Hexagon Craze!

By now you've likely caught wind of our big plans for a Beehive installation at this year's Supercrawl! Our piece is called Modular Beauty and will be made up of hand-sewn, English paper pieced hexagons that will creep and grow out of unexpected places along James Street, mimicking hives in the wild.



You'll remember that last year the Beehive installed a large-scale art project onto the facade of The Brain, which was the collaborative effort of many, many helping hands. This year we’re back at it with another idea, and community contributions to this installation are not only in the spirit of the project - which celebrates the culmination of multiple efforts to make something beautiful - they are also totally essential to making this whole thing a success!




After we explained the project a few weeks ago, and let you know that we were looking for lots and lots of hands to contribute, the project picked up steam and we have a lot of interest - which is so great! We hope you’ll consider joining in on our Hive Drive campaign to generate a serious crop of hexagon clusters, allowing us to expand this fibre intervention as much as possible over the buildings of James Street North.


How can you do this, you ask? Well:

In partnership with Etsy Canada we are hosting a Hive Drive hexagon-making party on Wednesday July 4 from 6:00-9:00 (that's next week!). We are so excited to invite you to join us at Low Key Studio (an amazing loft space/artist-run photography studio & art showcase gallery located at 48 Ferguson Ave. S. in Hamilton) for a night of relaxed hexagon making. Zero experience necessary – it is a very simple craft and we’d love to show you the ropes. And trust us, once you start making these little cuties, you won’t be able to stop! We’ll provide the fabric, templates and supplies (though of course feel free to bring your own) as well as refreshments and treats. It’s gonna be a super fun night so bring friends or come on your own and meet other crafty locals! RSVP here!



Can’t make the July 4th Hive Drive or planning on making hexagons at home? We have several super-duper hive drive donation locations throughout Hamilton supporting the cause. At these locations, starting this weekend (June 30th), you can pick up hexagon templates and fabric scraps, and drop off sewn hive sections when completed. If you have some fabric you’d be willing to donate towards hexagon making, we’ll gladly accept it through these locations. Anything you can contribute is MUCH appreciated!

Here are our confirmed donation stations:

Hamilton

White Elephant – 133 James St. North
Needlework – 174 James St. North
The Ship – 23 Augusta St.
The Hamilton Public Library:
Central Branch – 55 York Blvd.
Terryberry Branch – 100 Mohawk Rd. W.
Sherwood Branch - 467 Upper Ottawa St.
Citizen Kid – 188 Locke St. S.
Cake and Loaf – 321 Dundurn St. S.
The Baltimore House – 43 King William St.
Detour Coffee – 41B King St. W, Dundas
Downtown Bike Hounds - 19 John Street North
The Cannon - 179 Ottawa St N


Toronto

Kid Icarus – 75 Nassau St.
Russet & Empire – 390 Keele St.
The Arthur - 550 College St.
The Workroom - 1340 Queen St. W



If you're not in our city and would still like to contribute, please do! You can pop those hexagons in the mail and address them to Needlework at 174 James Street North Hamilton, ON L8R 2L1. We must receive them by August 17th 2012 to make sure that we have enough time to work them into the larger piece.

Lastly, if you plan to make a bunch of hexagons at home, and you're looking for some tips, we've put together a short and simple set of instructions for you. Here we go!

The Bees at Home: Projects in Progress II

We're into January now - one of the best times for crafting. There's snow on the ground (sometimes, at least!), and the air is cold, so sometimes it's nice to just stay in and make something. We thought we'd catch you up on on what's going on in some of our craft spaces...

First, Jen is making this amazing 'junk mail cross-stitch'. She brought it to knit night on Wednesday, and was explaining some of her reasoning behind this little project. One of the 'men of the beehive' is a mailman, and it's really personified the postal system for her. Thinking that the postal workers probably see a lot of 'no junk mail' posters', she wanted to add some personal time and energy to her sign. It also relates the very tactile quality of sending mail and that of cross-stitch. It's so great, Jen!

(The book she used for the alphabet patterns can be purchased here.)

As you might know, part of our identity in the Beehive is 'homesteading' - participating in a lifestyle of  sustainability and self-sufficiency. It's been amazing to see different members of our craft collective tackling these amazing and practical art forms of old, like canning, mending, natural dyeing, farming, and now weaving! Hollie is in the middle of a weaving class and has so far wrapped about 1700 metres of textile, prepped the loom, and should start weaving next week.

In other very exciting news, our very own Jenna Rose was a Featured Seller on Etsy last week! Jenna's handmade housewares and accessories are so beautiful, and regularly and proudly sported by members of the Beehive. Everything she makes is hand screen printed in house, and the illustrated designs are thoughtfully created by Jenna as well. I could go on and on, but the Etsy interview is a great read, so make sure you check it out here.

Lastly, you can always count on Kate to be working on at least one (but more likely three or four!) amazing project...this time it's paper piecing with hexagons. Basically, paper piecing is a hand-sewing technique that is used to improve accuracy when working with shapes that have difficult angles. You fold lightweight cotton around paper templates, and baste them in place. Once everything is whip-stitched together, you press the whole piece, remove the basting, pop out the paper pieces and voila! Super cute quilt top/pillowcase/placemat/table runner/whatever you want.

So, there are a few things that are going on in the background, here at the Beehive. We'd love to see what you're working on at home, or which projects you have on your radar. Just post your link in the comments. Happy crafting!

(You can see 'Projects in Progress I' here...)