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Newsletters

​The Whatcom Weavers Guild publishes a monthly newsletter September through June of each year with periodic updates and supplements sent to the group.  Newsletters are sent to members via e-mail whenever possible.  Members without e-mail addresses receive the newsletter in the postal mail. Submissions of items of interest are encouraged.  Please e-mail your submission to the Newsletter Publisher by the 25th day of the month to be included in the following month's newsletter which is typically distributed during the first week of each month.
Members may advertise in the newsletter for free.  A $5 minimum donation is requested for any non-member (non-commercial) wishing to advertise, payable to the Guild Treasurer prior to publication.  Commercial entity rates are $5 minimum donation for members and $7 minimum donation for non-members -- payable prior to publication.

June 2020 Newsletter

6/3/2020

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Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.
--Martin Luther


After 25 years of “planning” to plant fruit trees on our small urban property, last fall we did. Two tiny apple trees in the front yard and one plum tree in the back (the neighboring yard also has a plum tree, (for pollinizing). My little “Florina” has 12 apples, each as big as a grape right now, but what a miracle! This is also a good year for strawberries. Still yellow-green, but lots of them. We are waiting to eat the crops, but marveling at the progress every day. Now I do mean every day, because right here is where I spend my time, every single day.

It can be hard to keep going, knowing others are hurting with illness, financial insecurity, loss of normal routines and support. Thought it doesn’t do any good to wallow in it, I have found myself dabbling around in some low feelings. The fact is, spring and summer are not cancelled, and those plants (and weeds!) are going to grow. A long-ago design instructor’s words were to “sit in nature when you get stuck” to provide some space and time for ideas or solutions to find you. Intention and action support more crops, (fewer weeds.) Connecting with fellow weavers, as well as family and friends, has had to become as intentional for me as keeping the garden going. Gardening is a connection with other spinners and weavers too. Jane and Yvonne planted the same seeds from my past years’ flax crop, and are growing flax now! The baby sprouts are tiny, but by mid-summer they should see waving tall flax, with tiny blue blossoms.

​Seemingly the opposite of Nature, the Internet has also become a means of keeping up with those connections and making new ones. WWG member Cathy M in California has joined me in a long-distance weave-along using a mix of yarns, in favorite colors to create a block twill scarf. Well, Cathy has finished hers while mine is still on the loom, but he process has been fun and gratifying. (See photos with this message). We planned carefully, making yarn wraps for warp planning to coordinate with our multi-colored weft yarns. Block twill is not just for towels, as you can see from Cathy’s lovely results! Another member’s connections have turned into an opportunity to send a floor loom to a master weaver in Africa, and support the start of a weaving school there. (See International Outreach in this newsletter.

Color, as always, feeds my weaving. The photo of iris you see here was taken by my niece outside her home. The lovely composition and unexpected color ​​combination soothe and inspire, like a beautiful painting. A source of information from the Internet, the idea of the Hong Kong Ballet (See Video You Might Enjoy in this newsletter) has me absolutely gobsmacked (!!) for the color, fun, grace and impact of the music, costumes and movement. I have watched it at least a dozen times, created more color wraps dreaming of more towels, runners and scarves to start and (eventually) to finish. Creativity can’t be canceled. May your creativity get you through the challenges.

Carol Berry,
2019-2020 WWG President

​
To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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May 2020 Newsletter

5/4/2020

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Hello Fiber Friends,

If times were normal, we would be getting ready for Sarah Jackson’s Color Confidence Workshop this weekend. I warped a table loom in Summer and Winter stripes, in preparation, and I’m still working on that sampler. My strategy, written down on March 17, was to get all the looms warped. It’s good to have goals, and good for everybody to be dressed, right? Now the plan is to finish the M’s and O’s towels and put the next warp on. I love M’s and O’s. It’s a versatile, simple-to-thread weave that lends itself to a lot of variations and makes checked patterns. This one, a variation of 5-fold M’s & O’s from the M. Davison “green book”, can even make checks within the checks! I still like it so much I want to do it again, correcting some iffy color choices this time. No, not the ones in the photos. Other ones.

Back to thinking about “normal” times… still encountering a lot of the same as ever. Like dishes, laundry, weeding, unweaving after a distracted mistake, all normal for me. Normal is still happening, because Spring will not be cancelled. Seedlings, tulips, apple blossoms. Cooking favorites from my mother’s and grandmother’s recipe boxes helps me feel normal. Comfort foods that have been showing up our family tables since the 1930’s. Baked pasta, applesauce cake, biscuits, zucchini casserole are some of the foods that bring out my feelings of comfort and being cared for. Washing the dishes with grandma is a fond memory, and now I’m using the “good” dish towels, because really, what are we saving them for? Still speaking of “normal”, today it went from sunny at 8:30 am, to windy at 10 am, to torrential rain at 12:30 pm, and now back to our regularly scheduled misty wet and gray. Gotta love normal northwest weather. Keeps the skin moist. Which is good because we are still washing our hands, a lot.

I do miss everybody! As a Guild, we plan to do as recommended and continue physical distancing for as long as needed. I have learned how to do Zoom meetings, and had a 30 minute Zoom spin-in with Carla S. and several “tea parties’ with weaving buddies. How do you feel about a virtual meeting and/or virtual interest groups? Recipe swaps, grocery getting tips? Just coffee or tea and seeing each other’s faces! I can schedule and set up a meeting, and there are protections against any “bombing” that we might have heard about. You just click on the link to join the meeting. Via technology, we could even meet one of our newest members, Cathy Meyer, who lives in California. Cathy joined WWG in order to sign up for the Sarah Jackson Workshop, and she was to stay in my studio guest room during the Workshop, May 1-3. This was not to be, but Cathy is using this time to stay connected with the fiber community. I hope we get to meet Cathy in person when Sarah Jackson’s Color Confidence workshop is re-scheduled.

Thankfully, I have also been blessed with some pleasant in-person visits, at a distance. Kim H. passed by my house on her morning walk, and we had a nice chat, she from the sidewalk, me on the front porch, before she continued on. Charlotte (my young weaver friend, currently furloughed and distance learning from Happy Valley School) has expanded her weaving technology to include a small inkle loom (thanks to Sharon A.) and we sat at either end of the porch, masked, while I told her how to warp it, demonstrating on my own Inkle loom, 7 feet apart. Weaving and sewing are providing comfort and structure to so many of us, it is a joy to share it!  For a little more comfort and caring, Charlotte’s mom, Susan has made us a custom hand, wrist and shoulder therapy video. Read more about her and view the video below in the newsletter! ​


Carol Berry,
2019-2020 WWG President

​
To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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April 2020 Newsletter

4/1/2020

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Hello Fiber Friends,

Staying at home is not a hardship for me. It is a privilege to be guilt-free about not going to the gym, to prepare a recipe that requires many steps and prolonged stirring, to take my time making yarn wraps and planning yet another project. No anxiety about having a different WIP* at every seating area in the house plus a basket beside the bed. Anxiety about other people’s well-being? Well yes. Spending time on the internet trying to find out, what? Yes, I’m doing that too. However, there is so much being shared among the online fiber community that is sustaining, helpful, reassuring and good to read. We are among the folks who already have a handle on the power of our habits and attitudes to keep us going during uncertain times. 

Weaving has power! In member notes you can read an uplifting account from a third grade teacher who sent her students home from their last day at school with weaving looms and supplies. I am enchanted by the words of this wonderful teacher and her students’ embrace of weaving! I wonder if there are other teachers who could benefit from a contribution of weaving supplies for their classrooms when students are allowed to return to school. Mary Oates is using this time to research the plans for a Viking warp-weighted loom that can be used for demonstrations and events, like the community tapestries woven at the Fair and at Everson School. Three days ago I set my box of small looms supplies out on the porch, and wiped it down with disinfectant. My neighbor and her pre-teen daughter picked it up this morning, and Susan reports that Charlotte is in awe of all the supplies! They have promised to send more photos, and to help me organize weaving classes for Charlotte and her friends when we can get together again. 

Daffodils are blooming. Bird sounds are much more audible, in the relative quiet. I have started Indigo seeds in a flat on my front porch. The beets that went to seed in the raised bed last fall are sprouting on their own. The peas are up. It has been three summers since I planted Madder, and now I can dig it up! Tapestry weaver Sarah Swett blogged last year about Madder from her garden, and her tests of dried versus fresh roots (dried are supposed to be better, but the fresh gave her red yarn, giving me the inspiration to try mine out soon!) Sarah blogged more recently about her years of social isolation in remote Idaho, when shopping for groceries happened twice a year, and the internet hadn’t been invented. Joanne Hall told me about her first years in business in Montana, without even telephone service. She communicated with customers via postcard, “which worked just fine.” I do look forward to Guild meetings & programs, getting back to the Jansen Center, helping friends put warps on their looms in person, carpooling to yarn shops in Skagit County and other exotic and precious locales.  In the meantime… I am missing all of you. Be well, and we’ll be back together, with some awesome show and tell!


Carol Berry,
2019-2020 WWG President

​
To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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March 2020 Newsletter

3/1/2020

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Joy of Color ​

Everything around sets me to thinking about color this week! Seeing colors in the sunshine gets very exciting. Varied shades of purple are showing up in the crocuses in my yard. Purple and white are the colors of the Nooksack schools. How is this related? Well, “Big Bob” our 6-foot tall frame loom, is going to Everson Elementary for the whole school to weave a community tapestry! Purple warp yarns pulled out from leftover stash were perfect for the warp. We will set up the loom, train the teachers and volunteers, then return to help them take it down and finish the ends. It is exciting to reach out and help engage kids, teachers and volunteers in weaving. When kids participate in the technology of weaving, where the warp is held stable on a loom structure and the over and under creates a fabric, there is a hands-on understanding of simple machines. The interlacement of warp and weft is also a 3-dimensional analogy of relationships that support community. Text and Textile come from the same root word, texere, to weave. “Text” and “texture” can refer to the way words and sentences are “woven” together. We speak of “weaving” a tale or “spinning a yarn.” The Everson School Tapestry is created from yarns and fabric strips woven by each student into the warp we have prepared for them. The Everson weavers can opt to write their names or a message on the ends of the strips of cloth they weave in, adding to their story of community.

Magenta, Orange, purple and gold are the colors in the wrap I chose for the Guild Color Challenge. I have ideas for three or four projects using Linda Rees’s original yarn wrap and have made a couple more wraps with different yarns. One project, a scarf with alternating sheer plain-weave and fluffy twill stripes, is almost off the loom. Two stripe sequences to go. Weave-it software, an inexpensive program that loaded onto my phone, is helping work out possibilities for an 8-shaft Deflected Double weave version, where the colored stripes can make woven circles, squares and zig-zags. The big reveal is coming. I’m excited to see how all our colors shine in the weaving, knitting, felting or other fiber projects we choose. For new and experienced weavers, Color Challenge takes on new meaning for learning, community and possibilities in May, when we host Sarah Jackson for a color weaving workshop!

Welcome to Guild newcomers! There is still time to participate in the 2020 Color Challenge, to sign up for workshops, and this summer all are invited to join in engaging visitors at the Fair with demonstrations of our craft, entries in the wool and weaving show, and weaving on “Big Bob”! 

The filtered light of our northwest shows off colors beautifully in shade or rain, but a day, hour or minute of sunshine does get me excited for summer, weaving, and community. Fiber is good for you. 


Carol Berry,
2019-2020 WWG President

To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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February 2020 Newsletter

2/3/2020

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​The snow melted in the nick of time for many of us to make it to our January 18 meeting! A few discoveries made during this week of snow covered isolation: I can shovel snow. Snow is heavier when it’s starting to melt. When the best choice is to stay inside, I can weave a towel in an afternoon, and sew the finishing edge on a rug in a day. I discovered I can weave on my rigid heddle loom while a small dog naps on my lap. Even though daffodil fronds are very cute poking up through a blanket of sparkling white, I’m glad it’s gone. Even though shoveling snow for an hour earns 10 WW fitness points, I’m glad it’s gone. Even though I wove two towels and a scarf while “trapped” inside, I’m glad it’s gone. Even though my new snow boots tested well for warm and dry in the snow, I’m glad it’s gone.

Before the snow, when people could still travel, I had help getting 10 yards of warp on my 8-shaft loom, for a block twill towel project. This is the structure we’ve been weaving as a group at the Jansen Center, but I had not done a block twill project at home for a couple of years. The draft is from Madelyn van der Hoogts’s Weaver’s School samples and creates an optical effect. Block twill is a straightforward threading and I have a system for managing the threading units, so imagine my consternation when I made a major mistake threading the blocks! After taking out three-fourths of the threads, rearranging the heddles and re-threading, the pattern is worth the wait. An extra block appeared somehow in the treadling of the first towel. After that I took a break to rewrite the treadling diagram larger and clearer, and tape it to the castle, with a pencil handy for marking off each block as I weave it. This is not a pattern that lends itself to a lot of playing around with stripes and color variations so it is a good discipline practice for me, using just one color for each towel. 
After the snow, a small group of WWG members traveled north and were welcomed by the Greater Vancouver Weavers Guild. Toby Smith presented a delightful slide talk, showing the way that stories can inform the design of our ordinary weaving, embedding information about home and the visual experiences of travel. We plan to invite Toby to present a program for the WWG in 2020. In the meantime, thinking about color and story, I am working on my 2020 Color Challenge project, based on Linda Rees’s yarn wraps. I am eager to see what everyone creates! 

At home, or out and about, here’s hoping that your projects are satisfying, your companions are compatible, and your boots are dry.

Warmly,

Carol Berry,
2019-2020 WWG President

To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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January 2020 Newsletter

12/30/2019

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I don’t care if it rains or freezes,
As long as I have my yarns and fleeces
Piled up on my loom and at my wheel.
I can wile away many an hour
As winter wields its mighty power,
​Sitting at my loom and by my wheel…
​
​This year starts with gratitude for my yarns and fleeces, and a lovely warm, light and larger space for weaving and sewing. The hours of daylight are short, but not getting any shorter. With the holidays past and outdoor work not viable for a while, this is my favorite time of year for fiber work. Come to find out, January is officially “knit for yourself month” where we let go of the projects for loved ones, and settle into some restorative knitting, on projects that may have been put aside or put off in favor of getting the gifts finished. From now until the daffodils start coming up, it’s weaving time for me! Getting serious about my color challenge project: I have the inspiration, the yarns, the plan, and the loom I want to use. Which has a project on it: a painted warp that didn’t turn out as originally envisioned. Sampling now, with four yards of opportunity to adapt something ventured into something useful, in a timely manner. 
The new studio space also provides room for more than one person at a time, and a table for meeting and finishing. Friend and neighbor Judy asked to learn to weave in November, has now completed two scarves on the rigid heddle loom. We are setting up a course of study, and she’ll be introduced to the four-shaft floor loom next week (weaving with hands AND feet!) The guild has welcomed several new members recently, and that may include Judy in the year to come. 
Other regional Guilds are talking about a “Noh Coat Challenge”  for 2021, based on fashion icon Bonnie Cashin’s design, and this will be introduced at the January WWG meeting. January 18 will find us meeting in Bellingham, at St. James Presbyterian Church, for a warm picture show, with hands-on textiles, recounting members Marilyn Olsen and Sheri Ward’s amazing month-long trip to India, on a Maiwa Textile Tour.  We will also talk about programs and activities for 2020. The meeting starts at 10 am, bring your sack lunch, and whatever is hot off your needles, spindle or loom!

Warmly,

Carol Berry,
2019-2020 WWG President

To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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December 2019 Newsletter

12/6/2019

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Is it really December? - The last Newsletter of 2019, looking ahead to 2020.

Well, it is cold dark and wet outside, nights are long, and I am spinning my fleeces! Okay, last night I got the spinning wheel upstairs, picked out an already carded bat, spun two bobbins full, and plied them into a pretty nice 75 yard worsted weight skein. It’s a start. My Ashford traditional, a wedding present from Great-Aunt Bertha (yes, I really did have an Aunt Bertha, a supporter of handcrafts) is still in good shape. I’m not ready to enter my yarn in the NWWA FAIR, but I have time to work up to that. We are not officially thinking about the Fair just yet. As I write, the pecan pie has not yet been baked for Thanksgiving, though it will have been consumed by the time you read about it. It is past time for me to pick out a pattern and measure a warp for holiday towel gifts.  Speaking of towels, a new group project is starting at the Jansen Center. Folks can’t get enough of the 8-shaft block twill towels in cottolin, so we are doing it again! The loom is scheduled to be warped December 12. My towels at home are going to be a four-shaft M’s & O’s, in bright stripes this time. I want to see bright patches of color with plain weave color blends. The waffle weave washcloths of last month are ready and waiting to be hemmed. Many of us are still floating on a cloud of inspiration from visiting Anita Mayer’s studio and Anacortes in October, the WWG fall field trip. Anita generously opened her studio, sharing her artistic process, highlights of her life and travels, and showed her latest projects. At 87 , she is still working on new projects! We were joined by new WWG members and a number of Jansen Center affiliates, and had a great time. The December meeting promises to be just as much fun, with Donna Hunter leading a hands-on activity, of felted ornaments. We meet in Bellingham at St James Church on 14th street on Saturday December 21. Bring your show and tell, and a hot dish, appetizer or dessert to share for our annual holiday potluck meeting. 
I look forward to seeing you all soon!

Carol Berry,
2018-2019 WWG President

To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.

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November 2019 Newsletter

11/3/2019

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Double Gratitude! For the reprieve from rain that allowed me to plant daffodil and tulip bulbs that have been resting in the refrigerator crisper drawer since September...And for the back healing that allows for shoveling and raking! Then, to work on a set of waffle weave washcloths. DH (darling husband) mentioned earlier this summer that the face cloth supply in our bathroom was running low and threadbare. Who knew he paid attention to these things? And continued with an observation as to someone he knew could probably weave some really nice replacements… well, it’s been a few months. One has to think these things through. First thought: red cottolin warp, 24 ends per inch, with a variety of colors as weft, because I love red, and it’s so fun to see the color variations in waffle. Then some math, working out the stripes, waffle units, warp with two colors in each pass, or three? This somehow evolved to organic natural colored cotton, because I have some in 8/2, and of course we want soft organic cotton on our faces. The Swedish cottolin is GOTS eco-certified, but I do love the American Maid Organic Cotton from Lunatic Fringe.  ...Making yarn selections based on USING WHAT I HAVE, letting the planning evolve... I “discovered” two 8 oz cones of 3/2 natural cream colored organic cotton on the shelf. Really. And happened to have two 1.5 oz cones of 3/2 natural colored organic cotton in dark brown and dark green. What about switching to 15 ends per inch and using the 3/2? These will be some plushy, cushy waffle washcloths. Has anybody besides me been coveting a waffle weave bath towel? Washcloths are a good start. To be done before Thanksgiving, for host/ess gifts, as well as our own use. If they turn out well, I will have to make more! 

Hoping you are enjoying your own fiber projects, and that we see each other soon, for some show and share.

Carol Berry,
2018-2019 WWG President

To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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October 2019 Newsletter

10/1/2019

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​Two surprise gifts showed up in my life in late September. One, injuring my back – not permanent but painful, and demanding of gentle attention and care. Two, yarn (of course). The more welcome gift is a large spindle full of fine single-ply cotton from Africa, reportedly spun by a woman with a “cotton tree” in her yard. The spindle is broken, which makes winding the cotton off to use it a slow, careful process. A task I would be likely to leave until “later” except that sitting and slowly winding for 30 minutes at a time fits into my physical therapy. After a week of this, I am sure I’ve been given a magic spindle, because the yarn never ends! I have filled 17 bobbins, have an idea for a scarf to weave using this cotton as a decorative weft, and there is still yarn on that spindle! The back is healing, and I am learning “core confidence” with the help of an awesome physical therapist. ​
​Are you planning to come out to Fiber Fusion October 19 and 20? October is a bit of a change-up, with our meeting held on October 26 (the fourth Saturday), to accommodate the teaching schedule of our October program presenter, Christine Mauersberger. That means October 19, normally the WWG meeting day, is a Fiber Fusion field trip opportunity! Over 70 regional vendors (plus fiber animals, classes & exhibits) will be there, including two WWG members: Kelley Dragon, creator and purveyor of fine carded wool, and spindle maker and shuttle carver Allen Berry. I will be there both days, volunteering in some capacity, and hope we can meet up!
​Looking forward to a warm and fuzzy October, working on my color challenge project, planning scarves and towels for sale at Jingle Arts in December, and finding the end of the magical African cotton spindle. See you soon,

Carol Berry,
2018-2019 WWG President

To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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September 2019 Newsletter

9/2/2019

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Fleeces are wonderful…to a point, as I think about fairy tales and legends where the heroine is overwhelmed to the point of despair by the fiber piled up around her. Can anyone else relate to this tale of material abundance and self-imposed woe? This is the time of year when, between canning and freezing produce from the garden (plums this week), it’s time to look forward to those fall and winter projects. All my fleece is now washed! Now to schedule and stick to a day for drum carding. Then, I really am going to spin that wool into yarn. No deal with Rumpelstiltskin will I make, and no sticking my finger with a spindle and sleeping for 100 years. Of course, an abundance of yarn can be an issue too. The natural gray and dark brown fingering and lace weight I bought from Wild Rose Farm at Fiber Fusion last year, with a glowing idea for a deflected double weave scarf, is still on the table in my studio. It has to be up next, so I can show the final product to the folks at Wild Rose Farm at Fiber Fusion THIS year. And, I really need to make towels in the colors of my zinnia flowers. So gorgeous and bright! But first, I’m off to work with the Jansen Textile team to install the Fall Fiber Showcase, featuring local weavers Linda Rees and Nancy Bjerke, along with Weavers Guild and Jansen Textile Group members. The showcase in the Library Gallery will be continued in the downstairs Textile Foyer. Opening Reception on September 5, and the exhibits will be up for viewing through November 28. See you soon! ​


​Carol Berry,
2018-2019 WWG President

To read the entire newsletter please click here.
To see details about our upcoming meetings and events please click here.
To see who our board members are please click here.
To browse through our "Resources" page please click here.
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