SHELBURNE — From weaving, spinning and embroidery to blacksmithing, ukelele playing and timber framing — with dancing and even a Balkan sing-along — it’s all part of the “fabric of life,” to be brought together at an all-day “barnfest” June 9 at 80 Bassett Road in Shelburne Center.
The third annual event, billed as “festivities and family fun from Western Mass. to Eastern Europe” is a fundraiser for Fabric of Life, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to passing on traditional skills through a variety of year-round programs.
“I had such a fairy-tale upbringing, and I feel so lucky,” said Becky Ashenden. She grew up on the 160-acre Bassett homestead where she organizes the festival and where she learned hands-on handicrafts as well as gardening, Balkan dancing and music making.
“How can I share?”
The answer for Ashenden, who has taught weaving for nearly 30 years in her Vävstuga studios in Shelburne Falls and at the homestead, is to set up a folk school modeled on a Scandinavian “sloyd” model of handicraft education. She and other instructors teach skills including growing and spinning flax, weaving and restoring heritage grains.
Ashenden and her sisters grew up with a mother who “got us moving with our hands in all sorts of ways from Day One” by learning sewing, carving, blockprinting, and — from her grandmother, weaving, while also learning folk dancing from age 7. She also began contra-dancing and playing piano at dances as a teenager. She’s since added playing accordion, bass and other instruments as part of her love of Bulgarian music.
At age 21, after taking a University of Massachusetts course in Swedish, she headed off for five months to study weaving at Saterglantan College of Handicrafts in Sweden.
“That totally changed my life. It was a fabulous experience and I dreamed for many years to recreate that experience for people,” said Ashenden, who offers a 15-week intensive weaving course each fall with a team of instructors. “It’s so exciting to feel I’m creating something, with the help of a lot of people.”
At the barnfest will be a sampling of local food products and a boutique starting at 1 p.m. Beginning at 2 p.m. will be activities like a family folk dance, Scandinavian music jam and a sampling of blacksmithing, weaving, spinning, embroidery and tiber framing. There will also be a potluck supper and sing-along from 5 to 7 p.m. followed by an evening of contra and Balkan dancing. Organizers hope to draw in donations and people interested in Fabric of Life programs. This week, there was a three-day “build-your-own-earth oven” workshop and, next spring, there will be workshops in harvesting trees and timber framing.
“I think people are feeling more and more need for this in this cellphone generation,” said Ashenden, as she gave a tour of her dye garden of blue-pigment woad and yellow-producing weld, her garden of flax as well as heritage wheat and rye and flax. “It’s good to give an alternative to that techno lifestyle and connect people back to our roots by teaching that skill and connection.”
By building enough of a set of instructors in a range of traditional skills, crafts and practices, she hopes Fabric of Life can help sustain the homestead, which is owned by a separate limited liability corporation.
On the Web: www.fabric-of-life.org