Firstly a big Thank You! Our last meeting felt a huge success, with so many people attending. 4 new members came along and were truly given some great mentoring from our members. It was a delight to watch. Thank you again ladies for the good work. For once we actually managed to cover the cost of the hall (something we haven’t managed to do on most occasions in the past), so we are grateful for your contributed funds. I, for one, would love to see more of these kind of days and would be interested in seeing extra social gatherings added into our workshop calendar, possibly on a weekday if we have a workshop booked for the month, and at a variety of locations. What do you think… would you be interested? Do email me and let me know. Thanks to Sheila for the short video of our meeting. I’ve put it on the front page and if you start playing the video and then “right click” on the image you can open the video in a new “tab” where it will be much larger. I don’t know just why you have to set it running first but there you go.

On Saturday 11th March Val Lenton will be teaching us how to do Tunisian Crochet.
You can see the details under the Events tab. One aspect is that Val will provide the equipment needed in the form of the correct crochet tool that is yours to take home. An added bonus!
Susanne, our Treasurer, tells me that so far we have 10 people booked on the day but there are more spaces. Of course we would like all members wishing to participate be accommodated so please contact Susanne as soon as you can if you’re interested. She also has other people waiting to know if they might have a place.

Now I must get back to my weaving… it has been a little neglected given this lovely weather we’ve been having here.
Hope to see you soon.
All the best
Helen

Hello all,

Well, it’s just turned the first of February.  Some of you may know it as Candlemas though it goes by other names too.  Officially it’s the first day of spring and my first reaction was to say “you’re joking!” but actually I can see the sense in it.  Already I have primroses in the garden and the buds are starting to form on the trees.  We don’t have snowdrops in the garden but there are masses in the woods nearby.

Urges to be outdoors had been pulling at me and I was drawn to use some fallen eucalyptus leaves to experiment with some “Eco printing”.  Cotton needs a protein mordant so the previous week I tried India Flint’s recipe for soaking in soya milk.  I promptly forgot about it.  Over a week later I deeply regret that!  Many expletives of disbelief and horror that anything could possibly smell so bad came out of my kitchen.  Three washes at 90 degrees, alternating with added bleach or added bicarb of soda, still didn’t get rid of the stench properly!  I did try the leaf printing eventually, bundling up layers of damp leaves and cloth.  As I unrolled my bundles I thought of my friends who have laughed at my natural dyeing experiments and found myself grinning at yet another “fantasy beige” outcome with not a leafy design in sight.  I’m glad to say that the logwood and dyers alkanet produced wonderful abstract designs of good colour when sprinkled on the cloth and steamed for a few hours.  I might just go back to old fashioned onion skins like we used to do on Easter eggs.

On another colour note we have Dornoch fibre festival coming up soon and we’d love help with some demonstrating over the two days it’s on.  If there are a good few of us there should be lots of time for exploring the show too, and of course I’m looking forward to the stalls!

all the best

Helen

Thanks to Jane we now have the January newsletter keeping us up to date.

Alison is giving us some more detail on her inkle loom workshop for this month so you can get a better idea of what to expect, and it sounds like there is plenty for all levels of experience.  The events item is updated with details.

Remember to get your membership in this month.  You’ll notice the new payment button on our home page.  Unfortunately we are charged for processing online payments so must make an addition of £2.50 to cover fees.  Of course if you pay by sending our treasurer Susanne a cheque then the amount will still only be £20 for membership.

All the best

Helen

p.s.

Aileen has just sent me a wonderful picture of the new inkle loom her son has made for her…

“This was hand made by my son Adrian Hickey, a Furniture Maker. The best Christmas present I ever had.  Anyone who would like one made get in touch.”  (Aileen)

When I first joined the guild workshops titled “Corners” had me totally confused. How to make corners? In what medium? But soon I found this quirky title to be a gathering of four different mini workshops which you can move between as you like, doing all or just one if you prefer. This last workshop, which I sadly missed, was a fun gathering of 3 different tutored corners and one busy social area where there seems to have been many spinning wheels!

We had Corner 1: Bev from Handspinner Having Fun, Broadford, Skye who brought a range of fibres for participants to try and/or buy.
Corner 2: Rene Gibson from Achmore tutoring the spinning of alpaca.
Corner 3: Sara Smith from Rosemarkie who made us a stack of wee Quilt Weaver Looms, as seen on the day of Teresinha Robert’s talk, and showed how to use them.
Corner 4: A social corner with many spinning wheels and much chattering!

Thank you to Serena and Catherine for the photographs!

So it is the AGM tomorrow and I can’t go as I am stuck in bed. I should be writing the Chair’s report but thought I would just raise a couple of points here (facebook) and on the website ( help please Helen) so you might think about them in advance.

We have a great workshop programme that is supposed to run from Sept to June with a balance of weaving, spinning and dyeing with practical workshops and talks.. We think there is a demand for more simple spinning days, Members’ Days and Beginners spinning. How should we meet this demand without compromising on the workshops that we provide? One suggestion is that we try to have more Big Spins, emulating the Achmore Day which is held in September. We could have a Spring Spin in Inverness or Ardross.

We could just have more meetings but would you come?

There is so much interest in spinning and lots of people say they would like to try. Should the Guild be more active in offering Beginner’s spinning ? Our remit is to encourage and promote the craft but we are all improvers and benefit from our workshops. Can we just rely on local spinning groups and people who want to teach?

Also at the AGM I wanted views on whether we should have a wheel. Apparently the Guild wheel is damaged. I bought a basic Ashford traditional which was used at Knitfest. Is it useful to have one for shows etc and available for hire or do demonstrators tend to use their own. Storage is an issue. Now maintenance is also needed.

Hope to see you all soon.
Best wishes
Serena

What a wonderful day meeting some lovely people from all over !  Scotland, England, Sweden and of course a great number of Danish Ladies, who have flown over enforce to support the event having just had their own show two weeks ago.  So many gorgeous jumpers, coats and shawls passed by or stopped to chat (with wonderful people attached).  Thank you to all the visitors for being so warm and friendly.  I know a good many of them are here for the whole weekend so you’ll get a chance to meet up over the weekend.

Thanks Fiona for the pic.

It looks like we’ll be in “the observer” on Tuesday too (that’s not an advert to buy though… just saying !)