Highland Guild of Weavers Spinners & Dyers

Author: Alison Roddham

  • The creative flame

    Busying away with my spinning and weaving I wonder at differences of everyone’s creative processes.  One friend said to me today that she and her grand-daughter have been sorting out all her bits and pieces of hand-dyed fleece and ended up with 5 baskets full of the different colour ranges!  Goodness, I thought, I’d better get on with some dyeing.  I don’t have nearly enough stash!  No, what I have is “stash envy”, and no where to put anymore.  Well I could just maybe…  Do you get that?  This slow brewing craving for anything of any colour or fibre type to just have, ready to use in a fabulous project, or not?  I know another friend (and you might be able to guess who) may disagree.  For her the colour has to be very specific.  Red actually.  Red and black and greys.  But boy it’s amazing what she can do with that palette.  It’s all about finding what ignites our flame.  Some people can seemingly throw anything together and it works, others plan then dye, spin and weave accordingly.

    What kind of creative are you and what are your must have elements?  I get tingles with turquoise and copper (yes, there is some in the project pictured below… just a hint, if you look hard.)

  • January News Updated

    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)

     

  • Alpaca and Merino

    I enjoy seeing what everyone has been up to and I think that you must too so, under a little pressure from Aileen (who wishes not to be the only one seeming to share anymore) I’m adding my scarf to our Members Projects.

    If anyone else would like to contribute (and I know there are wonderful things being made out there) just send me a picture with a few words to describe the project and I’ll stick it on our page for you.

    This scarf is a “slow project” but I’m pleased that I managed to spin it (10 merino : 6 alpaca : 1 silk, lace-weight 2 ply), from the alpaca day, and then knit it.  I’m not a patient knitter normally so this is a huge thing for me to have stuck at.  It’s warm and soft, BUT, I’m told it should be saved for the Highland Show, as it would fulfil the requirements nicely….  Hmm the temptation to wear may prove to great but I have been good and tucked it away in a clean place for now.  So now it’s back to the fireside with my wheel as I have a new mission for the New Year.

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  • Corners !

    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!

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  • St Boniface Fair

    Here we have a lovely picture of Aileen and Mary (Paren) demonstrating at the St Boniface Fair.

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    I’m hoping either will add a comment here and tell us more about the event.

  • AGM thoughts from Serena

    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

  • Long Draw Successes

    Serena sent in these pics of the Long Draw Spinning workshop.

    She writes “Great workshop today with Odet Beauvoisin showing us how to do long draw for woollen and worsted yarn. I think most of us got it some of the time. Interesting that Odet is such a proficient spinner that she had to add in neps to make her yarn look hand spun or it did not sell so well.”

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  • Knit Fest

    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.

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    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 !)

  • Stay a while !

    Aileen writes:

    “A pic of my Stay A While shawl pattern by Louise Zass-Bangham.  It’s about a 4 ply.  Dark purple is Merino and silk.  Light colour is a 100gm bag of mixed fluff with a wrap of a thin boulle from a cone.  As usual I enjoyed spinning it, and this time I didn’t have to be clever to knit it.”

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  • Colour from a different angle – weaving with Cally Booker

    Saturday September 10th 2016

    Ten eager weavers gathered at Strathpeffer for the HGWSD workshop with Dundee based weaver Cally Booker. Cally works from her studio in a converted jute mill and is passionate about hand weaving, colour and the exploration of multi layered weaves. She specialises in weaving beautiful home textiles, scarves and fabrics.

    Several participants had brought along their looms already warped up with warps sent in advance by Cally. Others were able to use good quality table looms brought along by Cally , ready warped. This enabled the whole group to weave straightaway.

    Cally started by showing us a selection of woven samples, also known as gamps ,which illustrated five different colour and mood groupings based on the Goethe*/ Albers* colour triangle.( lucid, serene, mighty, serious and melancholic) Our own warps were designed in one of the colour groups with either a white or black contrast within the warp dividing the colours.

    Our first task was to create our own colour mood designs based on any of the colour triangle groups , using coloured paper, scissors,card and glue sticks. We were encouraged to play with the width, order and position of colour blocks . Cally suggested that we tried to express mood through colour using a starting point such as music or film titles rather than a visual image. We all found this exercise helpful and more flexible than directly yarn wrapping onto card. The vibrant results amazed us all. We found ourselves using colours ” outside our usual comfort zone” .

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    Everyone started to weave towards the end of the morning. The room became a hive of activity. Cally provided excellent handouts to guide the day and her confident enthusiastic manner encouraged all to try out the different colour sequences as the weft on our warps. Looms were set up for either basic plain weave ( tabby) ,which uses alternating paired shaft lifts, or balanced 2/2 twill, which uses a sequence of four different shaft lifts on the loom.

    A number of different options for exploring shaded twill, other twill patterns or weave sequences were offered by Cally, which ensured suitable challenge for more experienced weavers in the group. Some weavers decided to try out each other’s loom and warp, but most of us chose to remain on the same loom to explore the possibilities outlined.

    By the end of the day, lovely colourful gamps had been made and we had all learned more about colour and mood in weaving. Those using Cally’s looms were able to cut off their gamps to take home at the end of the workshop and the rest of us have sufficient warp left on our looms to continue experimenting.

    We all agreed that the day had encouraged us to weave with colours which we might not have previously selected . We also noted the different effects made upon colours in weaving by the use of either black, white or grey yarns in warp or weft. It was a very well planned workshop and the day passed all too fast. Many thanks to Cally Booker for her excellent tutoring and to Catherine Freeland for arranging the event on behalf of the committee.

    by Hilma Rask

    * Albers, Josef (1963) Interaction of Colour . Yale University Press
    * Goethe , Johan,Wolfgang von (1810) Theory of Colours

  • Cally Booker’s Colour workshop

    A big thank you to Cally Booker for her weaving with colour workshop.  It looks to have been a really interesting day… I wish I could have been there.

    Cally writes about the day on the blog part of her website… http://callybooker.co.uk/

    safe_image“The weavers of Highland Guild worked hard yesterday! I had driven up north with a boot-full of looms – having also sent several warps on ahead a month ago – and we spent the day looking at ‘Colour from a Different Angle’ using Goethe’s (or Albers’s) triangle.

    There is a lot to enjoy in Goethe’s work on colour, but the thing I find most interesting about the triangle is the way it facilitates creating sub-groups of colours associated with different themes and moods. It’s a great way to work if you are starting from an inspirational idea that is not visual, such as a piece of music. So we spent most of the day examining these sub-groups and testing out the theory with coloured card and then on the looms (see images above).

    The day flew by and at 4 o’clock we were reviewing a glorious selection of samples.”

     

  • summer alpaca

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    I hope your summer is going well.  The last few days of warm weather has staved off the approaching autumn quite nicely.  Since the Black Isle Show, which Serena wrote a good report of in the newsletter, I haven’t been out and about much but I thought I’d show you the results of my alpaca treasures from our day out at the alpaca farm.  I bought a small quantity of white which I spun up with merino (on recommendation) and silk at a ratio of 6:10:1.  It has turned out beautifully soft and fine.  I spun worsted from double carded thin batts torn into strips and managed a fine lace weight 2ply.  I’ve heard people say “why is everyone obsessed with spinning fine” but I wanted to stretch the rather expensive alpaca fibre as far as possible.  Sooo now to the knitting.  I’m not a knitter by nature so this is a tasksome project.  I’m doing a mobius scarf in a 4×4 basket weave on 3.5 needles and it’s like knitting baby clothes for a big person… wish me luck!

    What are your thoughts on alpaca yarns?  Some say they are a bit lifeless without the bounce of some wool added and I wonder what your experiences are.

    Hope to see you soon at some of the events !

    All the best

    Helen