Beginning Weaving

What better way to learn weaving than making a woven potholder at summer camp!? You take simple tools– a square weaving frame and crochet hook –and a bag of colorful cotton or wool “loopers.”  After a short time learning the basic idea, you’ll be weaving.

And the technique is easy too! First you select colors of loopers and stretch them across the frame to form the “warp” of the project. In this photo the warp is the different colored vertical strands. Then you weave another looper, alternating over and under each strand of the warp to form the weft.  Adding one (in this example, white) looper at a time, and alternating which strands go over and under, a dense colorful pattern begins to form. As you add more and more loopers, you’ll probably need a long crochet hook or other wire hook to pull the last couple of loopers into place.

This is real weaving.  Sure it’s a simple example, but that’s good when you are just beginning to learn.  The next step is varying the colors and weaving pattern of the strands.  There are even different shaped frames to make things even more interesting.  We also like starting with these potholder weaving projects because they don’t take too long to finish.

With the basic concept of weaving understood and practiced, campers can move on to one of the tabletop looms or even the wide floor-standing looms for their next, larger and more complicated, weaving projects.  Down at Curosty, the fiber arts activity cabin at camp, Rockbrook girls are learning to weave!

Dude, Do you Extrude?

One of the ceramics hand-building techniques we teach in Rockbrook pottery classes is extruding. This involves creating clay forms, or consistent shapes, by pressing clay through an extruder, a simple hand-powered machine. An extruder is really a piston of sorts operated by a lever. On one end of the piston’s cylinder is a wooden or metal plate called a die. Different dies have different shapes cut out of them. The whole thing works by filling the cylinder with clay, and pulling the lever of the extruder, thereby forcing the piston to push the clay through the die, and out in the shape of the cutout. It takes muscles to pull that lever, but it’s so cool to see the extruded clay come out!

Some dies extrude circular tubes, but there are also square, hexagonal and octagonal tubes as well. You can extrude slabs, coils and even half-spherical shapes. Extruders are great at making long, even forms of clay.

Of course, these shapes then can become the building blocks for more complex hand-building projects. Extruded clay can be combined to make really complex sculptures, for example when extruded tubes are cut at different angles and joined to make multi-sided vessels.

And don’t forget glazing and firing these pieces. Like all the pottery and ceramics projects at camp, the results are beautiful! Yep, at Rockbrook, we do extrude.

Cool Posters for Girls

Graphic artist Amanda Vissell has done it again and drawn four more super cool posters especially for girls. Each has a simple declaration and shows a girl smiling with great confidence and independence— “Explore,” Dream Big,” “Get Dirty,” and “Be You.” Click the image to see a larger version.

The artist explains:

I got down to basics a little more this time, imagining what we all need to see when we wake up in the morning. To know its not just okay to be who we are, but when we are ourselves we shine.

We love these posters because they line right up with camp, with the kind of encouragement and empowering experience time at Rockbrook provides our girls. Around here, we’re always exploring, creating something, dreaming up something imaginative. It’s just part of our daily life in the summer to be outside and get a little dirty in the forest. And perhaps most importantly, Rockbrook is a place where girls can relax and find the freedom and support to be their true selves. It’s where they can uncover hidden talents and admirable aspects of their personality. Camp is a magical place because, at least in part, it makes all of these possible.

Ready to explore? Let’s go!

Scoubidou, Boondoggle, Gimp

Originating in France and popular even today at summer camps worldwide, it’s what we call a lanyard. Did you know that “Scoubidou” (pronounced in your best french accent) is its original name? They’re called “Scoubies” for short, and can refer to either the colorful plastic strands used or the final project of repeated knots. Sometimes, when the material is braided, it is called a “Boondoggle,” a name that appears to have come from the boy scouts and their tradition of braiding a ring of leather straps to hold a neckerchief. This lanyard material is also referred to as “Gimp,” following the name for twisted treads (usually silk, cotton or wool) used as decorative trimming on dresses. Our familiar lanyards have quite a history!

The world record for the longest Scoubidou (Boondoggle, Gimp, Lanyard) is held by Manuela Dos Santos of Brancourt, France. On November 11, 2008, she finished her Scoubi— 1,673 feet and 2 inches! An amazing project. It makes us wonder if the strands she used were single long pieces or sections tied together.

Want to learn more? Check out these links:
Basic Lanyard patterns
Fun Scoubidou projects
Cool Boondoggle videos

Kids Learning Ceramics

Coming to one of Rockbrook’s camp sessions is a wonderful opportunity for kids to learn about ceramics. Instead of just “painting pottery,” where you apply glazes to pre-formed ceramic pieces, we start with real clay. It’s really one of the most satisfying parts— to start with a lump of what’s essentially soft, smooth mud, and learn how to change it into something beautiful and useful.

There are lots of ways to do that too. You might simply pinch and press the the clay to form a cup, for example, or you might first roll the clay into a long, snake-like coil which can then be stacked to make a dish of some sort. It’s a little more advanced technique, but you can also center a ball of clay on a spinning platter (“the wheel”), and shape it into a symmetrical bowl or cup. This is sometimes referred to as “throwing a pot on the wheel.” It’s almost magical to see. From the lump of clay, you carefully pull up the sides of a beautiful vessel.

These building techniques are just the beginning of what kids learn about ceramics while at camp. They also understand the complete process of drying what they make, glazing their pieces, and ultimately the finished results after firing everything in a kiln. Every summer ceramics is a hugely popular activity with the kids at Rockbrook. When you see what they learn, what they end up making, and how much fun they have doing it, you can see why!

Kids Love to Weave

Just about every day at Rockbrook you’ll find kids weaving down in Curosty, one of the nineteenth century log cabins at camp. And there are all kinds of looms in action and weaving techniques going on. You might see rope or finger weaving, for example. Girls could be using a flat lap loom. There are several sizes of tabletop looms, and for the more advanced weavers, kids could be weaving on large floor looms.

This photo shows Emma working on one of our great classic Leclerc floor looms. One of the fiber arts staff members set up the loom (something that takes a lot of time!) and then helped Emma design a pattern for her piece. If you look closely, those green tags are “cheat sheets” for the treadle pattern.

These floor looms take some time to learn how to operate, but with them, kids can weave nice wide fabrics in all sorts of cool designs. It’s a lot of fun, so come on! Let’s weave!

Make a Pillow!

Here’s a great camp crafts idea that you can do at home over the holidays. Make a pillow! Gather up scraps of cloth and decorative fabrics. Find some buttons, ribbon or yarn. And with a needle and thread, you are ready to sew. This is a simple hand sewing project that begins with laying out the shape of the pillow. Just a front and similarly sized back. But that’s just the start of it. The front and back can be an unusual shape (hearts! Circles! Diamonds!) Now comes the decoration, the different shapes sewn on top, the yarn letters that spell something, or the ribbon wrapping around the edge. These camp crafts ideas are virtually endless. When you have all the decoration done on each side of the pillow, you sew the front and back together leaving one side open. That’s where you then stuff the pillow with a polyester fiber to make it puffy and soft. Sew up that last opening and you’ve got a cool decorative pillow, designed and sewn by you!

Posters for Girls

Mark Frauenfelder alerts us to these really cool posters by the graphic artist Amanda Vissell. They are drawn especially for girls, each having a message inspiring confidence and independence. “I am my own Captain” is our favorite, but there’s also, “I can save myself,” “I am wild,” and “I am a maverick.” Click the image to see a larger version.

The artist explains:

I decided to make a line of posters for girls. In a world where girls grow up feeling like their value is how they look these are meant to be a friendly reminder that they can do anything. That they can dream up their lives and make it happen. In the end we all do, it’s just how big we dream.

Camp is another reminder that girls have untapped abilities, that they can do amazing things far beyond what they have even imagined thus far. Camp provides daily encouragement and support as girls step out in new ways. Over time, the girls who attend camp build up a book of empowering experiences from which they can draw later in life. Rockbrook is a place for girls chock full of moments proving each of these posters.

You are your own captain!