We continue to amplify local businesses for the Dufferin Board of Trade.
Full video transcript:
I bury them under the snow, mix the dye and put it on top, and I let the dye mix and mingle, and it creates some unusual patterns on the silk when it comes out. So I really like that. It’s very freeing. Everything is baked fresh daily. Even our box cookies. This shelf gets cleaned out probably three to four times every day. We create those experiences and opportunities for youth to find a place to express themselves and to just be creative and hopefully ignite something inside of them that will help them throughout their journey in life. I’ve been weaving for 30 years now, so I do my business from home, I have a home studio in my basement. So the process for me is first, to choose the colours that I want to use. Colour is a big part of my life and I love it. Then I will choose a pattern and I will do the weaving. And from there, I create a finished product, whether it’s a scarf, or then I turn the fabric into something like a handbag or a jacket. Shortbread is actually really easy from an ingredient perspective. It really is technique, so there are a lot of techniques that go along with it that we have perfected over the years. I did bake shortbread, you know, with family, with my grandmother when I was younger, so I learnt a lot of things along the way. STREAMS Community Hub is an arts based charity that serves youth ages 4 to 17 in Shelburne and surrounding areas within Dufferin county. When Juli-Anne and I moved to Shelburne in 2015, we saw that there were a lot of opportunities for youth in recreational and sports, but there wasn’t a lot of things for kids to be creative. We felt that if we were able to start something, it would be an opportunity for them to express themselves in a different way. I don’t believe in the colour rules too much, and I like to mix things around and just try different things. So I think maybe that’s what I really enjoyed about it the most. All these towns will be white, and then I’m just changing the colour in what’s called the weft. So that’s creating the pattern of the colour. We do make thousands of cookies a day. So, yeah, everything is very fresh. It is really a craft in terms of making sure that you’re switching and turning and doing everything at the right time and that everything’s at the exact right temperature. We think it’s really important to the community and also for the environment to stay as close to home as possible. We get all of our butter from the Alliston Creamery and our maple sugar shortbread. We actually use pure maple sugar from a local maple syrup producer. I found the support in Dufferin County has been great people get really interested in in the weaving that I’m doing and also in the snow dyeing specifically. I’d say right from the beginning, the response from the community has truly been overwhelming, which really let us know that we were answering a need. We have municipal support, grant support and of course, community support.