April 6 - 7, 2018

Fibre Fling 7 - Textile Art Show and Sale

Kitchissippi United Church, 630 Island Park Drive, Ottawa, Ontario

Hours: Friday 10 am - 8 pm and Saturday 10 am - 5 pm

Admission is $5.

High Tea will be available on Saturday for an additional $10.

Light refreshments are available throughout the show.

Out of the Box Fibre Artists and the Kitchissippi United Church invite you to a show and sale of Fibre and mixed media art on Friday and Saturday in the church hall.  Our membership included a wide range of fibre artists, many of whom belong to area guilds as well.  At last year’s show, 44 artists exhibited artworks such as art quilts, mixed media, framed works, felting, wearables, embroidery, dolls, beadwork, paper compositions and more.  The depth, quality, and originality of the work is truly inspiring!

As well, an extensive Sales area gives visitors an opportunity to purchase a variety of unique items including small framed artwork, wearables such as scarves, hats, and bags, jewelry, cards, handmade books, and an array of felting, stitchery, knitting and crochet and mixed media pieces.

A delicious high tea will be served on Saturday, April 9 by volunteers from Kitchissippi United Church.  Over the last 6 years, this partnership of Art and Tea has raised close to  $20,000 for the Stephen Lewis Foundations.  Since 2003, the Stephen Lewis Foundation has worked with community-level organizations to provide care and support to women, orphaned children, grandmothers and people living in the 15 African countries hardest hit by the global HIV & AIDS pandemic.  The Foundation’s work is supported by over 100,000 Canadians through individual donations, tribute gifts. Also, through the ‘Grandmothers to Grandmothers’ Campaign, over 240 Canadian Grandmother Groups provide African grandmothers with food, health care, and essential needs for their grandchildren.

For more information about the Stephen Lewis Foundation, please visit their website at www.stephenlewisfoundation.org

For more details about this show and sale, please contact Lorraine Lacroix (lorraine.lacroix613@gmail.com) or visit our website at www.out-of-the-box.org.

Learn About Spinning and Weaving in Upper Canada

Domestic fibre production and processing, which included spinning, dyeing, knitting, and weaving to produce finished textiles, were essential for survival during the early years of settlement in the rugged Canadian wilderness. On Saturday March 10 at 2 p.m. at the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum in Almonte, weaver Ellen Good will use re-enactment-style photos to describe the steps of basic textile production in the homes of Upper Canada’s early settlers. She will also demonstrate the huge impact of these activities (usually carried out by woman and girls at home) on the social and economic development of the emerging country.

Ellen established her home studio in Ompah,Ontario in 1981 after receiving a BFA in Textile Design from the Rochester Institute of Technology and has been producing unique and limited production textiles ever since. She has worked extensively with specialized dye techniques, such as Ikat and Loom Controlled Shibori to create colourful patterns in handwoven fabric.  Her work has been sold at local craft shows and galleries and she has taught at weaving and dyeing at guilds, schools, and conferences.
                                                                                                                                                                              
From 2001 to 2005 she was coordinator of the MERA (MacDonalds Corners and Elphin Recreation and Arts) Heritage Weaving Project in MacDonalds Corners, Ontario. The project involved the development of a training program to teach local women production weaving. The MERA weavers continue to produce handwoven items in the studio established in the MERA community centre during the program. In September of 2006, Ellen curated an exhibition of pioneer textile production artifacts at the Rideau Canal Museum in Smiths Falls. The exhibit became the basis for the book Fabrics of Pioneer Life: Tools of the Textile Arts, authored by Ellen and published with help from the Ontario Arts Council.

       In 2009, Ellen represented the Frontenac area at the Eastern Ontario Artists Marketplace at the Spring One of a Kind Show in Toronto and was also awarded the first annual, juried MERA Award for  Excellence in Fine Art or Fine Crafts. She was also a featured artisan at Cornerstone Fine Crafts in Kingston.

 From 2012 to 2017 she worked at Upper Canada Village in Morrisburg, Ontario as a period re-enactor and interpreter of weaving, spinning, and dying as it was done in a domestic setting in the mid-1800s.