Welcome to the Duneland Weavers' Guild!

Our meetings are open to the public and we love visitors,
including non-weavers and not-yet weavers as well as weavers and other fiber artists.

Kate Larson will present a program on Dorset Buttons on January 12, 2019.
The program will be followed by a spinning workshop that afternoon and on Sunday.
**The Guild meeting and spinning workshop will be at Hilltop House, 460 College Ave., Valparaiso.**
We will meet at our regular time 10:00-12:00 for the meeting and program.

For more information about the Guild, including the location and time of the meetings, click on the About button (above).
Click on the April Show button to see photos of our 2018 annual show and sale and click on the Archive button to see six years of our meetings and April Shows.

November 2018 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Lisa!)

After a brief silent auction which raised more than $500 for the Guild, the program for the meeting was a panel discussion on weaving, knitting and spinning.  Members were invited to ask the expert panel for advice or for information about anything related to these crafts. The panel and the moderator, Jacque, are shown in the photo above.  From the left: Jacque, Sue, Shelby, Margaret, Melvenea and Chris.  Some questions were technical: how to tighten warps evenly, how to finish edges of rep weave and stockinette knitting, how to oil a specific part of a spinning wheel, and some questions were of more general interest: what fibers the panel least preferred to work with (acrylic won that distinction), how Melvenea grows cotton in South Bend, and how to use a blending board to prepare rolags for spinning, a process that Chris likened to painting with different colored fibers.

Joyce wove her scarf with wool yarn and ribbon and included metallics for glitz.		Using her funding after she was selected for to be a 2018 Artist by the Valpo CSA ( Community Supported Art organization), Chris developed an eyeglass case to add to her line of products.

On the left, Shelby is holding the wool summer & winter throw she wove and on the right, she is holding a scarf she knit with a slip stitch pattern, which she said was easier than it looks.

Using a 100% llama warp and silk weft, Margaret wove the scarf in the left side photo.  She also showed us a table runner she wove in cotton (on the right).

Mary did some more work on achieving a Certificate of Excellence from the Handweavers Guild of America.  On the left is a tapestry she wove which features circles (challenging to weave), and on the right, she is holding a tapestry that combines rug and tapestry weaves.

Marianne completed a textile course as a part of her undergraduate degree.  This jacket was a dyeing and weaving project she did in the course.		Shirley used linen yarn to weave this generous table runner (could also be a shawl?) in a huck lace weave.

Lisa told us the sad tale of how this shawl, which she had woven for her Greek sister-in-law, was stolen from her backpack in the Athens airport.

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October 2018 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Sue!)

Cindy Goshert presented a very interesting program on weaving crimp cloth.  She explained that the crimping process uses as weft (or warp) a yarn such as orlon or polyester that softens when it's heated.  The technique is related to weaving shibori in that there are "pull threads" woven into the fabric that are drawn tight after the fabric comes off the loom, but instead of going into a dye pot as a shibori project would, a crimp cloth fabric is steamed and allowed to cool.  Once it is cool, the pull threads are removed, and the fabric has a permanent 3-dimensional crimp pattern that reflects the weave pattern used for the pull threads.

  

Cindy brought a number of very attractive examples of crimp cloth which she had woven with cotton warps and wefts of orlon with upholstery thread as the pull threads.  Some had pull threads woven in a twill on a plain weave of orlon; some had pull threads in plain weave on a patterned weave of orlon; some had twill for both types of thread/yarn.  There are lots of different possibiities for creating different textures for different types of garments.  In addition to her very informative presentation, Cindy gave us a clear and very well illustrated handout explaining the process with three drawdowns to try.

October Show and Tell

September 2018 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Ken!)

The program for our September meeting was an extended show and tell in combination with members bringing their favorite textiles to show the group.
  We also had a 50:50 sale of fiber-related things brought and bought by members.  


The photo above shows most of the people who attended our September meeting.  
We welcomed several new people in addition to a good turnout of our current members.


Above are some of the items members brought for the 50:50 sale.
We will have a silent auction (100% for the Guild) later in the year.

Lizz's favorite fiber is the mohair yarn she enjoys weaving with.		Sharon brought a beaded scarf she had knit over the summer.		Here is a closer look at the intricate pattern of beads at the ends of Sharon's scarf.

Jackie made this trick or treat bag for a Halloween trip to
Disney World with her daughter and grandson.


Jackie's favorite textile is this historic tulle embroidery sampler which was made by her great-grandmother in 1861.

This Hmong skirt is Melvenea's favorite textile piece.  It is made of handspun indigo-dyed cotton, then decorated with batik, cross stitch and ribbon applique.		Melvenea has been experimenting with surface design. Her show and tell piece was a towel she wove and decorated with a gingko leaf stamp.

Jacque brought two favorite textiles:  One was this rep weave table runner in desert colors.		This silk scarf is Jacque's other favorite.  Look closely to appreciate how the weave patterns shift on it.

Jane's favorite textile was this threadwork sampler.  It could be inspiration for a future workshop.

The basket above was a project Mary made in a workshop this summer  On the right she is holding a quilt
which is a work-in-progress.  She is making it for a one year-old.

Paula (on the left in both photos) with the help of Jeane (on the right) showed us both sides of the 8 block pattern
 cotton coverlet she wove last summer.


Melvenea (in the center) led a workshop at Jackie's house on textile surface design.
 In the photo above, Sue (on the left) and Margaret (on the right) showed us the scarves they had decorated
with freehand and stenciled wax batik in the workshop.

For show and tell Terry brought a red, white, blue and gray batt along with skeins of yarn she had spun with
fleece from Gotland Sheep (in the left side photo).  She also showed us yarn she had spun
 from a red, white, blue and gray batt (on the right).

Chris's "Fields of Clover" handspun yarn ran out before she was able to complete her project.		Marcia suggested that Chris could wear it as a scarf as in the photo above rather than having to tear out a lot of knitting and re-knitting it.  The green doily is Chris's favorite textile.  It was her grandmother's work.

Sherron's show and tell project was a tencel bird's eye twill shawl she wove using a kit from Halcyon.		Above is a closer look at the several different weave patterns in the shawl fabric.

Margaret wove this cute sample strip of carrots using rosepath weave pattern.
 She promised us more vegetables (and fruits?) in the future.

Jamie, the owner of Spinnin' Yarns, brought a rug her husband had woven.		And she brought several colorful towels she had woven, including some using turned taquete weave.

In the photo above, Margaret is holding a photo of two stoles woven by a friend for the friend's brother who is a Deacon.  Paula did some embroidery on the stoles.		Margaret won a blue ribbon at the Lake County Fair for this baby blanket she wove.  She can add this year's blue ribbon to her collection of them :-).		More show and tell from Margaret: A scarf and fabric she wove using  warps of painted tencel.

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