration required

The first day of fall was earlier this week, and we’re proud to present our fall Urban Weaving Retreats schedule! Find it under the Urban Weaving Retreats drop-down menu above.

Some highlights:

Guest artist Marina Szijarto will be sharing her practice in herbalism with us just in time for the cold-and-flu season — Plant Based Medicine Making for Community Immunity — Saturday afternoon, October 3, just a week and a half away!

Rebecca and Sharon will be leading at least three Urban Weaving Bootcamps — these are our crash courses in basic skills, to get you ramped up and ready to weave in one of our longer retreats.

Rebecca will be hosting another evening of Small Diagonal Plaited Baskets — with veneer for beginners; and for those of you familiar with the form already, using rough bark and yucca, and experimenting with corners — and in time to refresh for a Diagonal-Plaited Slippers retreat, early in the new year.

Sharon was busy this summer making herself the most enviable, hand-woven travel accessories imaginable for her time in Spain this fall. In December, she’ll be hosting a one-day retreat called Palm Pocket: Woven Hand Clutch, so that the rest of us may have the opportunity to make something as stylish as her accessories!