THE TREETOPS STUDIOS - SAANICHTON

NEWS FROM THE TREETOPS STUDIOS - 2007

31 December, 2007

Autumn    Well folks, the year is just about over. I am writing this update in those little bits of spare time that come to us in the midst of the holiday season. We have had a very pleasant autumn here. No serious storms, a bit less rainfall than usual and a lot of early frost. Nothing serious really, just several mornings a week since late October when dawn revealed white roofs and a bit of scrim on the lawns. The strawberries packed it in early. But the gladioli and the nonesuch, or Maltese cross (Lychnis chalcedonica), flourished right to the end. The end in this case was two or three inches of snow a few weeks ago. Just enough to take the snow shovel out for a bit of exercise before it all melted away.

One of the benefits of a mild late autumn in this part of Vancouver Island are the spectacular morning mists. On cool, calm, mornings with the temperature hovering just at freezing, great pillows of mist form over the low ground in the upper Hagan Creek Valley just northwest of the Studio. The slightest movement in the air pushes them around. The crest of the ridge that divides the eastern and western slopes of the Saanich Peninsula runs across our front yard. Again, the slightest change in air temperature and movement pushes thin wraiths of mist through the trees about the Studio. The photo on the right above was taken just as the sunlight began to slant up the street. The effect lasts only a few minutes. But when the conditions are right the camera sits at the ready on my desk as I go through the morning news and correspondence.    Top

New Things    Now, let's see what was new this past autumn. ...

Well, with a lead like that we just have to flip open that folder of photographs of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Here are some of their latest exploits. On the left above is Jason John, now three years old and finally able to get the "Rocking Harley" on the road. It is solidly built and very stable so it has taken him a while to get the hang of it. Late reports from Bowmanville tell us that he has mastered the 'rock it and lean' rhythm and can now cruise about the room.

On the right above ggson Aedan is caught nearly awash in a sea of Hallowe'en pumpkins. The expression on his face captures the usual; "Hmmm ... ." of a one-year-old thinking, as well as all of our wonder about orange having been considered as the 'Colour of 2007'    Top

Of course there were even newer things in the Studio as well. Elaine took advantage of the appearance of a new series of heavier weight alpaca blend yarns by Bernat to redesign an older studio series of leg warmers. Most leg warmers are utility items for the gym, the jogging path, or the ski slopes. They have to stand up to a lot of wear and a lot of washing. Nevertheless, the original commission for leg warmers from The Treetops Studios was for stylish workout accessories for the Granville Island scene in Vancouver. That commission became a part of our 2003 experiment in studio-plied cotton and woolen yarns. The young lady chose the fibre weights and colours she wanted and we plied them into a custom yarn for her. A design student, she even sat down at the knitting machine and ran off a few rows herself. Try for that customer-client relationship with your commercial supplier!

Elaine has been working with the finer weights of 100% alpaca yarns for several years, both the commercial products and the those available from local llama and alpaca growers. Bernat's yarn is an acrylic/alpaca blend. It is much more wear resistant than pure alpaca but knits into a fabric with a soft 'hand'.

The demand for sport accessories has continued. Since both the Christmas craft fairs and our 'wet season' were approaching, Elaine decided to test the market with a series of alpaca blend leg warmers. The set on the left above is a typical pair from a series in the natural alpaca colours. They sold very well. Elaine had to keep replenishing her stock between shows. The demand for the more colourful, and more durable, synthetic warmers stayed strong as well. The image on the right above shows some examples made up in a good quality nubbly acrylic yarn.

And what are those other things laid across the leg warmers you ask. Well, head bands of course. "After all, if the leg warmers would make a great Christmas present for your niece, why not an ensemble? In either alpaca or synthetic yarns? Yes, there are gloves and mittens to match. Yes, delivery before the holidays." Some clients took multiple sets.    Top

Christmas Shows    Let's end the year with a few words on the "Christmas Shows". They have become as much a part of the holiday season as the episodes of commercial madness at the big retail outlets. Commercialism, and imported imitations of 'craft' items are creeping in. But, for the moment at least, it is the friendlier and 'locally sourced' way to complete your gift list. Wherever you are reading this, the 2008 season is already being planned by charitable societies, churches, schools, etc. and the dozens to hundreds of artists and craftspersons in your area.

Each show is different. From the artisan's point of view the most important factors are the fees, space, access for setup and teardown, lighting, parking and the types of buyers and sellers the show attracts. As an established studio, with a strong commission list, we already work near capacity most of the year. So we look to the shows for the chance to try out new products, meet new clients and 'breathe some air' with new artists and friends that we don't see very often in the normal course of the year.

Let's let the images do most of the talking here. The picture on the left above is one of the Elaine's 'Stylish Wraps' draped on a half form standing on the floor. Not the best way to show. In this case, however, the event is being held in the new office space of our local community arts council. It was a bit crowded but we are big CACSP supporters. The image on the right above is from the best of the local shows that the Studio attends, 'Victorian Christmas' at the Saanich Commonwealth Place. This is a typical arrangement. Most shows provide an eight foot folding table, a chair and about 100 square feet of floor space. We built the vertical display racks years ago, out of yellow cedar, in a modified shoji screen pattern. Wherever possible we get a wall space to allow the best display for Elaine's larger wraps.

These images make it look as if a show is a static 'installation'. Not so! Elaine and her customers quickly become part of the display. And as items move out new ones come up from the stock bins under the table and the existing ones get rearranged to make the most attractive display. A good setup at a good show develops a life of its own. It's almost a sad thing to take a successful show down. But then, there is always the chance to do it all again next year.    Top

Happy New Year    That's as good a place to stop for 2007 as we can write. Here are Caitlin and Nicholas, the eldest of our gang of 'grands', to join in our New Year celebrations. (The kimonos are not a Treetops Studios design. We haven't turned our minds to designing Oriental styles for the western market. But, maybe ...   .) And, as always, the very best wishes from all of us to all of you for 2008. Take care of the those you love and help someone who needs you.    Top

15 September, 2007

Rebuilding & Repainting    Welcome back folks. The summer is just about over. And it has been almost as weird a season as the last winter. Not at all the 'dry season' that is the norm here on the Saanich Peninsula. This image shows the delightful little blue flowers that climb all over the split rock edges of our south side stepped garden. They usually only flower in the early spring and then fade away slowly as the sun's heat rises and the soil moisture falls. They are still going strong as I write - and well appreciated too, I might add. But what are they called? Any tips much appreciated.

The real focus of our activities over the past months has been exterior renovation. The house is now over twenty years old and a few things have had to be attended to. The easy one was complete exterior paint job. John's parents had repainted the exterior just before they passed away in 1994 but the wood stain exterior finish was showing its age. The underlying cedar lath siding was sound but needed a good deal of restoration where twenty seasons of winter rain and summer sun had created small splits and voids in the wood surface. As luck would have it, the best bid came from a painting and design team set up within the family of one of Elaine's knitting buddies.    Top

The two level deck on the back of the house was a bigger challenge. It is an addition we had built on to the original house in 1995. Although we got the proper permits, variance, a reputable contractor, inspections, etc. the footings had shifted about an inch down the bulldozed slope of glacial till that extended the original building lot into Graham Creek ravine. There was no reason to believe that the shift would not continue until the deck came down during one of the small earthquakes we have here on the coast every year or so. It took us about a year to arrange contractors for a small job in the midst of the frantic building boom going on in British Columbia. But that gave us lots of time to gather ideas and advice from the municipal staff, potential contractors and a neighbouring retired civil engineer.

In the end, we decided to have our contractor dismantle portions of the lower deck floor to get access to the footings, jack up the whole deck, remove the old footings, excavate four to five feet down to undisturbed hardpan, pour new footings, reset the deck on to them and then reassemble the structure, repairing any damage that had been done by the shifts. Along the way we had new braces added to stiffen whole structure against earthquake damage. The picture on the left shows the partially dismantled deck supported by a temporary beam (The orange coloured edge at the right centre of the image.) with a Bobcat® about to clear one of the original footings. It was a tricky job. The perspective in the image is confusing. A 45 degree slope cuts away down into the ravine from the upper edge of the grassed area across the middle of the image, only a yard or so from the work areas.

Yes, we did hold off doing the painting until after we had the deck rebuilt. And the rains delayed their return until we had everything almost done. In the meantime, gardens were being redesigned and relaid to take less care and to better show off the grounds. More miniature roses, more lavender, more azaleas, less heather. And, of course, some nice things always happen without being designed that way. While the back lawn got its moratorium from mowing to allow new grass seed to set, a colony of oregano appeared out of nowhere. At first sight it appeared to be just another weed patch, to be attended to when the new turf had firmed up. By the time of the first mowing the densely leafed patch covered nearly a square foot. As we use an electric mower, no fumes covered the delightful aroma after the first pass. We'll let the oregano winter over into next year, to see if it has spread from the existing oregano in the kitchen garden around the corner, or whether we have a new variety. Nice things happen ....    Top

Felting    Felting is all the rage this year of course. But it has been a hot topic in our area for a long time. Elaine took her first needle felting seminar in the summer of 2006. (Which gave John the excuse to put several needle felting accessories in her stocking last Christmas.) Usually the flow of quality yarn in the studio begins with a bulk purchase for one of Elaine's current projects. That is followed by the appearance of various shorts, thrums, and broken skeins of pure natural fibre in John's tapestry supply bins. Now, Elaine comes looking for pure wools for felted embellishments. Felting tolerates the differences in weight and spin that challenge the tapestry weaver and there are probably a thousand different colours in the studio's tapestry stock. Even a few feet of 'just the right shade' makes all the difference.

The two tea cozy sets above are made from machine knit, woollen, fabrics. The base pads have been heavily felted to create a stiff, insulating and water (or tea) resistant surface. The teapot covers are more lightly felted. They are flexible enough to be lifted on and off without catching on the spout and to be bunched about the handle to cushion and insulate the pouring hand. Elaine designed the embellishments and needle felted them on to the finished sets.    Top

Sorting Silks    John usually confines himself to the design of fabric arts pieces. But he has been slowly - read, 'very slowly' please - learning the rudiments of woven tapestry from the members of the Deep Cove Weavers and Spinners Guild. A group show scheduled for October, centering on the 'colours of white', seemed to provide an opportunity for his fabric arts début. A design inspired by Frederick Philip Grove's image of a snowflake glistening with rainbow colours in the essay 'A Call for Speed' in his 1922 Over Prairie Trails was worked up to fit the occasion.

Sadly, the execution was not up to the concept. John warped the Mirrix at eight ends per inch when six would have been appropriate. About half way to completion the work had distorted beyond saving. The warp had to be cleared and by then the submission date had passed. All is never lost in an active studio of course. The technical issues are resolved - hopefully - and the design has been simplified. On to the next show!

One element has survived without modification. The snowflake itself will still be presented as a motif separately woven over the background images of snow drifts, sky and snow clouds. Grove's image of a snowflake's rainbow sparkle will be created by silk and linen stranded floss in rainbow colours embroidered into the arms of the snowflake.

That part of the design prompted John to sort the silks that had come down to the studio a few years ago when we acquired his grandmother's work boxes. Here are the surviving silk skeins spread out in the light on a protective paper taped over the carving table in the workshop. Almost all the silk was recovered although some of it is badly damaged from as much as a century of being wound around bits of card or left in the pair of loose snarls visible in the foreground. As a bonus, a few old skeins of linen embroidery floss turned up among the silk. The whole collection is now "stashed away" in glassine envelops in a cool, dry, vermin-proof and neutral ph environment. All in all, the snowflake rainbow project has required only three purchases: a small skein of very white crewel weight wool, a small skein of fine bright white silk and a selection of DMC linen stranded floss - all from our local supplier Button & Needlework.    Top

Deer    Most of the land on the Saanich Peninsula is not available for development. As a result we still have a resident population of small deer. Some years we see very little of them. We know that they visit as they like to nibble berries, fruit and other moist things during the dry season. This year they have been very visible. Moist as our dry season was, they have still come right up into the back yard on several occasions. During one of our afternoon coffee breaks the visitor munched quietly among the wild flowers and grasses at the ravine edge, only looking up if we made a loud noise or sudden movement.

Usually there is not a camera right at hand. But sometimes there is! One of their trails comes up to the ravine edge just by our potting shed and composter. We were up on the new deck and a camera was at hand. Nice things happen ....    Top

The 140th Saanich Fall Fair    The theme for this year's Fall Fair was 'The Pioneer'. So lots of traditional needlework appeared in the displays. Since Elaine comes from a long tradition of functional needle crafters she created a few old-fashioned utility pieces to show how things used to be done. The pieces caught the spirit of the show. The all won the traditional blue ribbon.

The thingee on a coat hanger at the left above is a clothes pin holder. Hidden in its centre there is a stout bag, large enough to hold fifty to a hundred pins. All the rest is decoration to suit the taste of the needle woman and the contents of her scraps bag. Before the days of clothesline pulleys, and well before the days of 'No Clotheslines Permitted!, the bag was hung on the line in the yard and the housewife moved it along as she worked her way through the baskets of wash. Elaine was given one, made by an aunt, as a wedding present in 1967. (Yes. Forty great years to last June.) More recently, ours hangs on the door knob in the utility room when it is not in use. 'Recently' is relative of course. Our current one is more than twenty years old. On wash days, it gets to go out on to the upper level of the back deck and to hang from a loop on the pulley housing.

The image on the right above is, of course, the classic Phentex® slipper! Elaine learned to make them, from the same aunt, when she was about ten years old. This pair is machine knitted from thirteen different colours of Phentex yarn remnants. We're not superstitious. But then, having to put away 26 sets of 'woolies' by hand could be seen as a curse. The slippers are the only Phentex item produced in the studio. We keep a few pairs for visitors in the deacon's bench by the front door and two pair are ready to go into our travel bag when we go visiting.    Top

The tea cozy set at the left above shows how Elaine's needle felting imagination expanded as the summer wore on. This time she worked up a simple cartoon of a pear motif and then experimented with coloured wools to get the effect she was looking for. The baby bonnet on the right is done in synthetic yarn. It is part of a long production series of bonnets and blankets that our local 'Knit Knuts' machine knitting club donates to maternity units in the area. A blue ribbon activity by any standard.    Top

Author! Author!    John has published all kinds of things over the past 35 years. His most recent venture is the web publication of some of his haiku. Elaine has now joined the literary world with her first published article. It is a short essay drawn from her own experience of starting up in 'the craft fair circuit'. Look for it in the Autumn 2007 issue of Knitwords, "Sales Savvy", pages 22-3.    Top

9 June, 2007

Spring and Rice Paper    Well, it's still like March around here. The traditional start of the planting season in most of Canada is the 'Twenty-fourth of May'. That goes away back to the celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday. It was a school holiday until well after the war.

The 24th of May is the Queen's birthday.

If we don't get a holiday, we'll all run away!

That break evolved into a long weekend holiday before being replaced entirely by the 1 July 'Canada Day'. Nevertheless, there is something about the conjunction of soil temperature, soil moisture and hours of daylight that brings the gardeners into bloom in the last half of May. This year it hasn't quite come together that well. But there was lots of winter kill to clear away while we waited for the soil to warm up. The thyme and mints had been let run wild for too long. And we had decided to replace some overgrown banks of iris with miniature roses and open space. It still looks like a construction site in the rain and there are a lot of gaps for later plantings. The cool weather and the rains have helped the transplants. The Saanich Peninsula may be just on the edge of the coastal rainforest. But in most years there is very little rain from mid-June to mid-September. Lawns and gardens left unwatered in June begin to go dormant or dry out.    Top

John has been working on both western watercolour wash techniques and the Chinese ink and wash style through the winter and early spring. With all that 'indoors' weather he was ready for the invitation to participate with Andy Lou and Andy's other students in a group show, "The Beauty of Rice Paper", at Andy's A&A Gallery in the last part of April. The stock of Chinese papers acquired at Ning Yeh's Oriental Art Supply in Huntington Beach, California last summer came in handy too. The painting on the left above, 'Poplar and Wind' is on light pi paper, 'Spring - Old Wood, New Hope' is on double shuen and the right 'Huangshan Pines' is on thick pi.

'Huangshan Pines' did not make it to the show. Even thick pi, which is as tough as many western etching or printing papers, has to be backed before it can be safely stretched and mounted for framing. During the mounting process the painting is placed face down on a smooth surface. The back of the painting is moistened with a thin layer of gluten paste and a backing paper is pressed on. The technique has been used for centuries I suspect. After a few tries even a western student gets the hang of it.

However,   ...   John had used an older tube of white paint to underpaint the green and blue foliage of the pines. Perhaps the gum binder and the white pigment had separated. When the newly backed and still moist painting was peeled off the work surface most of the green and blue foliage marks were left behind. An unintended monoprint perhaps. But not the sort of painting being featured in the show. It isn't all a waste, of course. The original photographs and drawings are archived in the studio. The undamaged areas of the painting, including the hills set in fog banks in the upper right and the seal block in the lower right, have been cut off and filed away in the 'smallworks' folder. Some day they may even appear on this website as decorative inserts.

In the meantime, here we are at the showing. Elaine is wearing one of her new wraps, chosen to let the paintings be the colourful items at the show.    Top

The SPAC Show The 54th Annual Saanich Peninsula Arts & Crafts Society Show was a studio project as well. After three years on the job, John did not design the layout for this show. He did do all the interior signage again. It is strictly a utility job: a set of banners and placards, hand painted over computer generated templates, on 20 pound white kraft paper. They are designed to get the crowds from "A" to "B" with the least confusion and the minimum distraction from the works on display. Sign production, about thirty items large and small, does take over a small shop for two weeks. The image on the left below shows the project almost completed. The signs themselves don't survive the show. But, since the sign texts change only slowly from year to year we keep the templates in store.

As usual, the really artistic work that the Treetops Studios displays at each year's SPAC Show is contributed by Elaine. This year's three submissions were all in the wearable art mode. The knit, felted and embellished woman's vest shown on the right above is the most ambitious wearable since the 'Ruana of Many Colours' she entered at the 2005 SPAC Show. As with the ruana in its year, the felted vest won a Jurors' Choice seal. The other two items were a knit, felted and embellished handbag and a knit and felted woman's hat. The hat won another Jurors' Choice. The handbag didn't get the gold seal but it sold. Not too bad.    Top

1 March, 2007

Starting up 2007 at The Treetops Studios    Welcome back to 'News from The Treetops Studios' - and to the 2007 edition. If this is your first look at the Studio News, the Back Issues are available above. Just click on the year. If you are a new visitor to our Studio, you might like to Tour the Studios or Enter the main site after you have read the News. Then, the next time you return to the Studios, just click on the What's NEW on the Website? link when your browser opens our site. It's set up like our Studio News, with the most recent additions at the top of the listing.

A Real Winter!   And with that bit of site administration out of the way, on with the real news. We closed off last year with a big hug for all the emergency workers on The Island who got us through the November and December storms. Well, the storms have just carried on. The image on the left below was taken at about noon on New Years Day. By then, another foot of wet snow had accumulated. It's not all bad. The play of low winter sunlight on the blue and green tones makes a 'paintable' image. Rather than doing a pretty painting, John might try to capture the damage to the trees and shrubs that is not visible at this resolution.

Now, this is still the 'wet coast' and by mid-January warmer daytime temperatures and lots of rain had cleared the snow. At the time of this Studio News update chain saws have cleared much of the fallen timber. The roadside signs say, 'Free Firewood. Take It Away - Please' so we already have our woodpile stacked and drying for next year. There are still days of late snow and hard frost and probably more of them to come but the plum trees and the crocus blossoms keep trying to crawl out from under it all. A bit like our smiling great-grandson, Aedan, escaping from the covers above right.    Top

Winter Works   While all this weather sounds a bit grim for southern Vancouver Island, regular readers of the 'Studio News' know that we have adapted our studio work program to the gloom and wet of the west coast winter. Once the final Christmas orders are finished and the work areas in the studio are tidied away, the rest of January and most of February and March are free for study and design experiments. This year we got only a few days of sunny, calm, weather for the classic 'studio coffee break': a folding table and two chairs on the side patio, hot chocolate for Elaine, a pot of fresh coffee for John, cookies, the sound of Graham Creek in full winter run and pencils and scratch paper for the great ideas. But the break is almost as relaxing indoors.

Elaine spent her winter break the more productively. The image at the left above shows one of a series of light weight and brightly coloured wraps she intended for informal evening wear once the weather cleared off and the show season resumed. In this wrap the contrast between the main fabric and the banding is relatively subdued compared to the flash of green and gold in a couple of the pieces in the series. Think of them as the Studio's part in Victoria's effort to lift the gloom of one of the worst winters on record. As a group they have been well received. But we are waiting for a formal complaint from the organizers of Victoria's Annual Flower Count about the bright colours confusing the counters before we start bragging about a success.

There can be no confusion about the item on the right above. As soon as the Christmas rush is over Elaine, aka 'AirMiles Granny', starts planning her annual three to seven weeks of springtime - in Ontario - family visits back East. Daughter Angie and grand daughter-in-law Jenn have whispered to her that grandson Jason John and great grandson Aedan would look great in his and his 'Charlie Brown sweaters'. After all, they are only two years apart.

As a matter of principle the Treetops Studios would never make even a loose copy of something 'in the market' for one of our clients. (Well, perhaps one scarf a few years ago looked a little 'Potterish'.) But the 'Charlie Brown' sweater is not much more than a standard round neck pullover with shortened sleeves. The 'look' comes from the addition of collar, arm and base bands, and a horizontal zigzag body band at the belly button level, all in a second, contrasting, colour. So, with the help of standard infant and toddler size tables and measures from mothers the sweaters will make their way east in a few weeks.    Top

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Elaine Dendy e-laine@shaw.ca
John Oliver Dendy dendy@islandnet.com
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Revised 31 December, 2007