Newsletter of The Central Ohio Weavers Guild. Notes from the President. September/October 2014

Transcription

1 Newsletter of The Central Ohio Weavers Guild September/October 2014 Notes from the President By Amy Swanson Remember that back-to-school question, How did you spend your summer?... Well how did you spend your summer when it comes to your fiber crafts? I had my first foray into backyard dyeing, finally using Judith MacKenzie's wool dyes from her warp painting workshop with the guild (yes--that was in 2011)... I cashed in on my door prize from the fashion show--a free class with Since I'm trying my hand at digital fabric printing, I took the Pen, Ink, & Watercolor class with Matt Rota and loved it. I devoted time to my spinning to improve my beginner skills for the flax and hemp spinning workshop in October, got my warp ready for the anniversary book project, and even demoed at the fair (I confess, I did try to convince kids that there are purple sheep)... When I reflect on my summer in fiber--and the varied learning opportunities I've had through the guild-- I realize how much better all my fiber skills are when I am exposed to such a diversity of fiberrelated techniques. We have such a great program of talks and workshops ahead this year and I'm excited to take in as many as I can afford because I know that any new fiber skill will enlighten me in ways I haven't yet imagined. As for your summer, I know that many of you gave your time and talents on behalf of the guild. I do not know all the names of those signed up to volunteer but I do know that you met the call to demo at the State Fair, Mid-Ohio Fiber Fest, and Fiber in the Garden. I wholeheartedly thank you for your time and energy and especially thank those who led the way this summer: Kathleen Craig and Cheryl Koncsol, the gang who put on Sheep-to-Shawl, Laura Brendon who along with Kathleen and Cheryl hung out every day at the fair, the faithful who always set up the fiber arts displays in the crafts building, those who participated for the first time or the hundredth time, Lenore Meila for Fiber in the Garden, Julie Smith who headed up Mid-Ohio, and Ed Morrow and Kathleen Craig for coordinating A Wool Gathering in September (yes, they still need your help). Thank you, thank you, thank you! Amy Swanson accepts the trappings of office from Sue Atkins. As I've said and will keep saying, we are over 100 folks now in our membership rolls and our efforts need all of us to educate about weaving 1

2 and all things fiber. We are not a healthy group if only a few do all the work. So what is ahead for fall? For starters, we demo at Yellow Springs September and have our first guild meeting Saturday, September 27, where Anne Kennedy will give the program talk: Fiber and the Internet. Do you wonder what Craftsy is? Weavolution? How to access Ravelry? Anne will clue us in. In October, we learn from Susan Conover about linen and hemp in workshops on spinning and weaving with these cellulose fibers. In November, a local knitting talent, Michelle Hunter, shares her skills of Navajo knitting, Intarsia, and Fair Isle. If your summer got ahead of you and you didn't get to engage your fiber love as you had hoped, take advantage of these great opportunities to demo with the guild and to build your repertoire of skills. Join us at The Wool Gathering By Ed Morrow Hi, Folks. It s nearly time for the 19 th annual Wool Gathering, Sept st at Young s Jersey Dairy, Yellow Springs, OH. (Time flies.) The Gathering is a weekend of fun, learning and shopping, revolving around wool and other fibers and sheep and other fiber animals. Again, COWG will have a display and demonstrations of fiber crafts. can be dropped off at the weaving studio, Cultural Arts Center, or to several members around the area. Contact Kathleen or me if you have stuff to display. This year we are focusing on household items, rugs, blankets, towels, placemats etc. There will be a demonstration loom with a towel warp and a loom for nonweavers to try their hand at making a mug rug. There will also be demonstrations of spinning, knitting and other fiber arts. This show has been a great success in the past. We need your help to make it a success this year. First we need folks to set up and take down the booth, and meet people and demonstrate weaving and fiber arts. You don t need to be a master, you need the like meeting people and showing off your craft. There is a sign-up sheet on the Guild website, or contact Kathleen Craig, or myself, co-coordinators. Second we need display items. Again these don t need to be masterpieces, but new or gently used handmade household items. Items Ed Morrow is coordinating the Wool Gathering display with Kathleen Craig. Novice or expert, this is our chance to shine. I hope you can help. If you are not familiar with The Gathering, check out: youngsdairy.com/cowlender 2

3 Sheep to Shawl with Malabar Farm Spinning and Weaving Guild By Sue Briney Many of you know Carroll and Marilyn Fogle (of Marilyn s Border Leicesters) were instrumental in bringing the Sheep to Shawl demonstration back to the Ohio State Fair. Well, no sooner was our 2013 inaugural S2S demo completed, than idea man Carroll was talking about how to expand the demo for One of his suggestions was to include more Ohio guilds, and the Malabar Farm guild agreed to join us in The Malabar guild came to the Fair with weavers and spinners who had never participated in the old S2S competitions. They were very excited to be demonstrating, and they shared a lot of information about their guild with us. They have a unique partnership with Malabar Farm, and they actually raise their own sheep. They had some of their roving with them, which was luscious and begged to be taken home! The members invited us to join them at their meetings and activities. Their monthly meeting is the first Tuesday of the month at 7 p.m. at the Malabar Farm park visitor s center. They also meet each Monday (weather and federal holidays permitting) at the farm office at Malabar State Farm. They are just a short drive from the Mansfield/Bellville exit on I-71. For more information, see If you find an event you d like to attend, you can go solo or can coordinate a group road trip. Either way, the guild would love to have us join them! Of course, we reciprocated the invitation for them to join us any time. They are very interested in our Retreats, and are already planning to join us on November 2 nd at Spring Hollow Lodge. They will be bringing some of their own fiber to sell. They have $2.25/oz (neutral and dark brown), Lopi $17/skein (neutral, dark brown, and multicolored), and raw fleece. More information will be supplied before the Retreat. We re excited that the S2S demos have started new relationships with the Malabar Farm guild and with the Ohio wool growers. Together we can share and learn more about our fiber passions! Did you know? Since June, the guild website has had 2,425 folks view it? The most on one day this summer was 136 and on average, 30 people checked the site daily. During the demos this summer, we had 40 people sign up to receive informational s from us and to be informed of events happening in the guild. Since joining the Woolery's rewards program, the guild has earned $85.86 in store credit. Remember Woolery online, you'll need to go through the link on the guild website in order for their system to register credit to us. 3

4 How the Sheep to Shawl Demo Shawl Found a Home By Kathleen Craig After a very successful 2013 Sheep to Shawl demo, we were asked to do it again in We were very excited about that and became even more excited when we were given Merino fleece from Kendrick Smith to use. We quickly decided to have the fleece commercially processed and received the clean roving in early March Later that month while talking with Marilyn and Carroll Fogle, I learned that Kendrick Smith had passed away suddenly due to a heart attack. Now we had dilemma. Kendrick Smith was divorced, so there was no wife to accept the shawl. We would use his merino but what to do with the shawl that would be woven during the demo? I remembered that there had been a lady friend with him in the barn when he gave us the fleece but I had no name and did not know if she was still with him at the time he passed. I set out to find this woman somewhere in the state of OHIO. Some of the people I talked to knew he had a lady friend but didn t know who she was but thought they were still together. It took another 2 months for me to locate the right person to tell me her name and how to contact her. It took another couple of weeks for me to find the courage to call Dawn McLaughlin to ask if she would want the shawl woven during the demo. When I finally made the call, there were tears and laughter on both sides of the conversation. She told me stories about him and how much it would mean to her to have the shawl made from his fleece. She also told me there were two adult sons who were married and they would have to find a way to divide the shawl 3 ways. Sue and I had already dressed the loom with enough warp for 3 shawls and after several more calls with guild people we decided to The COWG 2014 Sheep to Shawl team with Dawn McLaughlin (wearing the shawl) weave and give all 3 shawls to Dawn and the Smith family. Dawn and one of the sons, Chris, were present during the demo. Dawn could hardly wait to see the finished shawl but more importantly, to touch it and wrap it around herself. She was thrilled. On the first day of the fair I recruited any and all spinners to start spinning the merino wool so that after the StS demo we could begin to weave the other two shawls and have all of them woven, washed, pressed and ready to give by end of the fair. Teamwork is a wonderful thing and I thank each and every spinner who put aside her own project wool to help get the job done. Throughout the rest of the regular demo time at the Fair, I completed the weaving on the other two shawls and they were given to the Smith family. I was not in the barn when that happened but I did speak to Dawn by phone and she said that we could never know how much those shawls would mean to all of them. I think we do. 4

5 Shepherd s Gift Afghan By Kathleen Craig From January through March 2014, several COWG members helped knit an afghan to be given to the shepherd who submitted the Grand Prize winning fleece for the 2014 State Fair. The afghan was beautiful, completed in plenty of time and we hung it in the barn as part of our display of items made using wool. On the Monday after fleece judging on Sunday, Linda Reichert was in the barn talking to some of the demonstrators (her fleeces had won both colored and white Grand Prizes). I asked her if anyone had told her about the afghan. We all looked toward the afghan and she said she had seen it a few days before when they were bringing all their fleeces into the barn, thought it was really beautiful, had been admiring it and started going on and on about it. I could hardly keep from laughing but managed to tell her that it was hers for raising such great fleeces. It s our thanks to her. I thought she might faint on the spot and don t think I ve ever known Linda Reichert to be without a voice but she was speechless and smiling all the while Shepherd's gift from COWG I had also given Terry Stall thrums left from shawls woven 2-3 years before and I asked if he could do something creative with them. He knitted two hats. One was an entrelac tam and the other was a black & white toboggan type and both were part of the gift. Both afghan and hats were made using the yarn that members had spun a few years ago with natural color Ohio wool. Thanks to all who helped with knitting. By the way Don & Linda Reichert have donated a Corriedale fleece for next year s Sheep to Shawl demo. 5

6 Programs for September 2014-May 2015 September 13, 2014 Guild meeting program: Fiber and the Internet October 17, 18 and 19 Susan Conover Spinning Flax and 2 day class of Weaving with Linen November 16, 2014 Michelle Hunter 2 3 hour classes Navaho Knitting and Colorwork, (Intarsia and Fair Isle knitting) January 17, 2015 Holiday Party February 21, 2015 Cynthia Cort will present a lecture and film, Patola: Double Ikat Weaving in Western India. March 21, 2015 Guild Meeting April, 18 and 19, 2015 Deb Robson 2 classes Rare Breed Wools for Spinners (working with fiber) and Rare Breed wools for Knitters, Weavers, Crocheters and Others (working with yarn) May 16 and 17, 2015 Franklin Habit 4 Classes The Knitted Plaid: A Color and Pattern Workshop, Photographing Your Fiber, History, Methods and Styles of Lace Knitting and Lace Edgings: Before, During and After We offer 100% Alpaca products from our herd and Invite visitors to celebrate National Alpaca Farm Days with us from 12 to 6pm on Saturday September 27 and Sunday September 28, MATVILLE ROAD ORIENT, OH (740) Roving Yarn Felt Additional products include batting, rug yarn on alpaca core, alpaca fiber-fill, woven & felted rugs, and assorted finished products. 6

7 Spinning Flax & Hemp with Susan Conover 1 Day Workshop FRIDAY OCTOBER, 17, 2014 $60-80 (cost is based on # of students in workshop) $15.00 Material fee payable to Susan Conover the day of the class (cash or check) In this intensive one-day workshop, participants will enjoy learning how flax and hemp is grown and processed and made ready for spinning. We will spend the day exploring line stricks, flax sliver, hemp and tow. Participants should be able to spin a continuous fine yarn and feel comfortable spinning on their wheel. Susan will share tricks how to use your existing wheel to spin these lovely cellulous fibers utilizing techniques that are quite different than spinning wool. Dressing a distaff, plying your singles, scouring yarn are just some of the many techniques you will learn. Participants need to bring their own wheel in good working order. If you own a Louet bobbinlead wheel never fear; you can spin fine yarn with a wee bit of tweaking of the wheel. If you have a distaff, definitely bring it. A large bath towel would be great to catch the water drips. All fibers, water pots and distaffs will be provided. ALERT! There is a limit of 12 students for each workshop. To guarantee a place in the class, be sure to sign up and pay as soon as possible. Photo from SpinOff The sign-up page will be available on our web site ( soon. You can also mail a check for $60 to Mary Beth Sassen, 470 Yorkshire Drive, Newark, OH If the price goes up due to fewer registrations, she will let you know. Contact Mary Beth with questions: , mbsassen@gmail.com 7

8 It's Membership Time For this year's membership renewal, you have a couple of options. You can renew and pay online. Simply fill out the information at this link, and pay on the next screen. Renewing online is super simple and very fast! Or you could submit a paper copy instead. Fill out the membership form in this newsletter and give it to Anne Kennedy at the September 27th meeting or mail it with a check (please no cash!) to: COWG c/o Anne Kennedy PO Box 423 Granville OH Anne will also have blank membership forms at the September meeting. Last year, the COWG membership roll grew to 111 members including 38 new members! Many of those joined due to seeing the guild at the Ohio State Fair, Yellow Springs, or any of our other outreach events. The Weavers Loft Zimmer RD Dover, IN Orderline: weaving@nalu.net Yarn specials: Call or see website. Used equipment available: Call or see website Hours are usually Wed-Sat 10-4, also by appointment please call ahead when driving 8

9 9

10