 Wooly Weather
Rain at last. What a joy to spend a morning heating up the kitchen with soup on the stove and cookies baking in the oven. The two little 3-year-old apple trees in my front yard yielded 16 very nice eating apples this year! Time to think about blankets, pull the wool scarves into rotation again, and search out the fingerless mitts. Spring bulbs (the kind you plant in the fall because March is going to come and tulips will be needed for emotional support), have been ordered, and should arrive any day, so I’m hoping for a few warmish, dryish days for planting. Mostly, I am ready for the indoor activity season, excited to try new things and learn new weaves. Making a basket in a workshop at the Jansen Center is on my schedule. Delving into the weave structure known as Crackle, or Jamtlandsvav, has been a wish for a few years now, and I’m signed up for a study group. I am so glad to be approaching this complex weave in a group setting. Don’t go to a scary place all alone, right? Four blocks on four shafts, with “incidental threads”?!! Staying calm. Taking it one step at a time. Trying not to get stuck on choosing the warp yarn. Measuring and beaming the warp. Only then taking on threading the heddles (Four different blocks! Incidentals! Yikes.) Re-writing the threading by hand on large graph paper is how I tackle it, then threading the heddles one section at a time, checking off each group as I go. Paying attention to ergonomics. Protein snacks, not sugar… no podcasts or books on tape while I’m threading… Loom mechanics are not hard for me but remembering a sequence of numbers for long enough to treadle a pattern unit, especially with two shuttles, and tabbies in between… Having found that others share some of these same challenges – there has been talk of a “Dream Weavers” Study Group session or series, sharing methods for managing threading and treadling when the challenges of a busy life, household member’s needs, or brain fog make it harder to coordinate mind, eyes, hands and feet. Anyone else have a hard time with this sometimes? Let’s talk. We are in this together. Warmly, Carol Berry 2022-2023 President, Whatcom Weavers Guild 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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 Important News!
The Whatcom Weavers Guild October 15, 2022 meeting and Program will take place at the Jansen Art Center. Members and Guests are invited to attend in person. NOTE: This will be a hybrid meeting! A Zoom link will be sent to all members during the week before the meeting, so that members unable to attend in person will have access. The Meeting, and the Program, featuring Artist Flora Carlisle-Kovacz, will also be recorded, for Weaver’s Guild members to view later. Flora’s beautiful Felted artworks are on display at the Jansen Art Center now through October 15, and can be viewed on the Jansen Center’s website here. In other news, it is now officially Fall 2022, unless you are in the Southern Hemisphere, where it is officially spring. For those who like to count threads and other things, it has been 24 months since we learned that Zoom is a thing we can do, online workshops work, and that fiber sharing and learning can stretch all the way around the globe! We’ve been weaving, and felting, and knitting, and crocheting, and dyeing and more. We have kept our fiber community strung together (pun intended) even when we couldn’t physically be together. Can we keep that community together as group gatherings become the norm? I, for one, will continue to enjoy Program Speakers we wouldn’t be able to bring here, and stay connected with weaving pals I wouldn’t know if we hadn’t been forced to try a new way of meeting. Still, it is such a relief to have options, and employ the “Weavers Handshake” (If you know, you know) once again. Warmly, Carol Berry 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.  I just pulled half a warp out of the heddles. Again. It shouldn’t be this way. It’s a simple block weave. M’s & O’s on 4 shafts, a favorite basic structure. The yarn is unbleached 22/2 cottolin, my go-to for towels: It’s versatile, works with a wild variety of weft fibers, colors, textures and weights, behaves itself when measuring and beaming… New weft colors have arrived, and old favorites are waiting on the shelf. I want to weave. I keep getting the blocks mixed up, and having to un-thread. (!) What could this recalcitrant warp be telling me? I love dressing looms. Really. A naked loom usually doesn’t sit around here long. This warp was planned and measured mid-June. Beamed in July. The threading has been going on for weeks. And therein lies the problem. Summer lack of focus. It’s warm and sunny, and the garden calls. And then the weaving calls. The dry days make firing up the dye pots very attractive. Another reason to neglect the weaving and the gardening. As a result the new raised bed isn’t filled with soil yet, the other one is weedy. Watering happens, but bigger projects just aren’t getting finished. The urgency of Fall brought on by the first rain of the season just hasn’t hit yet.
And you know what? It can all wait, at least until after Labor Day, right? September, even more than January, feels like the start of the new year. Time to get a new notebook, sharpen my pencils, and maybe get a new pair of shoes. That warp is evidently saying it’s too early to focus. Soon enough we’ll be back on schedule with monthly meetings, programs, outreach projects and regular study groups! You will want to read below, review the schedule carefully and make notes in your calendar. There is much variety in our programming in the coming year. Some meetings will have both in-person and remote options. Some will be held at the Jansen Center, some in Bellingham. Some will be all Zoom, with presenters from far away. Some Guild programs will be hands-on, and workshops are being announced. You can expect some more outdoor gatherings as the weather allows, and the Jansen Center has classes and workshops coming up too. At the moment, that warp is getting a rest. The garden tools are in the shed. The dye pots are off the burners. A walk downtown, and new shoes for Fall are on the agenda. See you in September! Carol Berry 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.  Seated in the shade, pitcher of iced tea, sprinkler going under the blueberry bushes… a black-capped chickadee is enjoying the water spray and cooling breeze with me. A dye project is soaking in its final rinse. All that’s left to do is pull it out of the (cool) water bath and hang the skeins up to dry.
The weld in my garden (which yields an almost neon-bright yellow with calcium carbonate added to the dyebath) is six feet tall. Sadly, my Japanese Indigo seeds I started in May never germinated. It just wasn’t warm enough for them this spring. However, the dyers chamomile starts, given to me last spring by another guild member/gardener/dyer came back in force. For the most part, I purchase the plant dye materials I use, but growing what I can is satisfying, and a way to feel connected to artisans through the ages and all over the world. Weaving Around the World seems to be a theme for our Guild Programs this year. We have a full schedule, not just weaving of course, including a couple of hands-on programs, if we can safely meet in person. We had a fun get together at Marine Park in July and met some new members in person! Our August “Swap, Shop, and Social” will be an opportunity to re-home fiber supplies and equipment and see old and new friends. There will also be show and tell, and information about study groups, mentoring, and community projects. Zoom meetings and programs will resume in September, with some monthly meetings combining in-person and online options. This outdoor weather won’t last forever. We’ll be planning and settling down to indoor projects before you know it. For now, there is iced tea, the latest Handwoven Magazine just arrived, and enough blueberries that I can share some with the birds. Fiber life is a good life, and it’s my life! Warmly, Carol Berry 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.  This is my second spring in Bellingham, and I think I was too immersed in settling in last year to really notice the colors around me. I think I was absorbing the meta scapes, the mountains and rivers, the lakes, and the ocean. This year, however, the newness has worn off and I'm seeing the movement of the seasons through the landscape.
What I'm seeing is a riot of color. I walk my neighborhood regularly with my dogs and the last month has been an explosion - so many shades of pink and purple! And then the greens as the leaves stretched out. I've been astonished at the variety and number of rhododendrons in this area, sometimes I take different routes just to see what other neighborhoods look like. Of course, certain color combinations make me wonder how I could weave them. The pups and I also hike quite a bit up in the woods and have come across beautiful displays of color. I find great delight in noticing new colors unfold and I've been taking lots of pictures for inspiration. I came upon this particular patch of blooms on a hillside and immediately recognized that I already had been drawn to that color combo before and had some beautiful 2/18 merino in those exact shades. I'm now contemplating how I will weave it; my original impulse is to weave a shawl with these colors as a woven-in tablet band a la Inge Dam. I've never tried this before, so it would be a stretch, but I do love a challenge! Where it falls in the long queue remains to be seen, perhaps some time for research and marination. The other thing that I am noticing with wider eyes this year is just how amazing our guild is. The strength, vitality, and longevity of a guild lie in the active participation of members, and I really saw that in our elections last month. Many guilds struggle as the same few people do all the work, and we have a large guild with many hands needed to keep thriving. But what I noticed is that several board members were ready to be done with their position and instead of leaving the board, they chose to take on a new role. Brava to them and those who are continuing in their board positions. Thank you to those who stepped up for the first time, we value your input and know that you have a great support system as you learn your new role. A big shout out to Jan Burton and Mary Oates who are retiring after many years of service to the board and the guild. Thank you both for all you have put into the guild, your contributions have enriched and strengthened the foundation of our guild. Many thanks, too, for Carol Berry and her willingness to continue to lead our guild, ensuring a strong and smooth transition to the future. I'm grateful for the way she warmly welcomes people into the guild and enthusiastically encourages and supports people to be active weavers. Yup, we've got a pretty great group here. Enthusiasm and support, a riot of colors. What more could we ask for? I hope to see many of you at our June meeting which will be held by Zoom, I'm especially looking forward to seeing what you did for your guild challenge. (For those feeling impossibly behind on this, just know that I'm right there with you - still haven't wound the warp but I'm sure I'll have it done in time!) LeslieAnn WGG Vice 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.  Garden Report: Growing Color!
There are actual, true-life blossoms on my strawberry plants. These plants survived the snow and deep frost of winter 2021-2022 and the frosts of April. The rhubarb is high. The consistent cold and damp have helped the tulips last longer this year, disguising the weeds. There are tiny worms of an unknown type, eating a few of the leaves on my apple trees. I have been picking them off, but a more serious approach may be called for. A solution that won’t discourage the bees. This is the third year for those two tiny trees. Year one: 12 blossoms, 11 apples. Year two: 5 blossoms, 3 apples. I learned I should have thinned the baby apples down to one per fruit spur the year before. This year: 56 blossoms! My darling husband pointed out that if I can count the blossoms on my apple trees… Let’s just say there is no need to learn how to weave my own bushel baskets just yet. Also coming back in the garden are some very robust dyers’ Chamomile plants, given to me last year by another Guild member. The Weld has self-seeded and has grown about a foot in the last week. A new friend with farm connections has offered me boxes of onion skins! Temperatures have warmed up enough to be comfortable in the dye studio, for review some of the lessons from Last year’s Maiwa natural dye workshop. A warp, and small sample skeins have been dyed, in Cutch, Madder, Cochineal, Sappanwood, Lac, and a combination of madder and lac exhaust baths. The April meeting Show and Tell included a rug made of black wool, with pattern bands colored with natural dyes, and dying and block printing are happening in the Jansen Center Dye studio as well, or so I hear. Here's to the color in our lives, whether it’s tulips or yarns! Carol Berry 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.  New Beginnings
Daffodils are blooming, Rhubarb is poking up. A brown bunny has been visiting my garden. He or she is welcome to nibble on the leaves of the emerging dandelions and the weedy strands of grass I haven’t gotten out to clean up. (It’s been chilly!) I am always happy to see dandelions because they provide the first food in spring for ground-dwelling bees and other pollinators. And my bunny friend. Tulips are getting ready, and a friend gave me Dahlia tubers and seeds as a birthday present. Anticipation of color keeps me going. Tulips soon, Dahlia and Zinnias later. Planting Japanese Indigo again this year, too. The colors of the Double Rainbow workshop were knockout! The workshop was a stretching experience, I am inspired to continue and overjoyed with the tools I now have for color combinations in cottolin. I want to do the workshop exercises all over again, in other color options. Speaking of inspiration in Double Weave, the March Program with Anastasia Azure was another knockout. Double Weave sculpture and jewelry, inspired by the shapes and colors of flowers and the sea. And who knew acid dyes will color nylon yarns and monofilament?! The Conference colors for ANWG 2023 are giving me ideas too. Goal: Plant dyed yarns in the conference colors. I just this minute got out my dye journal for a look at the samples created in last Spring’s Maiwa online workshop. Excited to discover I already have samples and the recipes for plant dye versions of the conference colors. A few degrees warmer weather means getting out into the Dye Studio (AKA garage and garden shed) to see if I can coax these colors out of plant material and into yarn again. Joy of color! Carol Berry 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.  Crocuses, daffodils, Inkle Weaving! That is what’s coming up around here.
The upstairs room that has been a catchment area since December’s wrapping tornado got a cleanup tornado last week. Because a few of the Inkle weavers scheduled a warping date, and… table space for four people* and looms… you get the picture. Spring Cleaning Gets Real. Making space to learn and practice. *Yes, four of us decided we can meet in person, in a small group indoors. Masked and vaccinated, with a hepa-filter air purifier going. Andean Pebble Weave on a four-shaft floor loom is a revelation. Not sure how to do it, I started with a narrow band and followed the instructions carefully. That worked! Next, a project with three objectives: 1) use my plant-dyed yarn. 2) try a wool warp and weft. 3) go wide, hopefully wide enough to sew a little pouch. Starting with blanket-weight wool dyed with Marigold, Cochineal, and Madder, paired with three shades of natural gray, I measured a section for a patterned stripe, and border stripes that I hoped would give me a five-inch-wide band. Learning as I go: This is a very warp faced weave. 140 ends weave up just under 3 inches wide. The pattern is coming out well though, and this experience will support planning of the next piece. Eventually, I hope to weave an Andean Pebble Weave pick-up patterned cloth on a backstrap loom. Tracy Hudson, a textile artist living in Port Townsend, weaves all her cloth using a backstrap loom, after spinning much of the yarn she weaves with! Tracy’s loom rolls up and goes where she goes. The photo here shows Tracy’s loom on display at the Quilt and Fiber Arts Museum in La Conner. Her exhibit, titled “Yarn, Cloth, and the Pull of the Earth: Spun and Woven Interactions” will be up until April 30. On occasion, Tracy will be there in person, weaving and answering questions. Tracy has presented her collection of Ladakhi textiles in a Program for the Whatcom Guild a few years ago, and it was lovely to see her again at QFAM. I hope you can get out and see the show! For information click here. Warmly, Carol Berry 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.  Do it Yourself & Do it Together
No matter what fiber medium(s) we prefer, we are makers. DIY is us. DIY sourdough, preserves, gardening, socks, hand towels, yarn. This is how we manage and even savor the time, while avoiding more crowded activities we might have done, back in the day . . . Side note: The Seattle Art Museum was not crowded and provided a lovely experience on a long-delayed day trip recently. While at SAM, I was introduced to a new term: D.I.T., for Do it Together. The D.I.T. abbreviation was included in text information with a display of contemporary Ndebele Beadwork. When a woman is preparing to marry, other women in her community gather together to create a set of beaded necklaces, bracelets, headpieces, skirts, and capes for the bride they respect and care about. Memories and good wishes are stitched into finery for their loved one, who will take it with her when she goes to live with her new husband’s family group. And, on a recent Saturday, two of the Whatcom Weavers Guild Tapestry group warped “Big Bob” the Guild’s large, semi-portable frame loom, to lend to an elementary school for a class project. The tapestry weavers’ expertise and patience doing a challenging task, even while communicating in masks, was fun to be a part of. And none of us could have done it alone. After measuring and setting up the warp, the loom was taken apart, to be put back together in the classroom, so the fifth graders can work on it for a month. Their teacher and two parent volunteers will work with the students. Our Tapestry Weavers will not be part of the classroom experience. As a guild, we can still do outreach and support education, providing equipment, logistics, preparation, and guidance. Women working together, with sticks, string, and a cordless electric screwdriver… The power of D.I.T. The Dreamweavers Group gathered via Zoom on a recent Monday, in answer to a call for help planning and troubleshooting handwoven baby blankets. There are so many books and videos available that sometimes we think we are supposed to be able to learn how to weave without a teacher. It is easy to think, in the middle of a tangle, that everyone else weaves without a mistake. When “one of those” questions came up during our conversation – we all raised our hands. And we could offer more than one way to fix the problem. Even if we couldn’t examine the samples in person, what a joy to see each other’s faces, and share our experience about yarns, setts, weave structures, books. If instructions in a particular book of baby blanket designs are maybe a little lacking in detail, there are other weavers to ask. When I visit a museum, it is the objects and artifacts I gravitate to, more than the paintings. Being a visual person, I don’t always read the text panels. This time, I’m glad I did, because it helped so much to establish the contemporary context the objects belong to. In the description of another group of objects was the proverb “When the thread gets tangled, use both hands to untie it.” Meaning that a problem is best solved together, or “two heads are better than one.” In matters of string, as in most of life, Doing it Together is better! All the Best, Carol Berry 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.  Finished! And beginning again…
Finished. Towels, napkins, scarves, and even a vest for my husband, out of my own handwoven yardage! Wrapped, given, unwrapped. Ok, the vest turned out a little too big, and has to be altered. And a pair of pajamas was a little late getting hemmed, but those are now done too. The last chocolate truffle in our house has been consumed. Soup is simmering on the stove. The plan for this afternoon is to spend some time with the 2022 Big Seed catalog and finish off the stollen. After all, somebody has to do it. In between these important tasks, I’ve cleaned ice off the inside of the windows! Not going anywhere until it thaws a bit. The last week of December and the first week of January are traditionally when I look back, assess the year’s accomplishments and think about the year to come. 2021 was a year of learning, through online workshops. My first and overall goal for 2022 is to review and put what I have learned into practice, dyeing and weaving. The second – to move past the considering stage and get going on my piece for the annual Guild Challenge! Another annual goal, ever since I can remember, has been to get organized. I reach an age this year, where I probably need to re-think that goal, and accept what is. It is just possible that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing, in the way I am meant to be doing it. This may be as good as it gets. And, looking around, I see friends, color and fiber. It’s a good life! Thanks so much to all of you for being a part of it. According to the Almanac, Winter ends on March 20, 2022. From January 1, that’s just 79 days until Spring begins on March 20! Outside, though it’s frosty frozen right now, according to the ten-day forecast, the snow will be gone by the time you read this. I hope you are all comfy, cozy and content. All the Best, Carol Berry 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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