2020 Programme
Our monthly meetings are currently suspended until further notice due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Members are invited to join our email group to help us keep in touch.
11 January
Members’ Day
8 February 8
AM: Tapestry Weavers
PM: Ruth Dalton talk. A history of rare breeds (and how you can help by using their wool).
14-15 March
AM: Natural dyeing workshop with Debbie Tomkies (continues on Sunday)
PM: Talk – A History of Dyeing
4 April
AM: Tapestry Weavers
PM: Penelope Hemingway talk. A Handmade Tale, the Women of the Langdale Linen Industry.
(plus an update from the flax project).
9 May
AM: National Exhibition, Members’ submission and selection.
PM: Sue Lawty talk – Weavers’ Trail – Bhutan: spinning, dyeing, weaving
13 June
Chair’s Challenge results
11 July
Friendship Day – we will invite other Guilds to join us in spinning and/or weaving for the day
8 August
Skill Share
10 September
Guild trip to the Association’s national exhibition in Leigh
12 September
AM: Tapestry Weavers
PM: Susan Foulkes talk – Sami Band Weaving
10-11 October
AM: Double weave workshop with Jane Flanagan
PM: Talk tba
14 November
Spinning Day with Janet Phillips from The Threshing Barn. Janet will bring her pop-up shop
5 December
AGM and Show and Tell
2019 Programme
You are welcome to visit us at any of our publicised meetings. You don’t need to book, but you are advised to email us in advance to check for changes to the advertised programme.
Please bring lunch and check details below for admission charges. 50p for tea and coffee.
12 January – Members’ Day
We will be at Yealand Village Hall ‘doing our own thing’. Bring something along some spinning, weaving or other project, or just chat.
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
9 February – Alison Rainford
Alison is a long-time member and will talk about her travels in Peru.
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
9 March – Fiona Moir
Workshop – spinning silk with Fiona Moir
Talk – New types of fibres for spinning.
Fiona is a spinner and natural dyer. She is a Tutor at the AGWSD Summer School in 2019 and her course title is ‘Let’s Dye It!’
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
Advanced booking and an additional fee is required to join the workshop.
13 April – Lesley Horden
Talk – Angora
Lesley will bring Angora wool for sale and a variety of made items to illustrate her talk. She also hopes to demonstrate the techniques of carding and spinning Angora.
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
11 May – Cia Bosanquet
Talk – Indigo
Cia will be bringing and talking about some of the textile pieces she has collected from around the world. Cia was a Summer School Tutor in 2015 with her course on Woven Shibori.
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
8 June – Chair’s Challenge
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
Last weekend in June– Silverdale & Arnside Art and Craft Trail
Update, apologies for the late notice. We won’t be at the Art Trail this year.
13 July – Outing
tba
14 September – Rainy Williamson
Talk – From Mud to Magazine
The Editor of British Fibre Arts Magazine and she will bring her pop-up fibre shop.
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
12 October – Averil Otiv
Soft basketry workshop with Averil Otiv.
Talk – Fibre Basketry
A soft basketry workshop based on bias plaiting with watercolour paper or rush, making a variety of different shapes depending on the number of corners.
Averil’s work is delightfully innovative and she also was a Tutor at Summer School 2015.
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
Advanced booking and an additional fee is required to join the workshop.
Kendal Wool Gathering
Tbc We expect to be attending this event demonstrating spinning and weaving.
9 November – Helen Brotherton
Helen Brotherton , yarn supplier and better known to many of us as My Fine Weaving Yarns! She hopes to fill all available tables with her yarn shop.
Talk – Yarn Counts, a tangled tale
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
7 December – AGM
Show and tell, raffle, cakes.
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
2018 Programme
You are welcome to visit us at any of our publicised meetings. You don’t need to book, but you are advised to email us in advance to check for changes to the advertised programme.
Please bring lunch and check details below for admission charges. 50p for tea and coffee.
13 January 2018 – Members’ Day
We will be at Yealand Village Hall ‘doing our own thing’. Bring something along some spinning, weaving or other project, or just chat.
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
10 February 2018 – Rebecca Oaks
Rebecca, a long-term Guild member and spinner, works as a freelance woodland advisor, having trained in coppicing with one of the last active coppice merchants in the North West. She grows her own willow locally, producing eight different varieties. which she harvests and grades annually. Alongside her practical involvement, Rebecca trains apprentice coppice workers and has co-written two books about coppice crafts.
Rebecca weaves her own willow into baskets, and will be demonstrating the techniques involved as part of her talk.
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
10-11 March 2018 – Louise Oppenheimer Tapestry Weaving Workshop
Louise has been a weaver since graduating from Maidstone College of Art in 1974. Her very natural approach – using what she sees and experiences in the landscapes and seascapes around her – results in beautiful flowing designs – some pictures, some more abstract representations. She likes ‘the simple skill of pulling weft through warp’. Working on a basic wooden frame, she describes the process of weaving: ‘hands occupied, I could almost dream my way to the top and resolve problems with a rhythmic pace’.
Louise will lead a weekend workshop for all levels, teaching participants basic techniques and how to use colour to reflect their ideas.
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door. For a place on the workshop (subject to availability) please enquire.
14 April 2018 – Paul Rodgers Professor of Design, Researcher
Professor Paul Rodgers currently works at Lancaster University as a Professor of Design. In 2016, when he was working at Northumbria University, he led a research project in conjunction with Alzheimer Scotland, enabling people with dementia to participate in designing tartans. The project was called Disrupting Dementia.
Brief details of the project can be found here:
The Professor Rogers will give a talk about the project entitled ‘Designing With People Living With Dementia’.
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
National Exhibition Selection
Members will select entries for the Association’s national exhibition.
12 May 2018 – Jenny Howes
Jenny Howes has been a knitter for as long as she remembers. She spends her time subsumed in a world of fibres, colours and bits of woolly fluff. She knits, spins, dyes, felts, makes teddy bears, designs patterns and still finds time to help organise the St. Abbs Wool Festival. She sells the vast majority of what she creates under the auspices of SkyBluePinkDesigns, and many of you will have seen her at WoolFest, Yarndale and Kendal Woolgathering.
http://www.skybluepink-designs.com/
Jenny will be bringing her ‘pop-up’ shop to the Guild Day.
Her talk during the afternoon will be about fibres and is entitled: ‘Herdwick Pants? No Thanks! Why Fibre Choice Is Important’.
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
9 June 2018 – Chair’s Challenge
We will ‘show and tell’ what we have produced for this year’s Chair’s Challenge.
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
22-24 June 2018 – Silverdale & Arnside Art and Craft Trail
This has become a regular fixture for us. Come and find our display and see us demonstrate weaving and spinning. www.silverdalearttrail.co.uk
14 July 2018 – Outing
Venue tbc, perhaps to Glasgow to visit the Association’s national exhibition. Details to follow.
11 August 2018 – In-House Skills Day
Details unlikely to follow! Realistically we’ll have no idea until a few days before the event but expect a variety of activities for weavers, spinners and dyers at all levels. There will be something for everyone, including complete beginners.
Visitors welcome, no door charge. You are advised to contact us the week before to find out if you need to bring any equipment.
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
8 September 2018 – Ellie Langley
Ellie lives on a smallholding, high in Upper Weardale in the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, where she keeps a small flock of sheep. The smallholding is run entirely on renewable energy, and the sheep, kept solely for their wool, ‘live out their natural lives in the haymeadow and pasture’. Ellie’s speciality is handmade felt hats, made from British wools – including from her own flock – and British tweeds. She calls them Hats With Altitude, and sells them from her website http://www.ellielangleyhats.com/
Ellie will be bringing some of her lovely felt creations with her – some for sale. Her business – Fleece With Altitude – can be viewed at http://www.ellielangley.com
Ellie will tell us about her work in a talk entitled ‘Hats With Altitude’
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
13-14 October 2018 – Katie Weston Colour Blending Workshop
Since Katie taught herself how to spin, back in 2009, she hasn’t stopped, setting up a business in 2011 to further her passion – Hilltop Cloud. Many of you will have visited her fabulous stand at various woolly events like Woolfest and Yarndale. She does all her dyeing from home – at Dugoed in Wales – using only the best quality fibres, and developing special colourways and sequences only available from her website:
Getting More From Your Drum Carder Workshop
Katie will be teaching participants how to blend colours, add textures, make puni’s/rolags, create gradients and diz roving.
Katie will bring some of her items to sell when she visits. Her talk will be about dyeing and is entitled ‘Hand-Dyeing Fibre With Acid Dyes’
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door. For a place on the workshop (subject to availability) please enquire.
10 November 2018 – Laura Rosenzweig of Laura’s Loom
Unfortunately, Ruth from the Rare Breeds Survival Trust is unable to join us in November. Instead, Laura will talk about her weaving journey.
Laura will bring her pop up shop – beautiful yarns from Yorkshire Dales sheep, socks, scarves, blankets and more.
You can read more about Laura on her website http://laurasloom.co.uk/
Visitors welcome, £4.00 on the door.
Show & Tell
1 December 2018
We will hold our AGM in the morning, followed by a ‘show and tell’, raffle and cakes in the afternoon.
Visitors welcome, no door charge.
2017 Programme
Members’ Day
14 Jan, from 10.30 am
Bring your own project or sit and natter. We will also try to create a colour wheel from members’ stash.
Special Interest Group (SIG) Yarn Makers kicks off with its first session.
Ali Sharman and Carole Bowman
11 Feb, 2 pm
Guild members Ali Sharman & Carole Bowman will give a talk “Life on Hold – Surviving an extended weaving course”. Ali will talk about her time on Janet Phillip’s Masterclass, and Carole will talk about her experiences studying for the HNC in Constructed Textiles at Bradford College.
Amanda Hannaford Spinning Workshop
11-12 March, workshop time tbc. Talk at 2 pm
Amanda will be teaching a technical workshop, focusing on both woollen and worsted techniques, as well as looking at how to spin different fibres using these skills, including cashmere. Bookings open in January.
She will give a talk on Saturday afternoon – The Qaria Project – about her experiences in Afganistan, teaching a women’s co-operative to spin and knit cashmere
Amanda will bring some cashmere fibres to sell, along with some of her own dyed samples
Jon Booker – Natural Dyer & Plant Biologist
8 April, 2 pm
Jon will bring some of these beautifully colourful products to sell when he comes to visit the Guild, as well as exploring some of the issues and processes involved in natural dyeing in his talk entitled ‘Natural Dyeing: New Angles On An Old Subject’
Diane & Jim Gaffney
13 May, 2 pm
Diane and Jim’s talk ‘Batik: The People Behind The Cloth’ tells the stories of the workers in Java who produce the finest batik in the world.
They will also be bringing fabrics for sale.
Chair’s Challenge: Complementary Colours
10 June, time tbc
Come and be dazzled by an array of colours as we “show and tell” about this year’s challenge. Read more about the Challenge
Summer Exhibition – Arnside & Silverdale Art and Craft Trail
23-25 June
Find us at the Art Trail as we return for our 3rd season.
Summer outing
8 July – venue tbc
We will be relaxing somewhere away from Silverdale following our exertions at the Art Trail!
In-House Skills Day
12 Aug, 10.30 am
Details to follow.
Programme tbc
9 September, 10.30 am.
Get on with your “own thing” in the morning. Afternoon activities to be announced.
Jan Beadle Shibori Weaving Workshop
14-15 October, workshop time tbc. Talk at 2 pm
Jan’s talk will be about her weaving journey and she will bring some samples of her work to share.
Programme tbc
11 November, 10.30am
Members activities in the morning. Shetland theme from 2pm.
Show & Tell / AGM
2 December, times tbc
Annual General Meeting, and a Show and tell, raffle, Christmas card competition and cakes.