August 2023 Buellwood Guild meeting

We met in August for a show and tell and John shared his tips from his July Transparency Workshop in Utah with Laura Viada.

John has been focusing on Transparency weaving. His workshop took him on a road trip to Utah. But recently learned this same workshop will be offered at MLH 2024 conference June 7-9 in 2024 check this out .

John’s previous transparency weaving 

workshop progress in Utah new skills and tips too

. 

Double weave rolled salvage this sounds interesting! 

Worth giving it a try. Cally Booker

Karen M did a Waulking wool demonstration at the Emberlight Festival in Ironwood in July.  She wove the fabric that was used for the Waulking experience. A group of felters sat around a table and waulked to Scottish music until the wool fulled a bit. See video on Waulking.

Nancy has been weaving some beautiful towels.

 

Debra brought in a couple of beautiful Harris Tweed Wool coats that her father has handed down. She had lots of give away as she is downsizing her clutter to increase her well being. I certainly hear her.

Double Weave Block pattern Phyllis created for a few weavers.

Mary M’s sister Sue made a lovely shawl for Mary.

Close up of her shawl.

This book was made by Sean in our bookbinding presentation by Karen T . In June we made the Eco Dyed covers on watercolor paper. Then in July we took the overs and added a number of signatures ( group of 8 pages) that were bond together with waxed 4/2 cotton yarn.

Mary M also has made a number of the journals for her family and friends. Karen T was so touched that her time spent teaching the journal was so inspiring.

David created a Barn square for his barn he calls it Hunter’s Star, in of course Hunter green. Karen M also had a picture of her Barn Quilt and her barn quilt is entered in the Copper Country Barn Quilt tour. Contact Ann Cambell 

National Barn Quilt tour.

Marci shared a challenge of Reverse-drafting samples from the Chicago Art Institute Weaving Mill.  A very interesting project. Read about it in the latest Shuttle, Spindle and Dye, our guild has a copy of it.

Marci also finished this Rya rug. Her very own design made up of 4 rows of tabby and one row of rya knots. 

Arne and Carlos pattern Hilde Crochet seat cover 

 Mary B’s first attempt of a crochet project

 

Mary’s 3-shuttle placemats finally finished and removed from
 the loom after 8 months in a cold garage.

We are looking forward to our Fall Retreat at the Marsin Retreat Center September 7,8 2023

All day 9-5 pm October 7 and 8 th if you can make our Guild planning meeting at Noon on Sunday October 8 th probably noon to 1 pm. Where you can voice your opinion on what to include with our meetings and Guild retreat next year 2023-2024. See you there, we will not have our usual October meeting per John.

'Buellwood Best ' 2022

 We had our last Monday meeting until further notice we are now going to meet at 1:00PM on the third Saturday of each month. Remember if you buy yarn from Halycon yarns be sure to select Buellwood Weavers Guild in the Guild reward program as our guild gets 5% back in January. Last year it was over $123. 

Laura arrived with a pot of 'Bluebirds of Happiness' plant decorations for each of us. Thanks, Laura, for brightening our day.

 We met on May 16 th for our 'Buellwood Best' 2022. Each year we come up with an idea that all fiber Artists can participate in. This year we yarn wrapped colors from a piece of art in the Finnish American Heritage Gallery and used those colors as our palette for our Fiber piece.

'Buellwood Best'

Melissa L wove and felted this beautiful cloth for her vest. She used the colors she selected from a painting. To her surprise the alpaca she used did not felt the same as the other wool. This created a challenge for her, despite the uneven felting she was still made a lovely vest. Weaving and felting more black wool to extend the length of the garment helped. 

Dawn took her colors and made a number of bands on her inkle loom. She was not happy with this small inkle loom. She used the color palette she found in a painting.

Jenny is a spinner, and she spun some skeins with the colors she chose. Her silk spinning is beautiful as are the other skeins. These were all spun on her collection of spindles in the box above. She collects spindles 'they are like candy' to Jenny. She just cannot resist them. 

on the left John chose an eight shaft pattern to explore with his colors (seen on the piece of wood above his piece) he used a straight treadling for this colorful piece. 

on the right, Phyllis's Crocheted circles on the right are created in sequence from cotton yarn. I think we will be seeing more of these circles in future exhibits. 

Kathie used the colors for a weaving on the rigid Heddle Loom.  Since these are her favorite colors, she actually found a skein of variegated yarn with all the colors in it. 

Mary used the colors from a picture, for a weaving on the a small tapestry loom.  One she has been traveling with for a number of years now and was excited to finally be actually have a reason to use it. The most difficult part was to find yarns that match the colors in her photograph. Even with an extensive stash to choose from!

Laura received a gift of a gallon flask and decided she really needed a carry bag for it.

She made herself a lovely wool felted bag with the  yarn colors she wrapped at the Finnish American Heritage Gallery last fall.  

Show and Tell

Nathen found a shirt that he could add to his indigo vat. Nice job on reviving this tossed garment into something spectacular. 

Sean brought in a sample of  Baltic style weaving this one done on his Rigid heddle loom. The detailed photo below really shows how fine his work is. 

 

Lois took the ceramic class at the Finnish American Folk School and she made this piece of pottery at the workshop. 

Melissa took the workshop with artist Liv Aanrud. She finished her piece and was very happy with the results. Visit the Gallery now until June 3 for more of Liv's art.  'Off the Hook'

Melissa also took Clare's fair isle knitting class and made a beautiful pair of wrist warmers. 

Dawn did some dyeing with Rhubarb leaves and then made this lovely crocheted flower. I think is looks like she followed Arne and Carlos Spring Crochet Along for this sample.

Poppy Sent me a picture of her sample from Arne and Carlos Crochet along. She dyed all the yarns herself with Natural dyes.

  

   

Mary M  is now the newest member of our Guild she was able to finish the sleeve on her Icelandic sweater with yarn she found in the Fiber Studio. She also wanted to join our guild! welcome Mary M. 

John finished weaving his wall/window hanging with images from his hike on the Camino de Santiago which he completed a couple of years ago. It is a very interesting adventure and John did a slide show for us at our 2019 retreat. John has been focusing on Transparency weaving for a while now.

Check out this Article in Quilting Arts Magazine Winter 2022 our talented Laura had her

piece of art  published. 

She also had a lovely woven purse to show today. 

Mary has been busy felting slippers and knitting this wool felted piece from the Kiki Mariko Rug pattern to see how the pattern works. It will be her contribution to the July 9th event at Emberlight 2022 Knitting Circle at Miners Park in Ironwood, MI. 

Kiki Mariko rug pattern

Our 2022 Guild retreat will be held at the Marsin Retreat Center on Canal Road in Houghton September 17 and 18th.

we have a few ideas for presentations offered. 

Saturday sept 17th at 1 pm to we will have a meeting to plan our presentations for 2022-23 year, so bring your requests and ideas.

 Let Mary B know if you need to stay overnight Friday and Saturday. I have been told there have been some new upgrade changes at the Marsin.

Our next guild meeting will be Saturday June 18th at 1:00 pm some of us will be warping looms for the Rug class. John will let us know if a meeting will actually be held. 

January Guiild meeting Warping a Rigid Heddle loom

In January despite the frigid cold temps our Guild meet at Gloria Dei Church in Hancock, MI. The travels to the meeting were cold, but we made it as no snow!!!
Our meeting started with a great show and tell. Some of the highlights were:

Kathie's needle case

Kathie finished her needle case that we all started at the fall retreat. Kathie used a piece of Persian wool to accent her case. We all agreed it was a great project for us.

She also brought in her twill weaving to show the difference she got by just changing the weft while finishing off her warp on the loom

twill weaving with same warp and different wefts

needle case close up

Anita, our resale queen, showed us what can be woven on the Weaving Sticks she found last month. While Jay refashioned his felted hat, that he got from Dawn at the Christmas luncheon.

Anita with weaving stick project

Jay wanted a hat he could wear in the house.

Rachael is taking the fiber class at Finlandia and is visiting today and we hope joining our guild. Welcome Rachael! she too likes to bargain hunt and found this bag which she added some embroidery too it.

Rachael recycled bag.

the reverse side

Dawn is our in house natural dye expert and this is a sample of her dyeing with Catkins from the alder plant. the yarn samples below were mordant with Alum and iron.

dyed with alder catkins and alum and iron

she also knits and felts her camel hair hat and her felted mittens. the white ones are from hand spun yarn and the brown from worsted weight. she will even share the pattern.  

knit and felted mittens

Came hair knit hat

pot holders woven on a child's loom

baby hat our of fixation yarn

Baby blanket #2

Mary has a new grand baby and of course that means knitting and weaving for the little ones. There were more but they are on the way to California.

Our Presentation this month was Warping a Rigid Heddle loom 

 presented by Marilyn and Kathie.

it is rather quick and easy to warp these looms. 

Much easier that warping a floor loom for sure if you know how to do it.

first you take a double thread through each of the slats....then cut and retread the holes with the second thread. Easy enough!

double threads through slots.

then tread the holes with the second tread

Suggested reading for the rigid heddle loom. Finally a warped loom to try your hand at weaving on this loom. which Jay, a very new weaver in our guild, was delighted to give it a try.

suggested reading for Rigid heddle

warped loom

Jay trying it out.

That is all for now. But we have a lot planned for 2019

Set your calendars for our February 18th meeting when John will present a weaving program. It will be a surprise but he announced he is focusing on transparency weaving for his future. 

March 18 th will be a presentation on Bulgarian Fiber arts. and May our 'Buellwood Best' show the theme is a fiber art which your inspiration is taken form a nature photo.

June is conference month, MLH in Holland MI May 28 - June 2 and Midwest Weavers in Grinnell, Iowa June 20 to 22 rd. both have open registration now.

In July12th we are lucky enough to have Donna Kallner doing a Nailbinding workshop in Hancock just for our guild. there are 12 spaces available contact John if you might be interested as we have 10 spaces filled right now. She will also be teaching at the Porkies Folk school near Ontonagon, MI the following weekend.

August 19 th we have asked Gary Olds to visit our Guild meeting and chat with us about his inspiration with choosing his colors and patterns for his beautiful weaving.

September 21 and 22 will be our Buellwood Fall Retreat. located at the Marsin Nature Retreat Center on Canal Road in Houghton, MI

"Thank you" to all who ordered from Halcyon Yarns this last year as we received Guild rewards check for our Guild members who purchased yarns in 2018. $9.37 to add to our guild funds. just mention you are a member of Buellwood Weavers and Fiber Artist Guild when ordering.