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"The HUB" Vol. XXVII, No.4
Bimonthly newsletter of July - August 2006

THE NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA SPINNERS AND WEAVERS GUILD

Saturday, August 5, 2006, from 10:00 a.m. to 2 pm
Sus Spencer's Cottage in the Woods, Cooperstown, PA

July Program

Our July Program Meeting will be held at the historic Baldwin Reynolds House on Terrace St. in Meadville on Sat., July 1 from 10-2. Bring a lunch, chair, and something to work on -- wheel, spindle, inkle loom, lucet, etc. We will be outside if the weather is nice, inside if not. Vehicles will not be permitted through the main gate at the front, so use Lord St. to enter from the rear. There is limited on-street parking on Lord and neighboring streets. If no space is available, there, you may park in the plaza lot across from the front of the building.

August Program

The August meeting will be a picnic at Sue and Larry Spencer's cottage in the woods. Please bring a covered dish to share with everyone. If you would like to spin, bring your wheel and join in the fun. Sue has a pond if you would like to swim. It is always a fun-filled day. Bring your family and friends. Officers will meet at 9:30am for business meeting and to organize. The program following this meeting will be “A Surprise”.

DIRECTIONS: Contact Sue Spencer at forsuespencer@hotmail.com or see the print Hub.

Calendar of Events

May 28th thru August 27th - Home Textile Tool Museum Saturdays 10am to 4pm

July 1st - NWPSWG Program Meeting at Baldwin Reynolds House 10:00a.m.to 2:00p.m.

July 17th - NWPSWG Tuesday Spinning at Christ Church 10:00a.m.to-2:00p.m.

July 22nd - Waterford Fleece to Shawl Demonstration 10am to 4pm

July 29th - Spinning at the Baldwin Reynolds House 11:00a.m. to 4:00p.m.

August 5th - NWPSWG Business/Program Meeting and Annual Picnic 10:00a.m.to 2:00p.m.

August 13th - Spinning at the Baldwin Reynolds House 11:00a.m. to 4:00p.m. for Meadville Heritage Days

August 15th -NWPSWG Tuesday Spinning at Christ Church Cancelled

August 25th - Spinning at the Crawford County Fair, Home Economics Bldg. (Use Gate #6) 1:30p.m. to whenever

August 23rd - Fleece Judging at the Crawford County Fair, Sheep Barn 6:00p.m.

September 23rd - Sheep and Wool Family Field Day 10:00a.m. to 3:00p.m. at the Waterford Fair Grounds

October 21st - 22nd - NY Sheep and Wool Festival, Rheinbeck, NY

Baldwin Reynolds House

We will be teaching and demonstrating our craft at the historic Baldwin Reynolds House on Terrace St. in Meadville on Saturday July 29th and Sunday August 13th from 11:00a.m. to 4:00p.m. Bring a lunch, chair, and something to work on—wheel, spindle, inkle loom, lucet etc. We will be outside if the weather is nice, inside if not. Vehicles will not be permitted through the main gate at the front, so use Lord St. to enter from the rear. There is limited on-street parking on Lord and neighboring streets. We will try to have someone curbside to help unload. If no space is available, there, you may park in the plaza lot across from the front of the building.

Minutes of the June Meeting

NWPSWG MINUTES - JUNE 3, 2006

Treasurer Report: Total accounts amount to $3092.60

Demonstrations to plan for:
7/22 Waterford Days, Laura will weave, spinners needed
7/21 Oil Heritage Day, need weaver and spinners
8/5 Guild meet at Sue’s: picnic, family social event
8/13 Baldwin-Reynolds House spin 11:00-4:00
8/23 Crawford Co Fair judge fleeces
8/25 Crawford Co Fair spin demo 1:00
9/23 Sheep and Wool Day 10-3:00 need weaver and spinners, entries, demonstrations

Crawford Co Fair needs spin-weave-knit entries to display and compete

Janet Smouse has a cottage we could use for a spin day/retreat.

Guild draft pads are available free to anyone who could use them.

Loraine Dallas offered to replace shawl warp for cost plus ship and handle. Mathilda also offered.

A copy of The Travel Book for fiber shops is in library.

New officers were voted in:

MAFA membership needs renewal—no decision was made.

Looms for Sale:

  • Schacht Baby Wolf, 8-harness, 26”. Includes miscellaneous weaving supplies—umbrella swift, warping board, several reeds, books yarn, $1200. Photo can be seen at http://eirephoto.com. Contact Dorothy Kloss at shutterbug@velocity.net.
  • Kitty Gehres, Union Rug Loom $300
  • Karen Fry, 4-H, Harrisville, $300.

Chinese Auction at the Picnic!

Clean out your stash and bring your unwanted treasures to the picnic at Sue Spencer’s house. To raise money to go towards workshops, we are planning on having a Chinese auction. Five tickets for a dollar, then put your tickets in the cup near the stuff that you want to win. Bring address labels so you don’t have to keep writing your name on the tickets. Our Felt making instructor, Deborah Pope, has donated one of her celestial orbs for the auction. Check out your stuff, see what you can part with, and then take a chance to win something to fill that empty space. It should be a lot of fun! Questions? Contact Joyce Rose.

2006 Workshop

Fantasy in Felt, Exploring Sculptural Felt making, Oct 6,7,8 &9 Save the dates!

NPSWG has applied for a grant from the PA Partners in the Arts to help fund an evening presentation and demonstration of sculptural felt making by Deborah Pope, a prominent fiber artist, followed by three different one day classes utilizing various felt making techniques.

The project will take place Columbus Day weekend 2006 at Christ Episcopal Church in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The Friday Oct. 6 presentation will be at 7:00 PM, and the workshops will be on Saturday Oct. 7, Sunday Oct. 8, and Monday Oct. 9, all from 9 AM to 4 PM.

Friday night’s presentation and demonstration will show how wool can be used as a sculpting medium. A program to showcase the artist’s fantasy figures and how they were created, and an actual hands-on opportunity for the audience. The following three days of one day workshops will have a workshop fee of approximately $35 per day, depending on the amount of grant money received, and will be open to all levels of expertise, from beginners to advanced. “Celestial Orbs” will be Saturday’s class, Sunday’s class is creating a “Dream Fish”, and creating an “Origami Felted Purse” will be Monday’s class. The material fee is included in the workshop fee.

Welcome Aboard

We have two new members:

Bonnie Orr, Erie, PA, ORRBEEZER@aol.com
Sharon Hoban, Titusville, PA

Please see the online members directory for full contact information, and add these members to your directory and make them welcome.

Classified Section

For Sale: Dorothy Kloss has a Schacht Baby Wolf 8 Harness loom for sale with a 12 dent reed, hook, and shuttle for $1000. She has extra items including reeds-6, umbrella swift, bobbin winder, warping board, boat shuttles-3 and a ski shuttle. For $1250.00 you can have it all. Contact Dorothy at at shutterbug@velocity.net This a pick up only. Pictures on http://eriephoto.com

Kitty Gehres has a union rug loom for sale for $300.00.

Judy Hanninen would like everyone to know that she has mohair for sale all the time.

Karen Fry has a 4 harness Harrisville loom for sale at $300.00.

From: "beth and joe" <jgl@nittanylink.com>
This is a request for information and it may sound a little silly. I am in the process of forming a business and marketing plan for a business which I hope to start in the near future. I am interested in raising rare sheep and goats for their wool. Two varieties I am looking at are the Karakul and the Icelandic sheep and the Mohair goat. What I am trying to determine is whether or not there is a market for this type of fiber for the cottage industry/hobby weaver. I would appreciate any input or referral to other sources which you can provide. Thank you, Beth

Submission’s by guild members

The Horseman’s Tale
Felt played an important role in Uighur life. It was used not just for tents but also for saddle-pads, boot linings, clothes and furnishings, and new batches were made very autumn. A piece of old felt, called 'the mother', was laid on the ground and soaked with water. Three layers of sheep wool and a layer of grass were placed on top, each soaked in turn, and then the bundle was rolled up tightly inside hides that had also been soaked, and fastened with leather straps. More water was poured in at either end, and ropes we're tied to the bundle and to two mounted horsemen on opposite sides. They both stood on their horses next to the bundle so that the ropes were slack. One then walked his horse away until his rope was taut and
then dragged the bundle along the ground until the other (continued on next page)
horseman's rope was taut. This continued, first one way and then the other, perhaps thirty -or forty times. The whole soggy bundle was then unwrapped, unrolled and the grass removed. The resulting piece of rough felt, formed from the amalgam of the layers of sheep wool, was called 'the daughter'. But the process was not yet complete. Next the daughter felt was rolled up:--with another three layers of wool and the process repeated. The resulting felt was soaked again and laid against the side of a tent to dry. Different types and grades of wool were used to make different qualities of felt. The best was made from the downy fleece of the unshorn sheep, Collected by hand.

Excerpt from the book “Life Along the Silk Road” by Susan Whitfield. Uighur, was north of China and near the northern Steppes. The Western Turks had been driven out of this area which is now Mongolia.
Submitted by Ilene Elliston.

Chenille Workshop

A Big Thanks to Barb Lodge for the chenille workshop. A great time was had by all. We learned to make the chenille one day and wove it the next.

August Program at the Picnic

Our August Surprise is two fold. First we will be doing rainbow dyeing. The second part is making a large felt sheet decorated with what ever. If you have one bring a Coleman or what ever cook stove, a stock pot, scraps of wool either spun or in other forms. After the dyeing is started we can lay out the wool on a bamboo mat. After the base is done we start decorating with everything. We have the odds and ends you all bring and the wool we just dyed. Think of what you would like this to look like. Maybe we can put all our ideas in a pot and draw a plan. What ever. After it is rolled up every one can help roll, stomp, and drag, anything it takes to felt the wool. Water is involved. We are in the country so wear clothes for the occasion. Don’t forget the food.

MapMuse.com

Hi,
I am writing to let spinning and weaving enthusiasts know that MapMuse.com has added nationwide maps of spinning and weaving shops, and spinning guilds to its services. There are presently over 80 shops, and 650 guilds located on the MapMuse.com maps.

The idea is for spinning and weaving enthusiasts to build upon what we have started by adding information about their local shops and guilds to the maps. The following information can be provided for each shop or guild- the name, descriptive text, a photo, contact information, and a link to a website. Through this kind of community effort, we hope to have the most comprehensive, and descriptive maps for spinning and weaving enthusiasts to locate spinning and weaving shops, and guilds at home, and on their travels. So we invite you to let other spinning and weaving enthusiasts know about what is available in your community. There is an ADD and EDIT feature on the site (you can refer to . http://find.mapmuse.com/re1/mmFAQ.htm#A4 if you have questions about making changes). Once a visitor suggests a change, it is reviewed for appropriateness and then posted within a few hours. This service constitutes free advertising for the shops and the guilds.

The following are directly links to these maps:
Spinning and Weaving Shops-
http://find.mapmuse.com/re1/interest.php?brandID=SPIN_WEAVE_SHOPS&

Spinning Guilds-
http://find.mapmuse.com/re1/interest.php?brandID=SPIN_GUILDS&

If you are not familiar with MapMuse.com, we are a highly trafficked mapping website with an Alexa traffic rating of approximately 12,000 in the world. MapMuse’s goal is to help people find places related to their interests. MapMuse continues to add new topics of interest each week. If you have a topic that you would like to see mapped (spinning and weaving related or not), you can suggest the interest on the MapMuse site, and there is a good chance it will be addressed.

If you find our maps useful, we would appreciate it if you would pass the word on to like-minded friends. And if you have a spinning or weaving related website, blog or newsletter, a mention or a link would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Cindy Jett
MapMuse.com
1326 14th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005

 

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