Museum hosting demo day in conjunction with Fibre Arts exhibit

Last Friday Community Ties & Tapestries: Fibre Artists of the Rainy River Valley opened at the Fort Frances Museum and Cultural Centre. The exhibit of fibre arts brings together artisans from across the Rainy River District to showcase their crafts.

Among the crafts were hand-hooked rugs, knitting, quilting, and many other pieces using fibre media.

Simone LeBlanc is one of the many artists featured in the exhibit. She is also part of the Museum’s exhibit planning committee.

LeBlanc has been working with fibre for over 10 years in a variety of media.

“First (working) with quilting, sewing and knitting, then later I started dyeing and spinning yarn,” she said. “Most recently I have added felting and weaving to my fibre craft repertoire. Most fibre artists dabble in more than one fibre craft. The opportunities to learn and explore are endless.”

Weaving is the process of taking thread or other fibre and creating fabric out of it. Over the last few years, LeBlanc has steeped herself in the craft, even picking up her own loom.

“Weaving is one of the oldest crafts in history,” LeBlanc said. “Its origins have been traced back to the Neolithic era (10,200-2000 BC). The technique was further developed by the Ancient Egyptians. Some form of weaving is evident in most cultures, throughout the world.”

LeBlanc emphasized that the process is still very much in practice though maybe done more by machine these days.

“Woven fabrics continue to be used in our daily lives,” she said. “The upholstery on your furniture, your tablecloth and even your jeans are likely made of woven fabrics.Today these materials are made on highly automated equipment, but the technique and processes are very similar to what our ancestors did thousands of years ago.”

LeBlanc got into weaving via a demonstration very similar to what the museum is planning.

“My first hands-on experience with weaving was at a demonstration booth at the Manitoba Fibre Festival in 2019. I had the opportunity to try weaving on a table loom. I was amazed at how patterns formed just by changing the sequence of heddles that were lifted and dropped. I also watched a demonstration about tablet weaving. Tablet weaving is a technique developed by the vikings to make extremely strong decorative bands of fabrics.”

LeBlanc now has multiple looms so she can work on more than one weaving project at once.

“I purchased my first loom shortly after that (demonstration) experience. My first project was a set of napkins. Each napkin was different because I used a specific combination of dropping the heddles to create the patterns on each of the napkins. Since then, I have collected more looms. This allows me to have several projects on the go at one time. I have made wall tapestries, rugs, scarves, decorative bands and belts and lots of dish towels.”

This Saturday May 4, LeBlanc will be teaching a weaving workshop at the Fort Frances Museum entitled From Warp to Weft: Learn to weave. Participants in this workshop will learn how to calculate the required warp for a project, learn basic weaving terminology and learn two different techniques to warp a loom that can be used for rigid heddle, table or floor looms and learn basic techniques for weaving. Spaces are limited so if this is of interest, contact the Fort Frances Museum (807)274-7891. Cost is $15.

LeBlanc will also be a part of the demonstration day where some of the artists featured in the exhibit will come to demonstrate their artforms.

Many folks might not necessarily think of fibre art as art given much of it is functional such as knitting to make clothing, or making a rug to keep the floor warm.

“The first thing I think of as an example of beautiful and functional pieces of work is strained knitting (often referred to as Fair Isle knitting). In the strained knitting technique, the knitter holds a second yarn in the back of their piece that is periodically knit into the main body of the garment,” LeBlanc said. “This creates a warmer sweater/mitt/hat because of the second layer of yarn, without creating the bulk that would exist if knit with a thicker wool. This technique was popular in northern European sea-side countries (Scotland, Norway, Finland). The easy thing for the knitters to do would be to choose the same colour for both layers and knit a warm sweater. However, the knitters developed stunning patterns with vibrant colours to create a piece of art with their warm sweater. This becomes more impressive when you think about how much effort it was to create different colours. Not only did the crafter need to clean and spin the wool, they also had to source the dye plant and process it into usable dye and dye the yarn to create the motif. Similar examples of creating beauty with function can be found throughout the world. Sometimes the motifs are symbolic, spiritual, a sign of status, or simply an expression of love.”

LeBlanc encourages anyone with questions about the artistic style of fibre art to come down to the demo day at the museum.

“The Fibre Arts Demo Day at the Museum is a chance for visitors to learn about the various fibre crafts practiced in our local community,” LeBlanc said. “The visitors will get a chance to have hands-on experience and speak to skilled and passionate crafts people.

“We have rug hookers, spinners, weavers, sewists, felters and craftivists (activists who try to promote changes through crafting) coming to share their skills and knowledge, to name a few. Visitors will get a chance to learn about the ‘Sheep-to-sweater’ process - how wool becomes yarn and how yarn becomes clothing.”

The demo day is also not limited to crafters who are in the exhibit.

“We would happily welcome a few more volunteers to join us,” LeBlanc said. “If there is anyone who would be interested in demonstrating their fibre craft, please contact Samantha at the Museum. It would be great to have a few examples of the lesser known fibre crafts such as tatting, nalbinding, leatherwork or basket-making.”

Allan Bradbury, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Fort Frances Times