For decades, Belfast has been a destination for makers. In our historic downtown, located on the picturesque Penobscot Bay, you will find the arts district filled with galleries and studios, retailers, and restaurants. Watch maker demonstrations at Belfast Fiber Arts, Fiddlehead Artisan Supply, Heavenly Yarns, Waterfall Arts, and more. Find local open galleries and studios eager to share their work with you. Visit the local craft brewery, Marshall Wharf Brewing, or any of the many eateries downtown. Visit the United Farmers Market on Saturday from 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. to find makers of jewelry, food, crafts, and more. As you head out of town be sure to visit Mainly Gallery and Studio for glass-blowing and visit their showroom of local Belfast artists.
Schedule of Activities
Activities will continue to be added, please check back.
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Kids and Families co-create together — Make your own Chinese shadow puppets! Registration Required. 256 High Street
Saturday, 2:00 – 10:00 p.m.: Marshall Wharf Brewing Co. will host their Annual Beer Festival on Oct 7. There will be 40+ beers on tap, 2 bands, 3 food trucks, and a whole lot of laughs!
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Live demos and try your hands at Wheel Throwing. 256 High Street
Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.: In the courtyard at Belfast Fiberarts.
Amanda Affleck will demonstrate mordant printing: an ancient technique for producing patterns and designs on fabric with natural dye colors. Mordants, or metallic salts such as alum and iron, are applied to fabric using blocks or paint brushes. When the piece is introduced to the dye bath, colors from the plant dyes show up in different shades on the cloth. It’s a fun and magical process that offers endless possibilities for creative expression.
Amanda Affleck of A Skirt of Leaves Textiles is a fiber artist, natural dyer, and weaver living in midcoast Maine. She loves to teach natural dye techniques and to share the creative inspiration that comes from a close collaboration with nature to make meaningful and beautiful pieces of textile art.
Sunday, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Teams consisting of 4 spinners and a weaver, prepare wool fleece, spin, ply, then weave a shawl 72″ long in THREE HOURS! In addition to receiving points for finishing in the shortest time, Teams receive points for things like:design, team costume, plus the quality of the spinning and weaving. Prizes will be awarded. Get your Team together and sign up on our website. $25 application fee. 171 High Street
Saturday, 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.: In the courtyard at Belfast Fiberarts. Basic Bead Making techniques, as well as some more advanced methods used to incorporate semi precious metals, ashes, and using multiple colors to create depth and design and the structural techniques used to build hollow beads on a bead mandrel. 171 High Street
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Make your own glass pumpkin workshop, live demos, and glass for sale. 256 High Street
Saturday & Sunday, all day: Visit Waterfall Arts to view the installation of a nw public art piece on the Waterfall Arts’ building is a way for the community arts center to offer something beautiful and thought-provoking to the public while highlighting our mission of connecting people with the power of art whether they choose to enter our building or not. The mural’s theme is a nod to Waterfall Arts’ long history of collaboration between artists and its foundational understanding of the innate value that the arts brings to a place. It will tell a story that links the exterior of the building to the ongoing activity on the interior, while bringing color and visual interest to the center.
Over thirty local artists are set to participate by completing individual reflective narratives on the theme of home. When joined together, these panels will form a whole; a creative placemaking that will highlight and celebrate the natural assets of Midcoast Maine. Waterfall Arts is an active home, a nest, an incubator for the fine arts, a hive of energy and inspiration for the entirety of the Midcoast and beyond.
“HERE IS MAGIC” PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: Kirk Linder, Deborah Jellison, Christina Barstow, Allegra Kuhn, Elizabeth Moore, Sally Stanton, Marjorie Arnett, Liz Kalloch, Tara Morin, Victoria Barnes, Willy Reddick, Annadeene Fowler, Sam Maheu, Devon Kelley-Yurdin with Lilah Akin, Abbie Read, Heidi Reader, David Estey, Libby Sipe, Emily Sabino, Karen Jelenfy, MJ Viano Crowe, Nell Parker, Amy Lowry, Ruby Day, Julie Crane, Lesia Sochor, Paul Valentine, Ashley Megquier, Kelly Desrosiers, Barbara Sullivan, Stew Henderson, Peter Walls, and Amy Tingle. 256 High Street
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.:
Join Denyse Schmidt in Fiddlehead’s sunny new classroom space for a day of exploring the art of “talking” quilts with her pattern, The Proverbial Quilt! Workshop description and supply list below. Lunch provided by Fiddlehead’s – please let the shop know if there are any dietary considerations.
Improv Theme & Variation
A single block pattern can yield an infinite number of variations. In this workshop, we’ll use improvisational patchwork to explore repetitions and variations on a theme. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of the design elements of structure and composition, while building confidence in working with improvisation to create quilt tops that reflect your own voice. Bring a favorite traditional or original block pattern to work with. (See below for ideas.)
Tools & Equipment to Bring:
Sewing machine
Thread
Rotary cutter
Acrylic ruler
Fabric shears
Snips
Sketchbook
Pens or pencils
Digital camera
Template
Making supplies (paper or thin cardboard – a file folder is great –as needed for your block, pencil, paper scissors, etc)
Materials:
A total of 3-5 total yards will be ideal for this workshop, based on your preference for working large or small, and how fast (or slow) you typically work. This total should include mostly solids, supplemented with prints and/or yarn-dyed wovens in a variety of values and hues. Your overall fabric palette should be simple and reflect the composition of the quilt block pattern you are bringing. For instance, if your quilt block pattern has three parts, select three main colors and broaden your selection for each by bringing several related fabrics that represent that one color.
* Selecting a Quilt Block Pattern to bring
Your experience will feel more successful (and you’ll have more fun) if you reduce your block choice to its most elemental form. Complexity and secondary patterns emerge through overall composition. Blocks like the examples below are all excellent. The blocks as shown have two main colors.
Above left to right: Basketweave quilt from my book Modern Quilts Traditional Inspiration, L pattern, Shoeman’s Puzzle pattern from my book Modern Quilts Traditional Inspiration, half-square triangle.
To Prepare:
Online, take a look at the Quilt Index. You can search by pattern names, or by “one patch”, or “four patch”. Either of these search terms will yield good references and ideas for this class.
Your local library will likely have one of the following books, or something like it. A little time perusing any of these is perfect preparation for the class. Bring a sketchbook to the library for visual note-taking.
• Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman
• The Quilter’s Album of Patchwork Patterns by Jinny Beyer
• Encyclopedia of Classic Quilt Patterns by Patricia Wilens
• 5,500 Quilt Block Patterns by Maggie Malone
Age
16 and up
Location
Our classroom space is on the second floor of our building. Please let us know if we can help you carry up your things.
Please familiarize yourself with our class policies before enrolling. Thank you!
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Clothed model, drop in and draw! 256 High Street
October 7 @ 10:00 am – 1:00 pm EDT
$40.00 – $50.00
Join us during Maine Craft Weekend in Belfast for a botanical dye workshop with professional fiber artist Jude Hsiang. This 3-hour workshop invites participants to learn about the ancient and continuing art of using natural materials from plants, insects and minerals to permanently dye a wide range of fibers. This class may be of special interest to quilters as we will dye cotton fabrics with madder (Rubia tinctorium) a classic dye plant that can be grown in Maine and gives a range of shades from pinks to reds to purples. Other fibers and dyes will be sampled, and all are welcome to join the fun. The instructor will share knowledge gained in her many years as a natural dyer through finished works, dye record books, and samples of dyestuffs. Note-taking and photos are welcome. A resource handout will be provided.
About the instructor: Jude Hsiang has been dyeing with natural materials for 45 years and teaching the craft for 12. She is particularly interested in exploring the use of Maine-grown fibers—wool, alpaca, mohair, angora, linen, and hemp—that are spun in Maine by hand or in local mills. She grows a dozen or so varieties of dye plants in her Central Maine garden and forages more in the wild. She also uses traditional dyes and fibers from around the world. A knitter, weaver, and stitcher, Jude enjoys putting her results to work in an array of items and selling naturally dyed yarns.
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. 256 High Street
Saturday, 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.: Shop 70+ Makers of food, homegoods, jewelry, ceramics, flowers, fabrics, and so much more! 18 Spring Street
Saturday & Sunday, all day: As you experience all that Belfast has to offer, find the 18 Sit Down Belfast chairs Our Town Belfast has installed throughout downtown. The are all designed and painted by local artists. You will find a plaque on each reprenting that artist.
Saturday & Sunday, all day: As you experience all that Belfast has to offer, look around and see if you can spot Stuart Little.
Stuart Little, the one and only two-inch-tall talking mouse boy, was created by beloved Maine author E.B. White in 1945.
On a glorious summer day, a local resident sat on a bench down by the water. “I saw the most incredible thing,” she said. “I was so excited to see Little Family with Stuart Little walking alongside them. I was immediately inspired to make entrances to accommodate Stuart’s small stature so that he could visit Belfast alone in his tiny birch bark canoe, ‘Summer Memories,’ anytime he wanted to.”
You might not get to see Stuart while you are here, but you will know if he is in town by heading down to the water and looking for his tiny birchbark canoe tied to his dock. Be kind to Stuart Little, he wants to enjoy the beauty and bounty of Belfast, just like you do. You never know where you might see him…
