Buellwood Weavers and Fiber Guild Fall retreat 2017

Dawn stirring the pot of dye material

The first yarn samples are washed

The Buellwood Weavers and Fiber Artist Guild meet again for our Fall Fiber Retreat at the  Keweenaw Land Trust Marsin Nature Retreat Center near Houghton MI.

It was a busy 2 days with a lot of activities planned. Thank you to Carol, John, Dawn and Karen for planning the workshops for our guild.

winding our alum mordant yarn skeins for dying

Classes started at 10 am both days and continued with a short break for a wonderful pot luck lunch until 5 pm. The lunch which this year did not include any desserts was great. Go figure that?

 Natural Dye Workshop

Dawn lead off the day with 5 pots of boiling natural dye materials in the yellow to red range. The

John is convinced to join in the dye adventure

pm pots were the blue, purple to green colors. What an exciting and wonderful array of colors Dawn was able to create for us using alum and Iron mordants and iron and washing soda after baths. I believe we had a little vinegar in some of the pots also. Dawn claims she is not a chemist but I do not believe it.

Saturday was a rainy day but with the shelter of the garage we were able to dye non stop all day. 

Melissa watches her skein become beautiful

Dawn the dye Queen at work

Clare was very organized and labeled each skein

pot of dye brewing

The Garage was full of beautiful colors

Laura tending her skeins

Laurie joined us from Seattle she was a happy dyer

my sample dye book grows

We worked hard all day dyeing our multiple skeins of yarn. It was another great day of dyeing with Dawn and the eager participants of her workshop. There were so many ways to combine and change the colors of the original dye bath.

Lots of smiles as the colors came out of the multiple pots of dye.

Birch Bark and Roots Basket workshop

Workshop 2 Karen's sample and directions.

Heating our bark to prepare it for the tray

Later in the afternoon Karen presented a Birch Bark and Roots basket class for us. It is a Native American birch bark tray design. Karen teaches all over the country and we are lucky to have such a talented basket weaver in our guild. In two hours we had completed our little basket trays.

Busy at work

ready to add the Spruce root border

Laurie working on shaping the tray

Maddie sewing the sweet grass edge to her tray

finished tray with blown glass bead

Slide show presentation by John of hiking the 'Camino' in Spain

the stamps john collected on his pilgrimage to prove he completed the trek.

John spent over a month in April or May 2017 hiking the 'Camino' in Spain, this is a 500 mile pilgrimage from France to the coast of Spain. John 's evening slide show took us from the beginning of his trek showing the terrain, churches, food and people he met along his along his journey.

What a peaceful and interesting pilgrimage this was. He carried a 20 lb back pack and stayed in hostels and hotels along the trail. A roll of paper that contained all the stamps of the locations along his route was required to prove he completed the trek.

The Camino de Santiago or Way of St. James, is the pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in north-western Spain. Legend has it that the remains of the apostle, Saint James the Great, are buried here. John started his trek in St Jean Pied de Port, in the French Basque Country, and made his way through the Pyrenees until arriving at Pamplona. Then on to Santiago, Spain . 

He does admit to having sore feet from walking on the rocky trail from town to town. But was well rewarded with a great meal among other Pilgrims and a restful night sleeping.   
 

An evening at the Marsin Retreat

Although we were all very tired after a long day we warped looms, wove on the looms and dried our yarn sample by the fire place. A few looms were set up for every one to try on day two of the retreat. 

 

wide rayon band on the Wave loom

Laura warping her Rigid heddle loom

Drying the skeins of dyed yarn

8- shaft loom set with Bronson lace letters

4 shaft loom

Day 2 started with a knitting class presented by Clare. 

A friend of Dawn's knit a scarf with dyed yarn from a summer dye workshop at the Porkies Folk school. It is knit with the linen stitch.

Melissa models a scarf knit with the linen stitch

Clare's workshop was a question and answer class for knitters. Clare gave tips and techniques for those who took the class.


Clare is a talented knitter and answered many questions about yarns and techniques for the group.

Tea and Rust dye class presented by Carol

This is a fun and easy way to create a design on silk or linen material using tea bags, rusty metal items you can find at rummage sales or your own garage. Carol let use design two Linen napkins by laying out our objects on half the cloth. Then she treated the item with a mixture of water and vinegar. The next day we saw the results of our design.

 

Napkin soaked in vinegar and water in a kitchen light bulb tray

Linen Napkin tea and rust dyed

The afternoon on day 2 was devoted to a felting workshop with Laura

Laura felts with raw fleece and uses gauze for the base. This was interesting and created some lovely pieces of felted wool for use as pillows or other items you want to create with the cleaned fleece.

Laura's sample pillow

Picking through the fleece and laying it out

The ladies worked hard to set up their square of fleece. They then wet the wool with soap and water. the felting process was started with patting the wool on top of and under a bubble wrap sheet.
the next step was to roll the wet fleece in the bubble wrap and towel around a swim tube. This required a little muscle to get the proper felt to happen.


 

Dawn and Laurie rubbing the sandwiched fleece

Rolling and more rolling to get the fleece to felt. Sarah was helping Kathie with her wool.


Lots of smiles on those faces. We had a nice sunny day 2 and we were able to work outside for the felting workshop.

rolling the wrapped fleece to felt

Laura testing the fleece to see if felt is complete

Melissa's finished felt

After a day of felting - Carol also presented a class for those interested in 'Passing your Skills On'. Attendees learn some quick and easy fiber techniques geared at children.
Choosing the right projects to interest the next generation of Fiber Artists was presented.

Sun comes out on day 2 to help dry our wool

The give away table full of donated goodies 

Books, magazines, whole fleeces, yarn spools and many other items to buy or take home. 

From one stash to another, items quickly disappeared. Some of our attendees sold finished woven or felted items. A long and successful fiber retreat ended with a clean up and packing the cars for the trip home.

lots of free items to take home

Even some items for sale!

Packed and ready for the long drive home.

Our next guild meeting will be November 20 th at Gloria Dei Church in Hancock at noon. The topic will be inkle loom weaving.  Bring your lunch and show and tell items. Join us for another full year of fiber exploration.