Welcome to 2021! 

We had a very successful straw ornament workshop in December, with 35 participants in the morning session and 31 in the afternoon. We even attracted 6 new members! We thank Joana Adamonis of Montreal who led the workshop, and Sebastian Grinham for technical support. We hope to add more workshops to our calendar for 2021, and will keep you informed of possibilities.

Thanks to administrator Donna Druchunas,  knitting expert and author in Vermont, our Facebook page has proven most effective, as we saw from the responses of dozens of new friends who learned about and took an interest in our December workshop. Please friend us and see our latest post on Facebook which includes a quick survey of what areas of Lithuanian folk art you might be interested in, so that we may plan our year accordingly.

Thanks everyone for your interest and support.  Both morning and afternoon sessions are fully booked.

We will be holding other workshops in the new year.  Stay tuned.

Hello! We are happy to announce that our 10:30 am (EST) webinar is at capacity, and we are offering an afternoon session on the same day, Saturday, December 12 at 3 pm to 4:30 pm (EST). This will be perfect for anyone on the West Coast to join us at a reasonable hour!

Please tune in 20 minutes before our start time to ensure that any technical difficulties may be resolved before our official start time. See our previous post for details about the webinar.

Welcome back, everyone! What’s new and exciting?

“Šiaudinukai” Webinar – December 12

Learn how to make Lithuanian “šiaudinukai” – straw Christmas ornaments – with skilled craftsperson Joana Adamonis. At this workshop she will tell us about the history of these ornaments, show us how-to basics and guide us through the process of making 2 ornaments (a basic form and a star) to hang on a Christmas tree.  This class is beginner-friendly: no prior experience is necessary.

When:  Saturday, December 12,   10:30 am to 12 noon  3:00 pm to 4:30 pm  EST

Where: Online – must be registered to get an invitation

Cost:      Free for LTFAI members, $10 for non-members

What you need:              

• Plastic straws, crochet thread, tapestry needle, scissors, ruler, pencil  (materials list below)
• A limited number of kits with all materials and pre-cut straws are available for $5 (plus postage if applicable, curbside pickup in Toronto)
• It is strongly recommended that you pre-cut the straws as it can take some time and the workshop has not allowed for that

How to register: 

• Contact us at gro.i1611441955aftl@1611441955tcatn1611441955oc1611441955 Please provide your name and phone number (in case we need to dial you in).  Interesting to us, but optional:  tell us where you are from and maybe a bit about yourself and why you are interested in this webinar. If you are not a member, please pay the $10 fee through the PayPal link here on our website (see “Donate” below).

How to participate:

• Once you have registered, you will receive an email with a link to join the workshop
• Make sure to log in 10 minutes before the session in case of any technical difficulties
• Please ensure you have all your materials ready

We’re looking forward to having you join us!

Materials List:

These are available at craft stores or Walmart

1. Straws – White plastic drinking straws (3/16th inch/4mm width) approx. 8 inches (20 cm) long, about 20 straws cut into lengths (straight across, not diagonally).
   1. Basic ornament: 12 pieces at 2 inches (5 cm).
   2. Star ornament : 24 pieces at 1 inch (2.5 cm) + 16 pieces at 1.25 inches (3.175 cm) + 32 pieces at 2.5 inches (6.35 cm)
2. Needle –Tapestry needle (blunt end)
3. Thread – Crochet thread, size 10  (11 yards or 10 metres)
4. Scissors – must be sharp to cleanly cut the straws
5. Ruler or straight edge
6. Pencil – to mark straws for cutting

♦  On June 6, 2020, thanks to technical support by Sebastian Grinham, we were able to conduct a Board meeting and our Annual General Meeting online. We had an encouraging number of attendees, about 20 including Board members. It seems that not everyone who had registered was able to participate: either their plans changed or they were unable to connect. It was our first time trying this method, and hopefully next year we will be able to refine the process.

♦  We had a short but extremely productive AGM, in that we found new volunteers for both media marketing (author and knitter extraordinaire Donna Druchunas of Vermont) and several handcrafts (Remigija Smolskis of Toronto, for felting, papercut art, Easter egg decoration and sash-weaving). Donna posted a note online immediately, and we received several new membership queries as a result.

♦  The highlight of the AGM was a presentation on our favourite Lithuanian fabric, LINEN (linas) by Danute Mileikiene (Boston). She described its history and use in Lithuanian culture, and the process from seed plating to fibre extraction to spinning in great detail, with beautiful photos and video clips. We were all about to order seeds, but she warned us that to weave one shirt would require planting a 15 x 15 foot square area of flax, and the fibre extraction takes much more than a passing whack at the bundle of stalks. Her depth of knowledge was fascinating, and she promised to expand her presentation to eventually post on our website. We look forward to that, and thank her for her time and effort.

♦  We are also very pleased to present 15 new costumes in our online National Costume Archive. Work continues on expanding the collection within the year.

♦  We will be pausing for a summer break, and hope to bring news of workshops and other activities in September. We send you all our best wishes for avoiding COVID-19 and spending a creative and happy summer.

♦ We were encouraged to hear from several people who expressed an interest in our activities. However, not all of you have paid the $10 annual membership fee. Please do so through PayPal, here on our website.

♦ We continue to work with the Lithuanian Museum Archives of Canada (LMAC) in Mississauga, Ontario. At our meeting, it was decided that the physical archive we finished organizing this spring will be passed to the LMAC.

♦ Regarding National Costumes, LMAC has issued the following announcement:

Lithuanian national costumes are heirlooms of culture and artisanship. The craftsmanship and techniques used in each extraordinary ensemble result in objects worthy of preservation for future generations. The Lithuanian Museum-Archives of Canada collects Lithuanian national costumes, preserves them with care, and curates exhibitions with educational value that tell their story. If you have a Lithuanian national costume, individual components or other article of clothing that was hand-woven by an artisan, please consider donating these heirlooms to LMAC – you will be passing these treasures on to future generations. LMAC email: ac.su1611441955mirp@1611441955amlk1611441955.

♦ On a sad note, we received news this week about the passing of a long-standing member of the LTFAI, Dr. Angele Kazlauskas (July 10, 1935-June 4, 2020), formerly of Oakville, Ontario. Aside from her activities with the LTFAI and a life-long interest in folk art, she was one of only three graduating women from a class of 150 from the University of Toronto Faculty of Dentistry in 1959, Angele was the founder of the charity dental clinic “Perlas” in Lithuania.

♦ REMINDER: our Annual General Meeting is coming up on June 6. The session will cover current activities, special projects, our outreach initiatives and an update on our ambitious national costume archive including new content.  We will feature a presentation on flax and linen that will showcase the process from field to finished garment and its importance in Lithuanian culture. This will be presented in English by Danute Mileikiene, a fibre artist from Lithuania. We are looking forward to having you join us!

♦ To join the session, please send your name and email address to gro.i1611441955aftl@1611441955tcatn1611441955oc1611441955 so that we may send you an invitation. Everyone is welcome but only members are allowed to vote. If you haven’t yet, please update your $10 membership fee through our Paypal portal.

♦ A message from the Lithuanian Museum-Archives of Canada (LMAC): Lithuanian national costumes are heirlooms of culture and artisanship. The craftsmanship and techniques used in each extraordinary ensemble result in objects worthy of preservation for future generations. The Lithuanian Museum-Archives of Canada collects Lithuanian national costumes, preserves them with care, and curates exhibitions with educational value that tell their story. If you have a Lithuanian national costume, individual components or other article of clothing that was hand-woven by an artisan, please consider donating these heirlooms to LMAC – you will be passing these treasures on to future generations. LMAC email: ac.su1611441955mirp@1611441955amlk1611441955.

♦ Spring is here at last, but unfortunately, so is COVID-19. We hope you are all staying well and coping with this disturbing situation as positively as possible. Due to the health and safety regulations governing us at this time, we have cancelled our AGM, and postponed the date to June 6. In case a physical meeting is not possible at that time, we are already making plans for a virtual, i.e., online meeting. We will keep you informed as to which option will be possible.

♦ For the AGM, aside from annual reports about the Board’s activities, we have invited Danutė Mileikienė to make a presentation on growing and processing flax into linen. She will also conduct a workshop, showing us how to felt a “lino žiedas” — a flax blossom. Materials will cost $10.

•  Best wishes to all members and friends for a very happy, healthy and creative New Year! We are working on presenting more costumes in the online catalogue and will be announcing the launch as soon as we can
• If you did not receive our Christmas greeting, please send us your current email address, as some of the emails bounced back due to overfull mailboxes and changed addresses. We are eager to keep in touch with all of you! Our email is gro.i1611441955aftl@1611441955tcatn1611441955oc1611441955.
• The Annual General Meeting is scheduled for April 18th in Toronto. We hope many of you may come this year – we will have another interesting workshop and look forward to discussing various LTFAI matters with you.

♦ Welcome back everyone! We hope your summer was wonderful. Now that “winter is coming”, we can look forward to planning and learning new crafts for the indoor season. Knitting was a theme this year, with Donna Druchunas visiting at the AGM and showing us how to make traditional Lithuanian wristlets (riešinės). It is a craft that Donna has delved into deeply, and has several books on the topic. We will post a list soon, and are also adding a new section on knitting, which we invite you to visit. Send us your thoughts and any areas of further interest as well!

♦ Camp Neringa in Brattleboro, Vermont, has its 50th anniversary this year, and many interesting events were organized to celebrate. Some of you may have attended the reunion in September. There was also a mushrooming weekend, which was unfortunately somewhat far for Torontonians, but closer for Montrealers and of course Lithuanians from New York, Boston, communities in Connecticut and other Eastern seaboard areas. However LTFAI president Diana Wiese and secretary Ramune Jonaitis did make it to Neringa for an event at the end of August, called Culture Days. Our goal was to present our organization as an important North American cultural institution. Diana spoke about its goals and future plans, and we were happy to promote LTFAI, and even have some new members as a result. Attendance at the Cultural Days was not huge, as various people came and went at various points during the program (August 21-25), but the group was warm and receptive. There were interesting talks on architecture, on the history of Neringa, a book presentation, a writing workshop, a play reading, a demonstration of wool processing and other sessions we were sorry to miss because of time constraints. We hope we can continue to reach out to our American friends and widen our network of Lithuanian folk artists and aficionados. On our way back we also managed to  visit Donna Druchunas at her home in Vermont, and found her dyeing wool! We were happy to hear that she is learning Lithuanian and is as dynamic as ever. For knitting news and ideas, do visit her website https://sheeptoshawl.com.