Browsing “DiYVR”

Isn’t cherry-blossom season, like, your most favourite time of year? Get your craft on and celebrate it.

Historic Joy Kogawa House, in Marpole, is the former home of the author. It now houses a writers-in-residence program and there’s a big project this winter to bring crafters and book-lovers together in a large-scale project.

Join Leanne Prain and Mandy Moore, co-authors of the book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti (Arsenal Pulp Press), as they cover the Joy Kogawa cherry tree in hundreds of knitted and crocheted cherry blossoms. This historic tree’s story is told in Joy Kogawa’s Naomi’s Tree, a picture book about friendship.

Over the last couple of months, knitters and crocheters have created hundreds of blossoms to adorn the tree. Help to stitch all of the cherry blossoms into place at Historic Joy Kogawa House on Sunday, March 6, 2 to 3:30pm.

There’s still time to contribute cherry blossoms! Some free patterns are listed on the Yarn Bombing website. Drop your finished blossoms in the covered bin you’ll find just down the steps from the sidewalk in front of the house at 1450 West 64th Avenue. Submissions will be accepted up until March 1, 2011. All cherry blossoms should be made out of pink yarn.

You can also mail in your knitted or crocheted cherry blossoms:

Historic Joy Kogawa House
1450 West 64th Avenue
Vancouver, B.C.  V6P 2N4

Turn on your heart light, Vancouver. Eschew store-bought Valentine’s platitudes this year and express yourself… yourself! And speaking of expressing yourself, Maker Faire Vancouver is coming in June. Come out for an info session to see what it’s all about.

Plush on Main, that delightful wee storefront featuring locally handmade wares, has a lovely workroom in back. Pop in there anytime between noon and 5PM this Saturday, February 12th, have a seat for a while, and whip up one of two Valentine’s Day craft kits they’ll have on hand. Make a linen heart garland from Needle and Nail, or a needle-felted heart from Blushing Lotus Designs (pictured).

Since it’s a casual drop-in and not a formal class, the cost of participating is only the cost of the kit, ranging from $14.95-$19.95.

Sign up for Plush’s newsletter to keep up on all their DIY or Die workshop and drop-in sessions.

Plush on Main
4296 Main Street Vancouver
604 708 5199

Also on Saturday, and unrelated to Valentine’s Day, Maker Faire Vancouver is having an open information session from 1-6PM at Vancouver Community Lab (Great Northern Way Campus). Maker Faire is like a giant two-day DIY, maker, crafter, tinkerer festival (check out this video to learn more). This is the first time one will be held in Vancouver – June 25-26th. Drop by the info session to learn more about the event, to find out about participating as a maker, and to pick up an application (they’ll also be online soon).

Vancouver Community Lab (Great Northern Way Campus)
525 Great Northern Way
building #3 unit #105

Buttons buttons everywhere. Learn to make your own wee piece of crafty art!

Local artisan Laura Bucci is offering collage-button-making workshops in her studio. The monthly workshops are $30 for a three-hour session, and participants make twenty (twenty!) 1.5″ pinback buttons or magnets of their own design using collage techniques, rubber stamping and fabric. The next workshop is this Saturday, 5th February; the one after is on Saturday, 12th March. Advanced registration required.

ETA: Laura is offering $5 off online registrations to this workshop! Just mention DiYVR.

Laura also offers a similar workshop for kids at the Britania Community Centre.

PS My apologies for my recent silence on the DiYVR front! My partner and I became adoptive parents quite suddenly at New Year’s, and I’m just now learning how to think through the sleep deprivation.

Expert handcrafting and high-end design make a beautiful couple, don’t you think?

Local design and manufacturing company Bocci has a glass-blowing studio on site. It’s pretty awesome to watch their high-end chandeliers be created right in front of you.

The manufacturing process, often involving expert hand-craftsmanship whether in glass or other mediums, is as important to the design team as the final design. As they say, “Bocci’s philosophy is that the form of an object should relate directly to the manner of its making. Instead of inventing form, we focus on inventing a process, and the process in turn yields form.”

And now Bocci is looking to produce a couple of three- to four-minute videos on the making of two of their products. To gain a fresh perspective, they’re having a contest to find a videographer. Here are the details, in Bocci’s words:

Please submit a video, maximum 30 seconds in length, about the “making of” a fried egg. Upload your video to YouTube and check “unlisted” in the privacy setting, then email the link of your video and your C/V to eggs@bocci.ca no later than February 1, 2011. Judging will occur in the first week of February by a panel consisting of Bocci’s board of directors (including Creative Director Omer Arbel), and the results will be announced on February 7th. The two final “making of” videos need to be complete no later than April 1st, 2011.

The winning candidate will receive a $5,000 fee (Canadian funds) and one sample of each of the pieces filmed, in exchange for the production of our two “making of” videos. The winner will also receive travel to and from Vancouver, living expenses (if required), and a modest reimbursable expense budget (to be discussed at a future date) for equipment rentals. Bocci already owns a Panasonic AG-HMC150 PU camera which may be employed to gather footage. The winning candidate will be credited in all of Bocci’s promotional material, including the debut of one of the two videos at Rossana Orlandi’s Gallery during the 2011 Milan Design Week.

Last week some friends treated my wife and I to a super fun DIY Holiday Night for Grownups at Collage Collage on Kingsway. In a previous post on V.I.A., Collage Collage was described as being “passionate about exploring creativity with children, and about carrying supplies and other goods that adults love, too.”. And while almost all of their programming is centered around children year round, this holiday season they’re offering up fun classes where us adults are given all of the supplies to get creative and make cards and ornaments while socializing.

The next one is tomorrow night, December 15th from 7-9PM. It’s $25 per person, registration is required and if you call quick you might be able to fill a couple of the last slots. As you’ll see below there’s only room for 8 or 10 at the table so act quick!

As you’ll also see below, you’re given a boatload of supplies to make stuff with, and one of the many joys of walking away with hand crafted cards and ornaments is that you don’t have to clean up your mess! The night was loads of fun but I must make the point that the cherry on the cake was looking at the mess of sparkles and googly eyes and laser-cut snowflakes and pinecones and glue sticks and other assorted stuff we had strewn about the table, asking “What do we do about this mess?” and being given the answer “You don’t do anything about this mess! You leave and we’ll clean it up.”. To me, that fact alone is worth the cost of registration.

Here’s the stuff I made, the card is a …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

I love when gallery artists work in traditional crafts media, don’t you?

If you’re not high-tailing it out of town to ski or get warm (or, uh, dry) in the next couple of weeks, make sure you stop by the Elliott Louis Gallery to see the Memories in Colour exhibition by Winnipeg artist Takashi Iwasaki. It closes December 31st. Oh man, the amazing embroidery he does!

Elliot Louis Gallery
258 E 1st Ave., Vancouver
Tuesday – Saturday, 10am – 6pm

[HT Leanne Prain, Vancouver author whose embroidery book will hit shelves in a few months]

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Image used with permission from the artist.