This was a promotional day for the Red Cross, with a lot of very good quality craft stands. Stallholders had been asked to demonstrate their crafts as well, so there was plenty to interest visitors. We had a display of our work and quite a number of Guild members attended to demonstrate spinning and weaving. Serena brought her amazing little electric spinner, which sat in her lap, running off a mobile phone battery charger, while Henriette wove a lovely pattern on her 8-shaft loom, and Denise wove on an inkle loom. The rest of us were spinning. We had a lot of interest from the public, with quite a number stopping to have a go.
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Spring events
We will be demonstrating at the Red Cross event at Dingwall Academy on Saturday 30th March, and then at the Forres Theme Day a month later on Sunday 5th May in the afternoon. The Forres Theme Day is an annual event, with vintage cars. pipe band etc, and is usually a good day out, though the weather can be variable!
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Playing with Colour
Stephanie Hoyle’s Dyeing Workshop was preceded with clear notes in March’s Guild Newsletter explaining the uses of Procion MX Dyes and which fibres they were suitable for. Recipes were given so we could prepare our fibres ahead of the day. I found this extremely useful as it enabled me to hank up skeins, weigh out tops and label them beforehand then soak them all, starting at home.
When I arrived at Strathpeffer Community Centre the room was already laid out with three “work stations” each equipped with plastic covers for the tables, a microwave oven, a range of dyes, and containers for mixing and fixing dyes. Stephanie gave us an introductory talk, covering Health and Safety, preparing yarns, fibre etc. for dyeing, applying dye and fixing dyes then finishing the process. What was even better she gave us written notes, especially useful for people like me who can only take in a little at a time or who are hoping to do more dyeing later.
After this short talk, we were all off back to our workstations and the dyes. What fun it was to try and match colours; mixing the primary colours to give subtle and sometimes surprising shades, or just using the primary colours directly onto the fibre then letting them blend into each other. I tried three different methods: immersing fibre in the dye completely; space dyeing tops and injecting dye into a centre-pull ball of yarn. All my fibres were wool, others members tried dyeing cotton, other plant fibres and fabric.
The day passed all too quickly. I came away with all my 500gms of tops and yarns dyed and ready to rinse out once they had fully cooled. You can see the results in the pictures [the last three in the gallery below]. My next excitement will be when I spin up the tops and knit up the yarns.
Thank you Stephanie for an interesting, informative and productive day.
Mary Paren
Here are some photos from the March 2019 Procion MX dye workshop. Since the workshop I’ve dyed some more cotton and got much deeper colours. I left it in the dye for 40 hours plus. I also left it in the fixative solution, adding the dye to that. Not sure which was responsible for the deeper colours, so more experimenting needed. There was still colour left in the water, so perhaps it needed to be left even longer. These are my workshop notes which you can download.
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Stephanie Hoyle -
Feb 2019 Open Day and Challenge
Another good day, with 30 plus people attending, and a shared lunch. Most people were spinning; Sheila had brought along a book charka to spin cotton. Click on the pictures to see more detail.
[envira-gallery id=”3196″]The focus of the day though was the Guild challenge. This started at the September meeting, when those participating had been asked to bring 100 gms of fibre (in an opaque bag!) to exchange. The challenge was to spin whatever fibre you got, and to make something with it! Several people who could not attend the September meeting joined in later, exchanging fibre at spinning groups. The array of completed projects was impressive, and it seemed that everyone had learned from it and been pushed out of their comfort zone.
[envira-gallery id=”3197″]A couple of additional items: Michelle was wearing a tunic created from her first foray into 4-shaft weaving; and there was also a display of woven samples.
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Library update
Details of most of the spinning and dyeing books are now on the web site. Still working on the others.
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January 2019 Guild Open Day and Talk
A very popular event, with an attendance of 37. Most people were spinning, but there were a few weavers, and a couple of knitters as well. We had a very interesting talk from Christina Chisholm, a former Highland Guild member, who is Chair of the Editorial Committee for the Journal of the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. We were all very impressed to learn that the vast majority of the work done by the Association is done by volunteers, including the commissioning, selection and editing of material for the Journal, and the organisation of the Conference, Summer School and Exhibition. We were also very impressed with Christina’s folders of samples for her Certificate of Achievement in Weaving, for which she got a well deserved Distinction.
Some photos of the event (more to come):
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Loch Ness Knitfest 2018
The venue for the Knitfest this year was the main hall of the Inverness sports centre. This, to my mind was the best venue yet. The hall is square-ish, so allowed for better layout of the stands. We had a good space with a wall behind us, as many tables as we asked for, and plenty of room for spinners, as they had put a social chat area near us, which we were able to encroach on if necessary. The downside was that we were quite near the stage, and some of our volunteers found it too noisy – the second day was better as they lowered the volume. As in previous years we had a small display from the Moray Firth Gansey Project adjacent to our stand. Quite a number of people had a go at spinning or weaving, mostly adults, there weren’t many children around.
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November 2018 Guild open day
At this event we had all of our Guild equipment on display, so that members could see what is available, try things out, and find out how to use equipment they’ve never tried before. A lot of people also came along to spin, weave and be social. So many people attended that we had to transfer to the big hall as we were too cramped in the usual room.
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Update
I think I almost know what I’m doing now, thanks to a lot of support from Helen! You’ll see I’ve put up something on the December workshop – if you click on the heading you will find more photos. I also have photos from the November open day and the Knitfest. To find these click on “reports”. I’m also working on the library, but this will take a while, so I’m doing it in the background. Helen photographed all (or most – some may have been on loan) of the book covers, so some of the work is done, but it’s still quite slow.
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December 2018 workshop
I didn’t get to the corners workshop on 8th December, but from Alison Roddham’s photos it looks as though it was a really good day, with people learning to use alarming looking hackles and combs, making dainty Dorset buttons, and exploring the potential of pin looms / quilt looms.
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Aileen’s rug
Aileen wove this on a 24 inch (60 cm) rigid heddle loom, stitched lengths together to get the width she needed, and backed it with hessian. The yarn is rug wool from Kincraig at Brora. As Aileen says, it just shows what can be achieved on the simplest small loom. -
New weaving
Aileen sent this a wee while back… Sorry for the delay in posting it up Aileen. She writes
“The length of cloth is ten foot long, wool. The weft is hand spun and hand dyed (not by
me) all done on a 7.5 dent. I’m afraid it took ages!”
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Prizes all round
Well done to all who tended our stand at the Sutherland Show on Saturday. It was a lovely day out and such a good display. Thank you to Janet for coordinating it all. We also won a first prize for the tent as a whole and a special award for our interaction with the public (I’m sorry I don’t have it’s proper title to hand). Thank you Jane for the pictures.
