While things were quiet at Craftfolk last week, I spent 4 days in an intensive botanical printing workshop. The class was hosted by Placer County artists Louisa Hunter and Jeannie Kaiser in their studio. Although I've worked for years with natural dyes in my quilting and embroidery practice, botanical printing is completely new to me. We learned about mordanting, under-dyeing, using dye blanket, iron dips, and other modifiers to get rich hues and crispy prints. We experiments with dozens of local plants including dogwood, redbud, dyer's coreopsis, black eyed susan, sulfur cosmos, black hollyhock, and kitkitdizzi. The results were inspiring and I can't wait to incorporate this techniques into my own projects.

One of my favorite things about the class was seeing Louise and Jeannie at work in their studio. The space is set up efficiently with both indoor and outdoor kitchens and lots of table space and work areas. They have been meeting weekly since the early days of the pandemic and have a regular botanical printing practice. They are consistently experimenting with different plants, dyes, and methods and it shows in the depth of their knowledge and techniques. As someone who dabbles in many crafts, it is refreshing to see how dedication to one medium offers a huge range of possibility and variability. I'm encouraged to go deeper in questioning the "standard practices" of some of my craft hobbies and seeing how I can push into new territory with my work.

Our final piece in the class was a custom dyed tee shirt. I had an old favorite shirt that was looking quite dingy, so I decided to overdye it with a madder blanket and botanical printing. You can see the process below in the before and after photos. What a fun class!

Craftfolk Update

As a reminder, we are looking for a new space for Craftfolk. We're on the look-out for a space (or series of spaces) where we can host workshops starting in September. We're looking for a mostly turn-key space with a kitchen, bathroom, large unfurnished room to hold workshops and events, and easy parking. We're open to sharing space with another business or having our own dedicated space. Ideally we'd like to start with a month-to-month lease, but are open to a longer commitment depending on the space. We'd like to stay in or near Colfax to keep the momentum going here. I am calling on this community to send me your ideas! Please hit reply to this email if you know of a space we should consider. Stay tuned via these weekly emails for general updates and announcements once we have our workshops back up and running.

This Week

Join us for Craft Club (4-6pm) Bluegrass & Old-Time Jam (6-7:30pm) this Thursday, July 30th at the Colfax Farmer's Market. Bring any craft project you want to work on and a chair. We provide the space and sweet treats to enjoy. RSVPs are helpful so we know how many cookies to bake, but walk-ins are also welcome. Anyone is welcome to come by to listen to the music and crafters are welcome to stay through the jam to listen and continue working on their projects.

We host a free craft supply swap each week at Craft Club. Drop off any new or gently used craft supplies, tools, books, magazines and other items another artists may be able to reuse. This is our way of facilitating access to materials for everyone and helping to reduce waste!

We'll be taking a break from workshops in August and will resume in the fall. Craft Club and the Bluegrass & Old-Time Jam will keep going all summer long. Hope to see you there!

Wishing you a creative week and hope to see you soon,
Gretchen

Gretchen Boyce
Founder, Craftfolk Collective

38 N. Main Street (rear unit), Colfax, CA 95713

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