We will be having a HYBRID meeting. Those people interested in meeting in person will meet at the United Church of Christ, 5 Still River Road, Harvard, MA at 7:00 PMThe church is next to the General Store. The entire program will be live-streamed on Zoom. Please be patient with your production team, hybrid meetings are still very new to us all!
There will be two of the presenters in-person with samples, and two more will zoom in remotely.
For a Zoom link please contact Kathy Tappen.
Our February 22, 2022, meeting will start at 7:00 PM on Zoom. The meeting link will be provided by Kathy closer to the date of the meeting. Our guest speaker is Kathrin Weber who says this about the presentation she has prepared for us:
Creative Use of Materials, Color, and Technique
“Do you have yarn in various colors, textures, weights, and yarn types that you are not sure what to do with? Perhaps you have a lovely yarn that may not be strong enough for that warp you want to wind. Or your yarn is too fine or too big or the colors are too bright and they don’t go together. Or, to be honest, the yarn you have been hoarding is just too dang expensive to use! How do you make a little go a long way?
This lecture with images will help you think of creative ways to plan and execute woven projects of mixed yarn types and colors that you might have thought would never go together technically or visually. Spend a little time with me thinking, “What if…?” And then dig through your yarn closet for hidden treasures waiting to be woven.”
A bit about Kathrin from her website – blazingshuttles.com
“Kathrin has been a full-time studio fiber artist since 1980. Her work revolves around dyeing, weaving, and teaching. She has a fearless enjoyment in using hand-dyed color in her teaching, shop sales, and weaving. She enthusiastically encourages students to dive into color. No matter what her classes are officially entitled, they are ultimately about color, technique, and weaving good fabric.
Kathrin is a member of the Southern Highland Handcraft Guild. She has a strong belief in encouraging technical proficiency and personal design. She served 6 years on the Standards Committee for Southern Highland Guild and as the chair of Standards for Piedmont Crafts Guild. Kathrin is currently serving as a member of the PCI Standards Committee. She teaches at Penland, Arrowmont, John C. Campbell Folk School, Peters Valley, Appalachian Crafts School, Fiber Guilds, and Fiber Conferences across the country.
Kathrin encourages fiber folks to join her on Blazing Shuttles Chatter Facebook page to meet and join several thousand weavers who are making beautiful woven items with her hand-dyed yarn.”
Guild member Penny Lacroix will present “The Abbot Worsted Company; The Business, the People and the Community”
In 1855, a partnership was established in Graniteville, Massachusetts “under the name of Abbot Worsted Company by John W. Abbot, John W. P. Abbot and Charles G. Sargent, special partners, to manufacture fine worsted yarn braid and upholstery yarn, employing 20 hands.” For the next 100 years, the company would operate multiple spinning mills in Westford, forever changing the character of the small farming community.
This presentation will report not only the evolution and growth of the company, but also how it drove the social and economic structure of the town. Becoming the largest manufacturer of carpet worsted yarns in the world by 1916, it provided low cost housing, medical care, and social and recreational opportunities for employees and their families.
This program was originally presented at the 2021 Weaving History Conference hosted by the Thousand Islands Art Center.
Our October speaker is Mickey Stam, past President and member of the Weavers and Spinners Society of Austin, in Austin, Texas. She is the author of the book Innovative Weaving: A Guide for Study Groups, published in 2016.
https://www.amazon.com/Innovative-Weaving-guide-study-groups/dp/0692657339
Mickey is a weaver, a spinner, and a dyer and is Zooming in to talk about how to have, and be a member of, a successful study group. She has a master’s degree in the History of Decorative Arts from the Smithsonian Institution/Parsons School of Design and the Certificate of Excellence Level I from the Handweavers Guild of America.
With many of our members still feeling more comfortable “Zooming” into meetings, the guild is looking for more ways to engage our membership. Some other local, and not so local, guilds are now sponsoring study groups as one way of doing this. What are they all about? How do they work? What is my commitment? Lots of questions. Weavers and Spinners Society of Austin has had many successful study groups over the years. One of the study groups Mickey led was a study group on Innovative Weaving. Then she wrote a guidebook for other study groups to do the same.
This should be a great way to learn about how we can all move our weaving forward, in person or on Zoom, with our fellow guild members and other weaving enthusiasts.
NVWG Meeting
Oscar Beriau and the Canadian Handicraft Revival.
On Tuesday, September 28, 2021, Mary Underwood, Front Porch Textiles will be the featured speaker for the NVWG meeting. Oscar Beriau and his contributions to the revival of weaving in Canada during the 1930s and 1940s is the subject of Mary’s presentation. Mary is in the process of writing a book on Beriau and his contributions to the weaving community and no recording of this presentation is allowed per agreement with her publisher.
This meeting will be a hybrid of in-person and Zoom. The business meeting will begin at 7:00 PM and our speaker is scheduled to start via Zoom at about 7:30 PM. The in-person meeting will be at the Congregational Church of Harvard, 5 Still River Road, Harvard, MA. This is right next to the Harvard General Store, and right across from the Harvard Common. The meeting room is on the second floor. There is an elevator.
Masks are required in all hallways, entries, the elevator, bathrooms, etc. Masks in the meeting room if unvaccinated, or as comfort level dictates.
Interesting article on an exhibit in Chicago
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-women-weavers-bauhaus-inspired-generations-textile-artists
A few of our Guild members took a 3 Dimensional weaving workshop with Sally Eyring, back in February. Please join us for a Virtual Show and Tell, to see some of the pieces that we made during and after the workshop! Didn’t take the workshop? Bring your COVID Creations to Show and Tell, too! This meeting is a fun way to see what everyone’s been working on.
The meeting will take place via Zoom, with a link to be sent out on Monday, the 26th. All members should automatically receive the link. If you aren’t a member yet, you can send a note to chair@nvwg.org to request the Zoom link information. The meeting will start at 7pm, on 27April2021.
Did you know that we have the DVD of “Yarn” available in our library? ‘Tis true! A few years ago, the Guild sponsored a screening of the movie at the Harvard Library. It was open to the public, and it generated much interest from locals. As part of the licensing agreement, we are permitted to have the DVD in our Guild library to lend to members. According to imdb, the documentary reveals how “international artists and knitters take a simple skein of yarn to create their extraordinary ideas and stories.” Calling it a documentary makes it sound serious, but it really is a fun movie to watch, if you’re into yarn!
If you’d like to borrow the DVD, you can contact Kathy, our multi-talented librarian, to arrange a socially distanced pickup. Alternatively, you can stream the movie through a link on its imdb listing for a small fee.
By the way, you can view everything in library by clicking the LIBRARY tab above!
Join us via Zoom at 7pm for a presentation by professional photographer Joe Ofria. Joe has been photographing fine art for almost 40 years. He will talk about what makes a good photo, how to use what equipment you have, and editing the image following the guidelines for entering shows or competitions. He will also answer questions about setting up a “studio” and lighting options.
Not a member? Send an email to chair@nvwg.org to get the Zoom link and join us for a visit! (Please send your request before 5pm on 23March.)