 Weaving a story grew by my love of weaving sashes and the sash weaving that I do is on an ankle loom and I was taught by Mary Conway of Turtle Mountain last year and I fell in love with it because it tells the story personally of the person's story of their family their community or their business. The patterns on the sashes are all created and they're unique and they tell a story within the sash. I would love to see ankle loom sashes on all the Métis people. I think that ankle loom sash weaving is an art from our past that needs to be brought up. We've done finger weaving. There are many different sashes that are out there that are pre-made but to be able to create a sash and tell the story of a person a family or a school or a corporation to me I hope to accomplish that something that I've learned from someone very special to learn how to ankle loom a sash is so important to our history it's so important to our culture and to be able to weave a story and tell the story of the person who owns that sash whether it be about their family their business or even about the school to me it's so important to get that story out there and to have more people to tell their story through wearing a simple sash. It's a relaxing journey just like beating to sit down and to create someone's story for example this is the University of Winnipeg sash so to sit down and to tell the University of Winnipeg story through their colors the colors are white and red red is very very prominent in sashes so I wanted to do something a little bit different and do white I wanted to modernize the sash so that you'd see something unique so when someone sees a unique sash made like the University of Winnipeg sash they would see it and go what sash is that what does it mean so that they can tell a story of what it's all about. Working at Louis Riele Institute I'm so excited to create workshops so that people can learn how to weave learn how to tell a story figure out how to string up the the loom and start weaving to me when you start to actual weave the sash you actually can see the pattern come alive and to me that is so precious to see and to pass that on and for others to create their sashes is pretty amazing what's exciting is they would get to learn the history of a sash a sash wasn't just something that a voyager wore people wore them as it to me a sash represents almost like a batman utility belt of the future they used it for many different things and they weren't just a garment a belt that they would wear they would use it as a tool belt so they would put their pemekin inside they would use the actual sash for helping for portaging to they would have the strings on it for sewing they would use the sash for washing there's so many different things that they would use for the sash so for people to learn that that it wasn't just all about voyagers but other people made them and it represented their life who they were and people knew who they were because of what their sash look like and to learn that I think it's very important even the colors of the sash mean something for example red represents the blood that was shed through our Métis nation as well as the heart of the Métis nation green represents fertility our lifeline black represents the dark times we don't want to forget about the dark times those dark times represent Louis Real being hanged for high treason wrote allowance people as well as residential schools we don't want to forget that so we want to make sure those patterns are weaved into the sash white represents the creator we want to give back to the creator so we want to make sure that that's in the sash blue represents the sky the water as well as when it's weaved in as the Métis flag it's so important to have those in there and the other color is yellow because of the dark times in our history the Métis Métis Federation introduced yellow and yellow represents a bright and a bright future hope for the future so to be able to put that in a sash to me represents so much more than just a pattern I hope to pass on the knowledge through workshops through Louis Real Institutes by wearing the sashes and getting the interest out there so people can learn how to make them be excited to wear them because it represents them I think some of the challenges would be for the Inco looms themselves there are very unique loom and so to have someone build them in the proper way because we don't want to lose the way that the loom was made there's so many different looms out there that we want to stick to the Inco loom that I was taught on so to make sure that those looms are available to people make sure that there's teachers out there that are willing to teach this art and sitting down with people and allowing them to think outside the box making it more modern making a sash for their own I think is really really important Inco looming is done on an Inco loom and it's pattern based instead of the chevron and lightning patterns so each pattern represents something about the family or a memory of the Métis nation so the black and red on my sash represents the dark times the heart of the Métis nation the blood that was shed this pattern represents the Red River settlement my family came from the Red River settlement the green there's a green line that goes through and that represents my lifeline and then I have three footsteps on the outer side and that represents my three boys then we have the Métis flag and in the middle I have a wildflower pattern and the reason why I created that is I also wanted to represent my Hungarian heritage side and my grandmother taught me how to embroider so I wanted to incorporate that in there this is a more modern sash it is in teal and I did that because teal represents a fresh and new beginnings and everything that I've gone through in my life I wanted to have that represented in my sash we braid the ends of the sash and the reason for that it's it's two cultures coming together to make Métis and it's tightly woven so it's braided so it's another way of saying that the Métis are tightly woven and the beads of course represents the beads of our past and our beating indigenous education is has come a long way and it's so exciting to have indigenous education when I say about the bright future it's so exciting to be able to share the art of sash weaving, beating, talking about Métis history and using our stories and being able to have a voice to me is exciting for indigenous education and to be a part of this and to share this and for people to wear these sashes to me is so important because it represents who we are as Métis people. It's not a question of what's going to happen with indigenous education that indigenous education whether it be language, culture, history will be out there and that our children's children will understand who the Métis are as a nation and that they would learn about our culture through either beading, sashing, visiting the sites all around Winnipeg so that they could be proud of who they are as a Métis. There's no question about indigenous education anymore because it's already in our school systems.