Textile Recycling Presentation

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Tuesday 22 Oct 2024, starting at 7 pm
Congregational church of Harvard, 5 Still River Rd, Harvard MA

Open to the public!

Samantha Marino of Bay State Textiles will talk about what can be done locally to play a role in managing the 25 billion tons of textiles that are discarded each year in the United States.

Bay State Textiles is a Massachusetts-based company working to keep textiles out of the waste stream, educate communities, and raise money for schools and towns across the Commonwealth with their rebate program. This highly successful program currently partners with more than 100 school districts, 150 municipalities, over 600 schools and several colleges and Universities. Bay State Textiles gives back thousands of dollars to communities and schools every year. Samantha Marino has been the recycling coordinator/account manager at Bay State Textiles for over three years. Her main goals in her position at BST are to expand the program into new areas, educate residents and students about textile recycling, and provide exceptional service to partners and the general public.

Refreshments will be served following the program.

Download a flier here. For more information, contact the NVWG Program Committee.

September 2024 Guild Meeting

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Tips and tricks for zero waste and thriftiness in weaving!
Tuesday 24 September, 7pm (social time), 7:30pm (meeting start time)
Congregational Church of Harvard

To kick off our “Zero Waste” theme this year, members will share ideas about what to do with thrums, scraps of leftover cloth, and DIY tools for easier warping and weaving. Bring your own ideas and any show and tell to this social meeting.

2024-25 Guild Challenge: Reuse something in a woven piece and/or find a way to interpret “zero waste”. Find a way to use something that would otherwise be thrown away. Yarn from Reba is available to facilitate this challenge. Start thinking now so it will be ready for our potluck in June!

Some announcements

  • Membership dues ($25) are due! You may pay by cash or check at the meeting or send a check payable to NVWG, PO Box 5, Harvard, MA 01451
  • People are needed to represent the Guild at the Bolton Harvard Open Studios on October 5th (10am to 4pm) and 6th (noon to 4pm) at the Fiber Loft. People may bring any fiber activity and anything they’d like to sell.
  • Faulkner House demos are scheduled for 22 September and 27 Oct from 3 to 5 pm.
  • Note that our 22 October meeting presentation will begin at 7pm.
  • Our April meeting is going to be a book discussion on “Vanishing Fleece: Adventures in American Wool” by Clara Parkes. Plan ahead!
  • Book, magazine and DVD orders from the library are kindly requested to be sent to the librarian by the day before the meeting.

End-of-Year Potluck

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Our End-of-Year Potluck will be on Tuesday 6/25/24 starting at 6pm. If you need location information, please contact the program chairs.

Parking: on the driveway or diagonally on the grass

What to bring:

  • dish to share (salad, protein or dessert) with a serving utensil and list of allergens, if applicable
  • beverage for yourself
  • your own plate, utensils, napkin, cup
  • your challenge item (if applicable)
  • lawn chair
  • dress for the weather – Unless it’s really wet, we will likely be outside.
  • insect repellant
  • cash or check for the Blanket Sale
  • Items to sell, swap or give away, see below*

Business meeting: There will be a brief business meeting to elect officers. There will also be door prizes!

* Extra! Extra! Blanket Sale
In preparations for our year of “zero waste”, all members are invited to bring along items to sell, swap or give away. Anything weaving-related is fair game: yarn, equipment, books etc. Individuals must bring their own table or blanket to display their items and must handle their own finances. And all unsold/unswapped items must go home with you – nothing left behind as a “gift” for the hostess. 😉

Bobbin Lace at May 28, 2024 Guild Meeting

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7:00 pm at the Congregational Church in Harvard, MA

Sue Felshin demonstrating bobbin lace at the Old State House in Boston

Lace makers Linda Kukolich and Sue Felshin will be presenting a program on bobbin lace. They will talk about lace making and about the use of lace in the 18th century, when lace reached its peak as a craft and an element of fashion, before mechanization destroyed both the economics of lace making and the social exclusivity of lace for fashion. They will bring examples of lace and works in progress for a demonstration of the techniques. A project will be set up for people to try crossing and twisting some bobbin pairs.

Linda Kukolich first saw bobbin lace in 1983 and loved it so much she had to start right away, learning from a photo copy of a book and making her own (terrible) materials. The materials were So bad, she soon gave it up. After a gap of about a decade, she met Lies Stolk at a lace demo. That lead to weekly classes, access to high quality tools and a variety of patterns and lace styles. She has been making lace ever since.

Sue Felshin started crocheting lace in the 1980s. When she became interested in 18th century reenacting in the 1990s, she switched to bobbin lace, studying under Lies Stolk of Hudson, MA. She has researched 18th century use and styles of lace, has presented programs to reenactors and demonstrated to the public, and when she retires she may finally have time to finish her perennially not-quite-ready webpage on the subject.

Bobbin lace cat in progress

Chair Caning – April 2024 Meeting

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Tuesday 23 April 2024, 7:00 p.m. at the Congregational Church in Harvard, MA

Presented by NVWG member Arlette Stawasz

Caning is saving chairs with reeds woven in patterns. This technique really shows strength in numbers. Find out the difference between cane webbing and strand cane and a brief synopsis of both. This demo will concentrate on strand canes. There will be some chairs to practice the different levels of strand caning.

Chairs in need of re-caning

Arlette Stawasz has been a weaver for many years. Still a beginner, she wanted to explore weaving with different materials. The pandemic offered her that opportunity. Having accumulated the materials, included seat-less chairs, she decided to try her hand at it on a hot muggy day. Little did she know that the conditions were ideal for chair caning. Come find out why.

March 2024 Program

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Beyond Knitting and Crochet: Other Fiber Arts That Won’t Break the Bank

with Chris Sterling

Tuesday 3/26/24, 7 pm at the Congregational Church in Harvard MA

Chris Sterling’s many ideas for affordable equipment


At this in-person only meeting, Chris will share with the guild her collection of fiber arts related tools most of which can be purchased for under one hundred dollars – sometimes a little bit more, and in some cases a whole lot less. She will start with creating yarn with a drop spindle rather than a spinning wheel, and will move on to creating cords with a lucet, a knitting spool and a kumihimo disk. Tools to create bands include tablets, or cards, inkle looms and bead looms. Stand-alone squares and other shapes can be made by pin looms, turtle looms and pot holder looms. She will include several variations of rigid heddle looms, tapestry looms, and peg looms for larger projects. For non-woven projects there will be a short discussion of wet and needle felting. Should she discover any more neat tools, she will bring them along. Time will be provided at the end for guild members to get a closer look at her collection.

Chris is attempting to create a presentation aimed at non-weavers, which would be a low cost introduction to the weaver’s world. She realizes that many of the guild members know more than she does about some if not all of these tools, and would appreciate feedback.

Chris Sterling
Chris wove her first scarf in 1970 while on a Junior year abroad program in Sweden, the native land of all her grandparents, but it was not until 1978 that she learned how to dress the loom when she took a weaving course and bought her first loom while living outside of Ottawa, Ontario Canada. While in Canada she was a member of the Ottawa Valley Weavers Guild. She moved to Bolton MA in 1987 and discovered that the newly formed Nashoba Valley Weavers Guild was just up the road in Harvard. She considers herself an “almost charter member” having joined the guild in its first year. There were several gaps where she did not attend meetings or pay dues, but she is now very happy to be back in the flock. In addition to weaving, she enjoys beading, paper crafts, and eco-dying silk scarves.

February 2024 Meeting with Laura Fry

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Tuesday 27 February, 7 p.m. on Zoom

Laura Fry presents “The Goldilocks Zone”

The issue of tension rises in many stages in the weaving process. Laura will talk about what “good tension” is and ways to determine if the process might be made better by adjusting how much tension one uses. A thread under tension is a thread under control, but it has to be the ‘right’ amount of tension – the Goldilocks Zone.

Laura Fry’s business focus has evolved with the changing economy and market trends from a concentration on table textiles to weaving yardage on contract for a fashion designer. In addition, Laura teaches throughout Canada and the United States, writes for a variety of textile publications, and wins awards for the beautiful clothing fabrics that have always been her passion. After years of work and study, Laura earned certification in 1997 as one of Canada’s Master Weavers, the 27th weaver to achieve the honor. Read Laura’s full bio on her website.

A Zoom link will be sent to members the week before the meeting. If you would like to join the meeting as a guest, please email us.

Winter/Spring 2024 Programs

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Save the dates!

2/27 – Laura Fry, “The Goldilocks Zone” on Zoom

3/26 – Chris Sterling, “Beyond Knitting and Crotchet; other fiber arts that won’t break the bank”, in person in Harvard

4/23 – Arlette Stawasz, Chair Caning, in person in Harvard

5/28 – Bobbin Lace, presenter TBD, in person in Harvard

6/25 –  Potluck, annual meeting, elections, Guild member swap/sale, in person, location TBA

January 2024 Guild Meeting

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Christine Miller – Wire as Fiber, A Fiber Artist’s Tale

Tuesday 23 January, 7pm on Zoom

Wire as fiber is a presentation about Christine’s journey as a weaver of 50 years, her discovery of wire as fiber, and an overview of her work with wire
over 30 years as an artist, teacher & author. As a retired visual arts educator, she uses the lens of the 8 Studio Habits of Art to reflect on her artistic
journey and shares these artistic concepts with her audience.

Christine is a life long fiber artist and has been exploring fiber through many processes and techniques. She has been weaving by hand for over 50 years, and for the last 30 years she has been weaving with wire as warp and weft to create a woven metal fabric that can be used for sculptural expressions. In addition to weaving she has experience in sewing, basketry, embroidery, felting, dyeing, knitting, crochet, and fiber sculpture. Her sculptural expressions are created from a woven metal fabric that she weaves by hand on an eight shaft floor loom from wire and fiber. After the woven metal fabric is created, she sculpts, shapes, and stitches the forms together by hand with wire. Individual units are assembled into larger sculptural forms which are also stitched together by hand with wire. Wall hangings are created from layers of the woven metal fabric. Sculptures and wall hangings are embellished with other fibers, beads, or objects, hand dyed felt, found objects, and crocheted wire. Her sculptures and bas-relief wall hangings display both the strength of the material, but also the flexibility of creating undulating lines.

She teaches online classes about weaving with wire, and just published a book with Schiffer Publishing, Weaving with Wire: Creating Woven Metal Fabric. She is a former visual arts educator with local and national arts education recognition. Christine continues bringing fiber arts into the educational world with Visiting Artist programs and workshops, and conducting professional development sessions for school districts across the state.

A Zoom link will be sent to members prior to the event. If you are interested in visiting the Guild for the program, please email us for the link. Agenda for the evening:

  • 7:00 – Zoom opens for socializing
  • 7:30 – Brief business meeting and announcements
  • ~7:45 – Program with Christine Miller begins

For more information on Christine, visit her website.

December 2023 Guild Meeting – Visible Mending

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France has launched an initiative to combat clothing waste, subsidizing the repair of shoes and clothes on the verge of becoming unusable instead of throwing them away. Are you ready to follow suit? A so-called “darning loom” is the latest gadget in the fiber community, enabling clever consumers to repair their own clothing with “visible mending”. This inexpensive device holds your knit or woven fabric under tension and provides an anchor for warp threads while you weave a patch. The downside to the ingenious little loom is the lack of instructions in the package when you purchase them. Here’s your opportunity to learn how to use it to weave a patch that is functional – repairing a real hole – or just decorative.

Our Nov/Dec meeting will be held on Tuesday 5 December, starting at 1pm at the Congregational Church in Harvard. The program is a hands-on activity to learn to mend or darn holes in fabrics using the trendy “Speedweve” looms. If you do not have a little loom and did not pre-order one, they can be purchased online. This is the one we are purchasing for the group order, but you can get any variation or size that you prefer. Those who do not wish to participate in the mending are welcome to come just to see what’s happening and enjoy an afternoon together!

What’s happening at the meeting?

  • 1:00 Social time and library browsing
  • 1:30 Announcements and Show & Tell
  • 2:00 Begin the mending! The activity will be led by the Weavers’ Study Group that meets on Tuesdays at The Fiber Loft.
  • 4:00 Be done and cleaned up

What to bring:

  • A couple articles of woven or knit clothing in need of small (not larger than 1” square) mending. Examples of items might be jeans, sweaters or jackets, but other items can also be repaired. For practice, a plain scrap of fabric can also be used.
  • Bits of smooth yarn – commercial or handspun – to create decorative patches. Embroidery floss, or 5/2 or 10/2 mercerized cotton works well, but feel free to be creative!
  • Tapestry needle (one also comes with the loom)
  • Scissors
  • Glasses or magnifiers
  • $5 co-pay if you pre-ordered a loom
  • Or bring your own loom