One Seriously Crafty Day in PDX…

I know I go on and on about Portland, but MAN! Yesterday’s Grand Re-Opening Block Party at the Museum of Contemporary Craft was just flippin’ amazing. It’s exciting to have the Museum in its new home, but the event was such a cool microcosm of this highly-creative city.

I’ll talk about our Church of Craft booth experience in a moment, but let me show you just a few of the other things that were going on around us all day:

Glass-bead making demonstrations, from Aquila Glass School. Such a cool set-up, too: this big plexiglass box, with the torch and everything inside, so people could watch safely up-close.

A demonstration of Raku pottery from Bruce Finch, in this big booth where people could glaze their own ceramics.

I loved this kid-high “Clay Town” table. I took this late in the day, when it was covered in kids’ sculptures. Oh, to be 36″ tall again.

The Stitch-O-Rama community embroidery project was there, too. This project is so cool — this vintage tablecloth has been making its way around to various events since last year, and everywhere it goes, people stop by and stitch a little something on it. We hosted it at Church of Craft last year, and it also visited Crafty Wonderland.

The Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA sent their “Mobile Hot Box” down, and gave glass-blowing demonstrations all day. I kept missing the actual demos, so I had to content myself with this pic of their T-shirts.

I was spellbound by this braiding demo from the Portland Handweavers Guild. Can you see the beautiful, multi-colored braid that’s emerging in the center of this elegant device?

. . . And there were also demos by the Creative Metal Arts Guild, the Guild of Oregon Woodworkers, the Oregon Potters Association, and more.

In addition, the Museum led hourly tours of its inaugural exhibition: CRAFT IN AMERICA: Expanding Traditions. I never made it inside the Museum (too slammed at the craft table), but look forward to spending many quiet afternoons there soon.

There were several of us representing the indie craft community as well, and we were mobbed with enthusiastic crafters all day. Here’s Portland Super Crafty’s matchbox shrine table. The angle is odd because the only way to get a picture of the table was to hold my camera above the heads of the crowd.

Jen and Melissa from DIY Lounge offered up an Artist Trading Card table, which people loved. (If you’re local, Melissa hosts a monthly ATC swap at Collage.)

. . . And then there were those bottle bracelets. I was amazed by how people embraced this project. It really seemed to appeal to recycling-minded Portlanders of all ages. It’s always so much fun to see how many different variations on the original project idea emerge. People figured out that you can wrap your plastic bottle ring with novelty yarn, or with colorful electrical tape. People lined the inside of their bottle with felt, and left the plastic visible on the outside. And you can see here how chaotic our table was by day’s end — people were so eager to dive in and make!

I’m so grateful to Maggie, Trish, Betsy, Bridget, Elaine, Linda, Erin, and Sharon for volunteering at the Church of Craft booth throughout the day. These ladies worked so hard to keep the insane communal crafting experience flowing smoothly, and made a huuuuuuuuuge difference for me.

. . . And today, I think I shall not stray far from the couch. :-)