Meeting Reminder, 05Dec at 1PM

Nashoba Valley Weavers' Guild Posted on by
Our next meeting will be held on Tues, 05December at 1pm.  Note: This is an afternoon meeting, and on the 1st Tues of the month rather than the 4th!
 
Our program for this special afternoon meeting will be “Pin Looms”.  In this hands on meeting, we will review how to weave on a pin loom and discuss various things to do with those little squares once they come off the loom.
What to bring:
-Any pin looms you have (we have a handful that we can loan out, if you don’t own one)
-Small amounts of yarn in any weight or color you’d like.  Pin looms typically use less than 17 yards to make each square, so leftover balls of yarn are perfect to use.
-Scissors
This should be a very fun afternoon of weaving, and we look forward to seeing everyone there!

Another ATHM Auction, Tomorrow!

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New England Textile Industry Museum Items at Auction

Part III of property from a New England museum of textiles and the textile industry in America featured at Bill Ekleberry’s Estate Auction, Spencer, MA, Wednesday, November 29, 2017.

Approximately 75 museum lots of wide ranging items are included. Country and parlor wheels and winders, Americana, books, ephemera, tools, items unique and typical of the textile mill industry, industrial design, etc.  As always a broad selection of antiques, collectibles, silver, coins, jewelry, Asian, vintage, and decorative items from a variety other estates and consignors are included in this same auction.  Part IV is scheduled for Tuesday, December 26.  Subsequent to this auction, an additional 10-15 winders and spinning wheels, tabletop to great wheels from the museum will be offered 1-2 times per month going forward.  Photographs of items being offered can be viewed at;

http://www.auctionzip.com/cgi-bin/photopanel.cgi?listingid=3004423&category=0&zip=&kwd

Early Auction 3:00 pm, Estate Auction 6:00 pm, at the Spencer Country Inn, 500 Main St., Spencer, MA 01562, preview the afternoon of the auction, 508-579-6615, email billekl@charter.net.

08 Nov Auction of ATHM items

Nashoba Valley Weavers' Guild Posted on by

New England Textile Industry Museum Items at Auction

Part II of Property from a New England museum of textiles and the textile industry in America featured at Bill Ekleberry’s Estate Auction, Spencer, MA, Wednesday, November 8, 2017.  Approximately 100 museum lots of wide ranging items are included. Country and parlor spinning wheels and winders, Americana, industry-related advertising and displays, prints, books, ephemera, tools, items unique and typical of the textile mill industry from origin to final product, woven and machine-made rugs, industrial design, etc. As always a broad selection of antiques, collectibles, silver, coins, jewelry, vintage, and decorative items from a variety other estates and consignors are included in this same auction.  Subsequent to this auction, an additional 10-15 winders and spinning wheels, tabletop to great wheels from the museum will be offered 1-2 times per month going forward.  Part III is scheduled for Wednesday, November 29.  Photographs of items being offered can be viewed at;

http://www.auctionzip.com/cgi-bin/photopanel.cgi?listingid=2995400&category=0&zip=&kwd

Early Auction 3:00 pm, Estate Auction 6:00 pm, at the Spencer Country Inn, 500 Main St. Spencer, MA 01562, preview the afternoon of the auction, 508-579-6615, email billekl@charter.net.

24 October meeting reminder and Guild Challenge!

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Almost half of our members have had a fantastic week at the weave structure workshop!  Our meeting on Tues will be a workshop wrap-up session, where all members (even those who couldn’t join the workshop) can share what we’ve been doing and where workshop participants can share their experiences.  Please come see the weave structures and how different everyone’s samples are!

Most of the yarn used for the workshop is 6/2 unmercerized cotton in 5 colors, donated to us by the American Textile History Museum.  We have a lot of this yarn left over, and we want to share!  Our Guild Challenge this year will be to make something handwoven with this yarn.  You can draw inspiration from the various structures in the workshop, or come up with something all on your own.  The Guild will provide yarn kits to all challenge participants.  Weave something with the yarn to present at our annual potluck meeting next June.  It will be fun to see how different things are made from the same yarn!  You can pick up your kit at the meeting on Tues.  Kits will also be available at subsequent meetings.

Also, if you haven’t yet paid your 2017-2018 dues, Tuesday is the deadline.  Please bring a check for $25 made out to NVWG to be sure that your membership doesn’t lapse.

We hope to see everyone Tuesday evening at The Fiber Loft!  Social and libary time will begin at 7pm.  Meeting and program will begin at 7:30.

 

Meeting on September 26th

Nashoba Valley Weavers' Guild Posted on by

Join us on Tuesday evening, September 26 for our first meeting after our summer hiatus. We will be meeting at the Fiber Loft in Harvard – come to socialize and look over some selections from our library at 7 pm, the meeting starts at 7:30.

We will review NEWS and have a show and tell evening. Guild members who attended NEWS – please bring along your projects from the NEWS classes. Bring along any other show and tell too – from classes taken or weaving you have completed over the summer.

Dues:  If you haven’t yet paid your dues of $25 please bring them to the September meeting.

Reminder:  There is a list of library holdings on this website page – click on the library tab at the top of the page to view them.  If you would like to borrow a specific book please let the librarian know and she will bring it to the meeting for you.

Another orphan loom looking for a home

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Does anyone want this very wide rigid heddle loom?  It has a 44″ weaving width, 8, 10, and 12-dent heddles, and a folding stand.  The heddles are stamped “Beka” but I suspect this is some sort of homemade Frankstein dealie.  Free to new home.  Contact Kathy Tappan or comment here.

Loomapalooza Workshop 2015

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We are planning a guild workshop for the fall. Many of you have expressed an interest. Now is the time to commit. This is open to all NVWG members, regardless of experience level, as long as you can warp your loom on your own.

Location:
The Faulkner House, 5 High Street, Acton

Dates:
Opening session (mandatory for all participants) Saturday 14 October 12-4 p.m.
Various flexible day and evening times during the week of 15-22 Oct (Anticipated time you will need to devote is dependent on the number of participants, but probably about 12 hours total. A typical round robin workshop is 3 full days, or about 18 hours. Think of this as a spread out weekend of weaving!)
Guild meeting Tuesday 24 Oct, 7 p.m.

Who:
This is open to all NVWG members, regardless of skill level or experience. If you do not have a portable loom, but would like to participate, we can help you locate a loom to use for the workshop.

Structure of the workshop:
Round Robin
Each member will be given a weaving draft that is appropriate for their loom and their skill level. Yarn will also be provided. Members will need to wind the appropriate warp (with help if needed) and warp their loom. They will arrive at the workshop with their loom completely threaded and a small sample woven at the beginning of the warp.
On the first day (mandatory for all participants), each person will share information about their warp, the weave structure and their loom operation.
Over the next week, the space will be open at various times during the day and in the evening. A mentor from the guild will be on location during all of the open hours. Participants will come and go as they are able and weave on each of the looms, marking their own weaving with supplied tags.
At the end of the final day (22 Oct), designated people will cut the pieces off the looms and take them home to wash, dry and cut up.
At our regular guild meeting on 24 Oct (which will be held at the Faulkner House), the results will be shared with the whole guild. Notebooks will be given to each participant, including the drafts and the samples they wove during the week.
To sign up:
Send an email to Penny chair@nvwg.org with your name and what loom you intend to use for the workshop. (Also indicate if you have another portable loom you’re willing to lend to a fellow guild member for the workshop.) If you are interested in exploring a particular weave structure, please indicate that in your email.  Send a check for $75 to 96 South St., Berlin MA 01503 to complete your registration. Financial aid is available. Please contact Penny or Laura for information.

So that we can plan and everyone has time to warp their looms, the registration deadline is Wednesday 9 August.

Let us know if you have any questions!

New tool for finding a skeleton tieup…from Handweaving.net

Nashoba Valley Weavers' Guild Posted on by

New Skeleton Tieup Search

We have added a new page to help find skeleton tieups for weaving on rising shed looms.

Please see: http://reducer.handweaving.net

Skeleton tieups are useful if you have enough shafts to weave a draft but not enough treadles, and don’t mind using more than one treadle at once.

You can either enter the original tieup directly, or upload a WIF file containing it and we will try to find a skeleton tieup for it which can be woven on your loom.

The page uses some special custom parallel programming which runs using processing power provided by Amazon’s cloud services.

This was inspired by another similar page named Tim’s Rudimentary Treadle Reducer, but likely works very differently underneath.

Below is a sample showing a skeleton tieup for Handweaving.net pattern #59161, found here: https://handweaving.net/draft-detail/59161/page-xi-figure-208-posselts-textile-journal-june-1913-united-states-1907-1915
If this is popular we will probably expand it to have more features and to work with looms that are not rising shed too.

This skeleton tieup search was a learning project for me. It offered chance to use some brand new technologies while creating something that is hopefully useful to weavers, especially those with 4 and 8 shaft looms. This was actually surprisingly difficult yet fun to create…there is a lot of set theory math involved in treadle reduction and careful technical design and programming needed to find and present skeleton tieups. Of all the things I’ve programmed for Handweaving.net it’s one of the more complicated underneath even though it looks simple on the surface.

Enjoy, and please share or forward this to help others find it! –Kris Bruland

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Our mailing address is:
Handweaving.net
P.O. Box 1158
Coupeville, WA 98239

Volunteers needed! Faulkner House Demo, 25Jun3, 3-5pm

Nashoba Valley Weavers' Guild Posted on by

Hi Everyone,

The next Museum opening at the Faulkner House in Acton is set for 25June, from 3-5pm.  I will not be able to make it to this demo, but am hoping that one or more of you might be able to get there.  We’ve had a lot of fun doing these, they are low-key and relaxing.  The “big loom” is in a state of transition, so whoever comes should plan to bring their own demo items.  Small looms, spinning wheels, and drop spindles are all welcome, as are any other types of fiber demo.  If interested, please email me at laura@northbrookalpacas.com for details.

Thanks!

Laura