Last week was a craft-making week.

After having finished a big work project, I needed to step away from the computer for a bit and do things with my hands. Also, I had a pile of things to mend, some fabric that was waiting to be cut and sewn, and with the rain season coming, some leather goods that needed weather-proofing.

I'll spare you the boring details of socks and jumpers mending and jump to the fun stuff.

Last summer, as soon as I arrived in Portland, I searched for classes and workshops to sign up for the new school year (I still call these my extra-curricular activities).

There was one thing I was looking for in particular: wheel-throwing. And other things that kinda showed up during my search, like shibori dyeing.

So on a Thursday night, a couple of weeks ago, I rushed to my favorite fabric store (it was already closed, but Cameron was kind enough to reopen it for me) to get some cotton fabric to dye for my shibori class with Bramble Workshop at Field Trip, a cute shop in South East Portland.

The process of shibori dyeing is pretty simple, but it's typically the kind of thing I want to learn outside of my home. For me, it's not as much about the process, which I could easily learn through an online tutorial, and more about discovering a new spot, meeting inspiring people... and drinking wine!

Ever since I took a fiber workshop with Kristin Morrison at Open House Creative in Southern California, I've wanted to do more dyeing. I had heard about shibori, but truth be told, I still sometimes want to call it kabuki (not even close) or limit it to tie & dye.

So, for those of you who don't already know, or who are not exactly sure of what shibori is, here's a short definition:

Shibori is an ancient Japanese dyeing technique that involves binding, stitching, folding, twisting, or compressing cloth while dyeing it in order to create different patterns.

For this class, we used indigo. And I used 4 different techniques to create patterns. 1 on the napkin that was provided during the workshop, 2 on my fabric, which I had cut in 2 pieces and 1 on my white t-shirt, on which a girl in the class spilled indigo. I just figured that totally dyeing it would be a better option than trying to get rid of the stains. No, I didn't finish the class bare-chested, I did have a long-sleeved t-shirt on as well!

Shibori is not really my style in terms of clothing, so I decided that the t-shirt would be part of my wheel-throwing uniform, with a pair of distressed jeans which I don't mind being covered in clay at the end of the studio session. I ended up making napkins and kitchen towels out of my dyed fabric.

During the week, I also made myself an apron (which you may see in upcoming recipe articles). I had no pattern and ended up making it a little too big. I might have unconsciously done this on purpose as I later figured that it fits Octave perfectly... I used regular canvas that I waterproofed with my current favorite Portland-made product: Otter wax!

I also used another kind of Otter wax to waterproof and nourish my new Danner boots and my old leather jacket (which owed me compliments from a girl at the market last weekend, wait for her to see how beautiful it looks now that it has almost found its original aspect).

And I started to make a few goodies for Christmas. Man, it looks like I didn't want to take my sewing machine (which is still on my desk as I type) out for nothing!

Anyways, that's it for today, I hope you enjoyed reading about my productive side-projects week. Let me know if you'd like more details about the process, I might start to show you some step-by-step DIYs and I'm dying to try natural dyeing again (I read a few interesting food-based recipes and Cameron recommended me classes in Portland).

Update: I spent an afternoon dyeing kitchen towels with my friend Kayleigh, check out her recap + tutorial on A Beautiful Mess.

What about you, what do like to do during your free time? Is there anything you'd like to learn in particular? Also, Portlanders, where do you take classes? DIY, dance, cooking? I'm always looking for more fun stuff to do/learn! Tell me everything here in the comment section, don't be shy!