Lamb Race to Celebrate 19th Annual Fibrefest
Mark the weekend of September 13 and 14, 2014 on your calendars because you won’t want to miss the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum’s 19th annual Fibrefest. The two-day festival of textiles and fibre arts will close this year with a Lamb Race. At 4 pm on September 14th,
hundreds of wooden lambs will be thrown over the main falls in downtown
Almonte, and the owners of the first three lambs to reach the finish
line will win fabulous prizes. Tickets for the race will be on sale at
the Museum well ahead of the event.
At
three locations—the Museum, the Almonte Arena, and the Almonte Curling
Club—visitors will find demonstrations, vendors, and exhibits—a full
two-day festival of fibre arts! Local guilds will demonstrate spinning,
knitting, weaving, rug hooking, lacemaking, smocking and quilting.
Vendors include spinners, weavers, and fibre artists from across the
province, as well as quilt shops and alpaca farms. “That’s My Style,”
vintage clothing show and sale will have a large number of vintage
clothing dealers, giving patrons the opportunity to enjoy and purchase a
huge variety of vintage fashions in one location. Button Mania will
also return to Fibrefest this year, with displays of WW I era military
and fashion buttons, alongside button vendors. Members of the Ottawa Valley Button Club will be present to identify your special buttons.
New
this year will be Sort-a-Thon presented by Alpaca Ontario. If you are
curious about this wonderful little animal, here is your chance to meet
and greet them and to familiarize yourself with alpaca fibre and the
products made with it. Alpaca farmers will bring their fleece to the Sort-a-Thon where classers will assess it. It will then be sorted and batched ready for the mill. At
this point farmers can either sell their fibre or take it home and have
it processed for their own commercial needs. Come and check out this
fascinating process and see what the buzz is all about.
The
Friends of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum will again be
providing tea room services, featuring homemade goodies, beverages and
sandwiches all available at a reasonable price.
Two featured Artists: Frances Taylor & Reiko Sudo
Frances
Taylor of Ottawa works in a diverse range of media and frequently
incorporates recycled materials. She often hand-dyes her materials
(e.g., silks, mohair and other fibres) and uses semi-precious stones,
hand and machine embroidery, fabric paints and recycled copper wire to
achieve exciting textures and colours. Her goal is to make art that
stimulates the senses and communicates caring for the environment.
At the Museum: Reiko Sudo + NUNO
Reiko
Sudo is one of the founding members of the NUNO Corporation, an
innovative textile company based in Tokyo, Japan. Sudo’s textiles are
known for their combination of traditional techniques and experimental
effects. Her work has revolutionized textiles within interiors, fashion,
and art and has been shown around the world, including exhibitions at
MoMA, New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Victoria
& Albert Museum in the U.K.
This
exhibition celebrates Sudo’s 30-year association with NUNO while
providing a prototype for Canadian textiles artists and designers.
Twenty textiles designed by Sudo and her associates at NUNO will be
featured, and using the unique architectural elements of the Museum Sudo
will create a forest of fabric trees. The installation will also
provide an area where visitors and artisans can closely examine fabrics
and learn more about the material, techniques and concepts used to
create them.
The
Museum’s second floor features the permanent history exhibit “Fabric of
a Small Town,” which interprets how a piece of wool becomes a piece of
finished cloth and includes industrial machines used throughout the
process.
Whether
you are interested in art, history, clothing, or textiles or are just
looking for a great day out and about, Fibrefest will have something for
you.
Admission to Fibrefest is $5.00 per day, which includes access to all sites.
Michael Rikley-Lancaster
Executive Director / Curator
Mississippi Valley Textile Museum
National Historic Site
