Knit Doll Workshop

knit simon dolls by larry.

The knit Simon doll by larry. has been a favourite, among both kids and adults, since I made the first one two years ago for my niece Brooke’s 2nd birthday.  Best described as a weird ‘creature,’ Simon is cute, cuddly and loves taking part in photo shoots.  As one faithful fan put it, you can often really relate to Simon.  The more drinks you have, the drunker Simon also seems to look, what with those spacey wooden eyes.

knit doll kits: bulky wool, double pointed needles, buttons

We scheduled a workshop here in Frutillar at the Meli Kitchen & Garden cafe for Patagonia Style, and made 6 kits ready with instructions and all the materials needed to make a Simon doll.  Most of the class participants knew how to knit, however I did have to show the basics to a few new students.

larry.designs workshop at meli cafe in frutillar, chile

It as my first experience leading a workshop, and despite the language barrier it was a lot of fun seeing other people make their own version of Simon!  3 scheduled hours stretched into 4, but by the end of the night we had five new Simon dolls finished -what a great achievement.

simon dolls lounging at meli restaurant

A few of the ladies were experienced knitters, but they hadn’t worked with double pointed needles before and were not familiar with one of the techniques used in the pattern, so they learned something new, which was all I could have hoped for.

demonstrating how to cast-on

As a teacher, I noted how different tensions and styles of knitting affect the finished product.  It was my first time creating a pattern (translated into spanish!) for public use, and while it was referred to, most of the ladies preferred to have verbal or demonstrated instructions rather than read step by step.  It was a more spontaneous process than what I expected, which was really cool to see.

I reminded myself to give up the urge to ‘correct’ the work of others, and in the end we had some different looking dolls than my model, but that just makes them all the more endearing in the end.  I did have a moment of intense pride, watching everyone working so hard and enjoying themselves, and thought – this is why teachers do what they do.

Thank you to everyone who attended the workshop, and I hope to do more of these in the future!

 

Published by Terri on May 6, 2012 in Arts & Culture. 0 Comments

Road Trip from Puerto Montt to Chiloé

The island of Chiloé in Southern Chile is famous for a number of things: architecture (palafitos, world heritage churches), penguins, mythology, a rain forest, shellfish, and potatoes.

on the ferry from pargua to the grand island of chiloé

We set out from Frutillar, stopping in Puerto Varas to rent a car and zipping past Puerto Montt about 30 mins to the Pargua ferry, on May 1, which is a national holiday in Chile.  At just past noon we said ‘salud!’ and clinked beer glasses over lunch with some locals of Pargua, who tried to pass a young man off to me – he apparenly had the nicest eyes in the region, and so in their opinion was my ideal match.

palafito 1326, boutique hotel in castro

After a beautiful drive from Ancud to Castro, we checked in to the Palafito 1326 hotel, which had stunning design features and eked out over the water on stilts.  The hotel is heated entirely by a massive wood fireplace, which is next to a sitting area and open kitchen, adjoining a large deck, and much of the interior design relates to wool in some way, so I was endlessly diverted.

paz caillet store in castro, chiloé

One main purpose of the trip was to investigate yarn sourcing, so we stopped in many stores featuring knitwear and asked for leads.  Paz Caillet had some great designs, but no leads on wool.

huiñe maulín tejedoras in castro, chiloé

We lucked out with the  Agrupación Huiñe Maulín shop, though – they were able to sell us a big ball of yarn, a natural grey colour and right from the island.  I also found a great silver ring with broom straw woven on the face, so I left very happy.

beached boats in castro, chiloé

Castro was a nice little town, but we really didn’t think ahead by arriving on a holiday.  Nearly everything was closed.  We tried one restaurant, ordered a seafood platter, and left most of it on the table (strike one for Chilote seafood).  After accidentally stopping for a beer in a “red-light” bar, of which I will spare you the ugly details, the Hostería de Castro addressed our persistent hunger with an excellent cheese platter and avocado salad, and our waiter was a model in attentive service.

cast iron cocina in abandoned farmhouse

We could not dwell long in Castro, and hoped that the sunshine and rainbows would follow us along our route through the long country road to Dalcahue (plan ahead for the extra time it will take to navigate a pot-holed gravel road at 40km/h..)  We diverted off the main road to investigate a sign that simply said ” <— Historia” and figured the abandoned farm house behind barbed wire must have been what the sign was referring to.  We poked around without having the place collapse on our heads, and I liberated a big iron circle thingamajig from the rubble that I will use for a woven wall piece.

note my pretty new ring

Somewhere along this dirt road we passed an older woman, and stopped to ask her if she needed a lift.  When she said that was ok, we asked about yarn.  Turns out she had some at home, so she hopped in and invited us in to her little place around the corner.  I got one big skein of a black & white blend.  The design of the yarn is typical of the artesanal markets here in Chile, but I knew this woman spun the yarn herself so it holds special value for me.

me with blondina cardenas of chiloe

When asked if she had any thicker yarn, Blondina led us to another building next to her house and we walked into this scene:

large scale loom in chiloe

Words can’t describe how nice it is to be in a place where you stop a random lady on the side of a dirt road, and she brings you into her home and unveils this.  The heddle bar is suspended from the ceiling, and she said she could finish this project in about 2 days.  Simply amazing.  She gave me a ball of cream yarn as a gift, to boot.

world heritage church in dalcahue, chiloe

Dalcahue was a quaint little town, but I experienced strike #2 for seafood at the Cocina Dalcahue, which was a large building along the waterfront with numerous little domestic-looking kitchens with countertop seating inside.

kelgwo arte textile in ancud, chiloe

We drove through Quamchi and then back to Ancud, where we made it to Kelgwo Arte Textil, a very well-established store and organization that works with numerous indigenous artisans to create beautiful garments and decor, both knit and woven.

To sum it all up…

Architecture: fantastico.

Penguins: didn’t find any, but didn’t really look either.

Mythology: I saw a t-shirt with the goddess of Pincoya, spirit of ocean and shore, on it – but otherwise, no ghost ships, witches, unicorns, or dwarves presented themselves.

Rain Forest: is on the Western side of the island, but I can attest to the lush and bountiful landscape on the Eastern side.

Shellfish: bust. Never accept microwaved shellfish, ever.  Being a polite tourist just isn’t worth the tummy-ache.

All in all, well worth the visit!

Published by Terri on May 4, 2012 in Arts & Culture and Lifestyle. 0 Comments

Rodeo and Dance in Chile

chilean cowboys at the frutillar rodeo, and me, underdressed

Frutillar was host town to the last rodeo event of the season this year, and lucky for me the rodeo grounds are justa few minutes away so I finally got to see what a Chilean rodeo was all about.  It is quite different from the rodeos at home – there is just one event, where a team of riders on horseback try to pin a calf against a padded fence in the ring.

A total of 13 points can be acquired in each round.  The top 16 pairs advance to the finals, until 3 pairs of riders are left.  The winners and runners up get to trot around the ring with a rodeo queen in a fancy frilly dress on their horse – and then the celebration begins! (or, continues..)

It didn’t take us long to locate the Chilean equivalent to the ‘beer garden’ – here it was a wooden shack with a bar in the centre, a big barbeque with sticks of meat sizzling away, and plenty of whiscolas (whiskey + cola) to be shared.

chilean cowboys

The cowboys are a very polite and interesting bunch.  They are exceptionally well groomed, as rodeo club rules dictate that a man can’t have hair covering his neck and must be clean shaven and well presented.  These guys don’t compete for money, they do it simply for fun, pride and honour.  I made it back a little while after the rodeo for the dance, and got spun around the dance floor a few times before heading to….

A dance in a gymnasium.  And yes, the lights were on the whole time.  After sitting in the bleachers for a few minutes trying to make sense of this whole scene, we threw our hands in the air, went right to the front of the stage, and whirled, twirled, and dipped our way through the rest of the night.  The dance floor was packed the entire time, people young and old.  Kids dancing with their parents watching, parents dancing with their kids watching.

Best workout I’ve had in the last month!

Published by Terri on May 2, 2012 in Lifestyle. 0 Comments

Chile is a Gardener’s Paradise

granja quilarayen garden 

The landscape here in Southern Chile is breathtaking even on a grey day, but when the sun shines the whole world just comes to life.  I’ve visited some beautiful gardens throughout my travels and thought I would share a bit of this wonder – I don’t know how people do it here.

a sliver of a big backyard garden

I guess the frequent rain does a lot of the work…I thought people had a green thumb in Vancouver, but it seems gardening is an even greater pasttime in Chile!  Houses are full of plants, many of the homes are 100+ year old German colonial style, wood shingled and surrounded by large yards, apple trees, chicken coops and bustling plant life everywhere.

backyard chickies

One of the most unreal places was a garden & nursery called Granja Quilarayen in Puerto Varas.  Everywhere you looked was full of thriving plants, both potted and in the ground, tagged for identification.

feet firmly planted

Trees, flowers, shrubbery – you name it, they probably had it.  A little path wound through the property, which was quite large.  Tiny bridges covered little bubbling creeks, and the place had the abundant air of a rainforest, a lifeblood of energy running through it.

potted plants

They even had a clearing up in the forest for barbeques in the summer, next to a little gnome cottage, home of the protectors of this magical place.

backyard garden at Melí restaurant in Frutillar

Melí, the garden and kitchen that is connected to the Patagonia Virgin development in Frutillar, is another gem of a spot with a new greenhouse adjoined to the cafe, complete with dining tables in the centre.  A new variety of plantlife is featured on rotation (sunflowers are the current stars), and you can buy plants to take home and bury in your own garden at home.  The plan is to expand in the future so that the cafe can use more of their own house-grown products within the menu.

I love looking at a plate of food and knowing exactly where everything came from.

Published by Terri on April 30, 2012 in Lifestyle. 0 Comments

Spotlight on Artists in Chile

Derek Way of Chester Beer

We got a tour from Derek Way of Chester Beer brewery this week, located on a farm just outside of Puerto Varas.

This craft beer is brewed in two repurposed stainless steel refrigerated shipping containers, and efforts towards waste reduction, recycling, and upcycling are incorporated throughout their entire brewing process.  The leftover malt doesn’t even go to waste – it is fed to the cows on the farm!

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Weichafe Recycled Jewellery

Derek’s partner, Jenny Gonzalez Assis, makes a line of beautiful jewellery out of recycled aluminum cans, called Weichafe.

The interior of her pieces are filled with a variety of found treasures; seaweed, traditional woven textiles, yarn, copper wire, merken (a common spice in Chile), the list is vast and potentially limitless.

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Fundación Artesanías de Chile

The Fundación Artesanías de Chile in Puerto Varas is a great non-profit organization and store that sells items made by artisans in Chile, who are fairly paid for their work.  On each tag is information regarding who made the item, where it was made and with what materials.

Woven textiles at the Fundación Artesanías

Many of the crafts are made using traditional methods, and these methods are also outlined.  Here you will find fine woodwork, jewellery, textiles, knit and woven garments, dolls, and more.

Mapuche weaving class

The Foundation brings in skilled artisans for workshop series as well; I was lucky to be invited to sit in on a Mapuche (an indigenous group within Southern Chile) weaving session one morning.  The process requires incredible attention – strands of yarn are warped around a rectangular stand-up loom, which could easily be homemade (here in Chile, homemade looms would be the norm).

Mapuche weaving students at work

A heddle bar rests towards the top of the project, and the only other tools are a shed stick and your hands.  I had to really dig deep to where what little I know of weaving was stored inside my brain, but after two hours of concentrated attention I mostly pieced it together and now have a strong resolve to pull my second-hand frame loom out of storage when I get home and try my hand at this craft once again.

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cranberry harvest with Osorno Volcano. credit: Macarena Acuña Schmidt

One beautiful sunny day, I had the opportunity to watch a cranberry harvest with the lovely photographer Macarena Acuña Schmidt .  The 350-hectare farm was so vast – each field was about 1.6 acres, dug a few feet into the ground with a trench around so they can flood the field for harvest.  The cranberries are rustled from the low-laying plants, then the field is flooded with water (which they recycle) and the berries corralled to one end and up a conveyor belt, into a waiting truck.  Such an interesting process, and so well documented by this great photographer.

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More to come!!

Published by Terri on April 30, 2012 in Arts & Culture and News. 0 Comments

larry. Residency in Frutillar, Chile: Week 1

It’s been just over a week since I arrived in Chile for my month-long residency with Patagonia Media, who invited me to be here and create a larry. collection as part of their inititiave to develop collaborative partnerships on an international scale.  Emphasis is on the exchange of cultural ideas, learning from local artisans, and drawing inspiration from the environment and landscape.

the highest point on the Patagonia Virgin property

Patagonia Media is the marketing branch of Patagonia Virgin, which is a large-scale real estate company that is developing hundreds of hectares of land in Frutillar with townhomes, hotels, a golf course, and a small village/esplanade  containing shops and restaurants.  Their process is strikingly admirable for such a development; progression of the project is carefully considered, with due care taken to preserving the beauty of the land while addressing local culture and needs.  They have planted over 40,000 trees in an adjacent nursery, and hundreds of hectares of land will remain protected within the native forest reserve.  My role here is to learn about the region and local culture, and reflect these ideas in my designs for Patagonia Style, which will serve to celebrate the creative nature of this place.

farm inspiration

The goal for the first week was to get acquainted with the area, and begin sourcing materials to work with.  I had very broad expectations in this regard – I did not arrive with specific ideas in mind, as I wanted to remain open to work with whatever materials presented themselves or made sense for this climate and region.  One of the first stops was an antique shack in Puerto Varas, which reminded me very much of my favourite shop in Clinton, BC, with lots of old farmhouse equipment and things of that nature:

farm antiques in puerto varas, chile

I ended up buying a small lot of watch parts, wheels and frames, trinkets of time.  I was tempted by the typewriters with grass growing out of them, but knowing that I have three in storage at home helped stave off the urge to buy.

underwood typewriter

Scoured around Puerto Montt for yarn sources, walked the artisan’s row along the waterfront, lots of Chilean crafts, yarn, ponchos, souvenirs.  The colours of yarn were vibrant and beautiful, though I prefer to use natural colours in my own work:

yarn in puerto montt, chile

I did get some cream roving (see forefront of image), which I will hand-spin slightly as I knit with it, I think it will turn out pretty nice – very warm and bullky.  We also stopped by the marina, looking around for discarded parts and rope that I might incorporate into an installation piece, or woven work, or…

I’ve also met with Maria, the daughter of the cowboy Jose, who manages the horses for Patagonia Virgin and leads the horseback expeditions.  She showed me some of her weaving, demonstrating on her wooden loom, and a rare spinning wheel built in Villa Alegre that is over 40 years old.  Maria also dyes her own wool, using fruits, tree barks, and other materials to naturally colour the wool fibres.

loom built in villa alegre

Marcela Rios, an artisan in Llhanquihue who sells her work at the shop in the Puerto Montt airport, took me out to the town of Chamiza to the Chucao Lanas studio.  I got a demonstration of their process for dyeing the yarn, which is sourced from Punta Renas in southern Chile.

yarn ready to be coloured and cooked

It was very soft and of great quality, so I bought a couple kilos of cream yarn, some of which I plan to dye using natural materials from our backyard here in Frutillar.  Speaking, of our backyard, the Patagonia Virgin is home to sheep, geese, and horses.  I crept through the goose pen to collect some feathers one sunny afternoon:

And throughout all of the day trips, yarn sourcing, brainstorming, backyard barbeques, meeting amazing creative people who shared not only their time but their inspiration, we managed to find the time to have some great fun.  On Sunday we went on a 6 hour trek through the property on horseback, stopping at the top of a hill for a beautiful lunch before continuing on our countryside adventure:

break from horseback expedition through patagonia virgin land

The first week has been utterly amazing, very inspirational – everything from the people, the landscape, architecture, indigenous crafts.  Looking forward to seeing what the next week will bring!

Thank you, Chile!


Published by Terri on April 23, 2012 in Lifestyle and News. 0 Comments
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