March 2020 Newsletter

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

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