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.

We very much regret that we have had to cancel our April 5th Style Show and month-long exhibit at the Chesterton Art Center and our April and May meetings because of COVID-19 concerns.

Please send me photos of your current work with a caption telling us about it and how you're coping.  
I will post them all as virtual Show and Tell in time for the April 11 meeting date.  
  
 Photos of Fiber Art 2019 are on the April Show page.
For more information about the Guild, including the location and time of the meetings, click on the About button (above).
Click on the Archive button to see seven years of our meetings and April Shows.
The Guild is now on Facebook.  Have a look at our Duneland Weavers Guild of Northwest Indiana page.

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March 2020 Meeting
(Thanks for taking the photos, Lisa!)  

 Our program for March was a presentation by Dagmar Klos, a fiber artist (spinner, dyer, weaver, felter) from Weavers Guild of the North Shore.  She shared her rich knowledge of the properties and the history of human use of animal protein fibers, plant-based fibers, and synthetic fibers of many different specific types.  After her very interesting talk, members had an opportunity for a closer look at the many samples Dagmar brought to illustrate her presentation.


March Show and Tell

Betty's scarf has a mohair warp with stripes of warp cramming, a very light cotton weft, and fine beads on the fringe.

Harkening back to Margaret's challenge project, she brought another undulating twill shawl (tencel warp/silk weft).  And she wove two more rugs and a sample for a stole for a friend's brother who is a priest.

On the left Ellen is holding the painted warp shawl she wove (it took a long warping process to distribute the warp colors as you see them).  On the right is a close up of her highly textured scarf, woven with 24 epi tencel warp and colcolastic weft in a twill.

After admiring fabric Donna wove with a type of novelty yarn back in December 2018, Shelby was able to obtain a supply of the yarn and wove this shawl using it as weft with a rayon warp.  The novelty weft has a nylon core with added tufts. The closeup shows the back has no tufts because Shelby manipulated the tufts, pick by pick, to put them on the front surface.

Jamie showed us a hat she had knit with yarn she had fractal spun from painted roving, and she also brought five cotton towels she had woven in a false damask check pattern (Strickler 246).  Four are in the background and she is holding her favorite.


Melvenea brought two shawls she had knit using several colors of naturally colored cotton she had handspun.

Melvenea also knit her tunic (on the left) with naturally colored cotton.  She painted the whimsical patterns on the linen shawl she is modeling on the right, inspired by her elementary school art students.  In addition, she showed us a wide variety of different kinds of projects she has been working on.

Inspired by Mary's creativity, Tom wove this shawl with a mixed warp and two types of fuzzy wefts.

Joyce wove her pillow top with a weft of many colors of roving and neckties.		For her church, Lisa wove color-variegated ribbons into velvet yardage to create this wall hanging.

Donna wove three rugs with T-shirt wefts seen in the photo on the left.  In the photo on the right is a closeup of the two that had painted rainbow warps; one has gray T-shirts for weft, the other has black T-shirts for weft.

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February 2020 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Sue!  And thanks for answering all my questions, weaving and spinning participants!)

Our February program was our annual Spinners' and Weavers' Challenge.  Four spinners and four weavers volunteered to be challenged and created very attractive and interesting yarns and woven items in response. They all thoroughly engaged the interest of the audience with their descriptions of how they planned and then created their yarns and woven items.
 
First, we heard from the spinners:


Donna's card challenged her to spin a botanical fiber (flax, hemp, nettle, rose fiber, etc.) and create a texture in the yarn without adding new fiber.
On the left she is holding pineapple fiber yarn she spun and on the right, rose fiber or hemp yarn.  She concluded that flax and hemp yarns were relatively rough and easy to add texture to while rose fiber was very slippery and fine, making it hard to add texture to.  Pineapple fiber was intermediate, soft and smooth and able to hold texture.  She was most impressed with the texture and interest of yarn in which she spun all the fibers together.



Sharon was challenged to fractal spin a multicolor hand-dyed braid, worsted weight.  She divided the braid of roving into lengthwise sections of different thicknesses, spun the sections individually, and then plied them together to create her lovely yarn.  Fractal spinning made the color changes more gradual and subtle along the length of her yarn compared to the color changes that would have resulted had she used a simpler spinning technique.



Chris's card challenged her to spin a 3 ply yarn using silk as a ply.  She used her own hand-dyed wool when she spun two individual yarns in a clockwise direction.  Next she plied them together in a counterclockwise direction to make a 2 ply wool yarn. For the third ply, Chris spun silk into yarn in a counterclockwise direction.  Finally, to produce her very attractive cabled yarn, she spun the 2 ply wool yarn together with the single ply silk yarn in a clockwise direction.


Leah drew two cards that challenged her to spin mohair as thinly as she possibly could and to dye the fiber before or after spinning it.  In the photo on the left, Leah is holding her lovely, impressively thin, 2 ply mohair yarn.  She began with mohair locks, spun two very thin yarns which she then plied together and dyed.  In the photo on the right is a skein of mohair yarn she spun to show how using different techniques with mohair can create very different types of yarn. For this yarn she first dyed the locks and teased them apart and then spun them around a core yarn.  The result is a beautiful, soft and slubby yarn.

The weavers followed with a slightly different format.  Each weaver accepted five cards, one of which they were free to eliminate:


Margaret's cards specified weave a piece with beading, in undulating twill, warp-faced, add a novelty and use two dye lots of the same color.  Margaret eliminated "warp-faced" and wove three shawls in an undulating twill.  In the photos above is her elegant undulating twill shawl that has beads on the fringe, the novelty of metallic gold weft, and two slightly different shades of gold in the weft that are discernible in the photos if you look closely.


Margaret 's other two undulating twill shawls are shown above.  On the left with a variegated weft and on the right with a 5/2 cotton warp and slubby cotton weft.


Mandy's cards challenged her to weave using yarn from the yellow 1/3 of the color wheel, with not less than 20 ends per inch, striped, mixed warp profile and overshot on opposites.  She eliminated "overshot on opposites" and chose to use a mixed weft .  The very handsomely patterned striped towels and sample above were Mandy's first 8-shaft projects.  The sample she is holding and two of the towels are in shades of yellow and related colors in her mixed weft.  She wove them all with with 8/2 cotton warp at 22 epi and used 8/2 cotton and bamboo in her weft.



Rebecca drew cards that specified that she use weft yarn from her stash, Ms and Os, sett no less than 20epi, with small geometric shapes, and analogous colors of the same value.  This was her first opportunity to do a weaving of her own since opening Three Moons, and to meet her challenges, she wove this very attractive scarf in a honeycomb variant of Ms and Os weave that produces small circles and ovals.  Rebecca's 8/2 variegated cotton weft yarn was from her stash and contained a purple that was analogous to, and close in value to, her rich red violet warp which she set at 22epi.




Shelby's challenge was to weave using a 12 dent reed, with alternate colors, borders and a stretchy texture, and in the form of a gamp or four weaves.  She met her challenges with the four very attractive towels in the photo above.  Their alternating colors and borders are obvious from a distance.  To appreciate the four twill patterns that are in each towel, zoom in if you can.  (Combining different twill weaves in a single piece can be very tricky.)  Shelby also demonstrated that the towels were slightly stretchy (when pulled on their bias :-).

February Show and Tell photos

Above are two of the three Collingwood wool rugs Kathy wove, each with a different op-art effect.

Sherron attended a felting workshop and made the scarf in the photo on the left.  She also wove wool yardage shown on the right.  It is twill at her right side and tabby for the rest.


Terry brought a bin of skeins she had spun as well as examples of batts with colorful locks she had prepared.

Among the items Michaelle brought to show us were the 8/2 tencel shawl on the left and towels she wove, one with a border of sheep.

On the left is a rag rug Margaret wove, and on the right is a generously proportioned Christmas stocking she knit.

Above are photos of two of the three 20/2 silk shawls Ellen wove and brought to show us.


Shelby knit the shawl in the photo above with 30% silk:70% merino yarn.

Above, Shelby is modeling her shawl.		Jan brought a scarf she had woven using acrylic yarn along with cotton yarn for a central stripe of monk's belt weave.

A Very Special Occasion:
One of our members, Elouise Schaller,  just celebrated her 102nd birthday.  Elouise was a fine weaver who joined the Guild in 1984 and has been a good friend of many Guild members.  Below is a photo of Elouise with her 102-candle cake at her recent birthday party.


Happy Birthday, Elouise!

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January 2020 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Lisa and Tonya!)

Felting: History, Process and Uses was the title of Tonya Utkina's program at our January meeting.  Her clear and very interesting presentation included some highlights of 8,000 years of felt making, the basic processes of wet and dry felting, the characteristics of fiber from different types of animals, and some examples of industrial as well as artistic uses for felt.  She uses primarily merino wool in her felt pieces that range from elegant lace and ruffled scarves and vests to useful and sometimes playful accessories and items for home decor.  The program was an excellent and inspiring introduction to the art of felting.

Tonya, in the photo on the left, is wearing one of her attractive felted lace scarves and holding a container of cute felted acorn ornaments.  In the photo on the right are a lovely felted lace scarf and elegant felted small purse she created.




Above are examples of the artful and colorful felted items Tonya brought to show us.

January Show and Tell

Jackie showed us the Pantone Spring/Summer 2020 Fashion Color Palette as inspiration for making items for the April Show and Sale.		Sue knit yet another baby sweater for the next member of her extended family.		Using Terry's handspun yarn as warp and also as weft at each end, Joyce wove this scarf.  It also featured slubs of roving to add more texture and interest.

Tom wove a cotton scarf for Mary using a barley corn weave pattern.		As her first ever weaving project, Tammy wove these two cotton wash cloths at Three Moons.

Sherron brought four scarves to show us:  On the left, two scarves woven with chenille weft on a chenille warp for one and on a tencel warp for the other (the scarves look and feel much the same);  in the center photo, a scarf woven with knitting yarn as warp and weft; and on the right, a scarf knit of yarn with "Florida" colors and textures.

Ellen's three scarves were all woven on the same 20/2 teal cotton warp in Echo and Iris double weave patterns.  The texture of the scarf on the left resulted from weaving with a colcolastic weft (lycra/20/2 cotton) which contracts when it's washed.  The other two scarves had 20/2 silk wefts.

In the bag Terry is holding are six felted soaps she made in a Three Moons workshop.
She dyed the purple yarn on the right in a Three Moons workshop after she spun it.

Suzy showed us two nuno felted scarves she had made and the decorative felted piece she is holding in the center photo.
Each scarf has a hole for the wearer to pass one end of the scarf through to make it a ring.  

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December 2019 Meeting
(Thanks for photos, Sue and Lisa!)

Our Annual Silent Auction was the program for our December meeting.  Thanks to the generosity of our members, the Guild received more than $400 for next year's programs.  After the auction, we enjoyed a delicious potluck lunch.

In the photos above are some of the people who stayed for the potluck.  We had finished eating when the photos were taken.

December Show and Tell

Lisa, with the Christmas tree in the background, showed us four pieces she had woven, including the alpaca shawl on the left and the llama scarf on the right.  Both were woven at 6 epi.

Betty wove this scarf for her niece using the Chicago Fire Dept. tartan and tencel yarn.		Here is a "what not to do" project that Margaret wove with cotton chenille yarn and rayon yarn.

Sue knit her shawl using merino, yak and nylon yarn, 

Here is Sue in her shawl as styled by Shelby.		Mary knit a pair of socks using self-striping yarn.		While demonstrating at Art Blitz, Steve wove this 70" tencel scarf.

Shelby brought two wool shawls she had knit -- on the left in a striped pattern, on the right in a variety of lace stitches.

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November 2019 Meeting

In Martina Celerin's fascinating program at our November meeting, she described how she emigrated from what is now the Czech Republic as a child, became a professional scientist in Canada and the U.S., and later developed skills as an extremely creative and prolific fiber artist. Her tapestries evolved from highly textured pictorial pieces into free-form three dimensional pieces.  She incorporates into her work not only colorful yarns (woven and crocheted), but also horsehair, beads, crinoid fossils, rocks, bark and other plant parts, and many found objects.


In the photo above, you can see some of the engaging variety of dimensional tapestries Martina brought to show us.

On the left is an early example of Martina's inventive tapestries, and on the right is a very 3-dimensional recent tapestry.

Trees and other subjects from nature have frequently inspired Martina's beautiful work.


The pond plants and animals shown on this slide are parts of a tapestry now in a childrens' museum.

November Show and Tell

Among the pieces Shelby brought to show us were the wool deflected doubleweave shawl on the left and the Melanie Berg knit shawl on the right.


Chris wove enough fabric for 6-8 fingertip towels.

Among the 6 rugs Donna wove were the rug on the left with a tie-dyed T-shirt weft and the plaid rug on the right.


She also wove 2 rugs with clasped wefts.

On a 5-yard warp, Jamie wove a basket cover and 4 towels in different weaves and colors using cotton and cotton-linen blend yarns.		Susan's first weaving project was a set of 6 placemats woven in twill and tabby using hand-dyed cotton yarn for weft.

Tom wove the inkle belt (using embroidery floss) and a multi-colored log cabin weave scarf.

For her first weaving project, Joy wove this alpaca scarf in natural colored yarns.		Terry brought many skeins of yarn she had spun with different grists, colors, and fibers, including wool with silk noil.

Joyce showed us a cotton boll she had grown and on the left, the contents of one.

She also brought a quilt she had made using Voysey fabric squares.  In the photo on the right she showed us its quilted back.

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October 2019 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Lisa!)

Multi-talented Amy Walsh, who is a quilt designer, owner of Blue Underground Studios and an art teacher, presented our October program, "Color Confidence".  Her presentation included basic background on color theory, a history of the cultural uses of color, and encouragement for us to actively explore and make use of color in our daily lives.  After we admired the large and very impressive collection of beautiful quilts she brought to show us, she led an afternoon workshop on practicing color theory.

Amy's presentation was very informative and engaging with many images showing the uses of color.

Two examples of the many very attractive quilts Amy showed us.


Amy's daughter helped hold up the quilts, including this richly patterned and lovely one.

Other Guild News:  
On September 21 and 22 the following members volunteered to demonstrate at Art Barn's Art Blitz:  Mandy and Steve Benson, Sue Degnan, Sharon EIchler, Terry Guenther, Margaret Jones and Donna Keeble.  Thanks for showing the public the kinds of work we do and for representing the Guild!

October Show and Tell

Mandy brought one of the cotton towels she wove while demonstrating at Art Blitz.		The cottolin fabric for Mary's top and her inkle weave belt were woven by Tom.  She sewed the top using a Handwoven Collection 13 pattern.		Terry, who was also at Art Blitz, showed us six skeins of yarn she had spun. Some are thick and some thin.

Among the items Shelby brought was a Steven West shawl she knit using a variety of stitches.  In the photo on the right she is holding up a king-sized coverlet which was woven by the previous owner of her house who was a skilled weaver and a board member of our Guild.



Margaret brought several items to show us, including this tote bag she fashioned using a rug warp.  She wove the ends of the braided handles into the fabric while it was on the loom to secure them.

Melvenea is continuing her strip weaving project and brought this top and a matching skirt she wove as cotton strips approximately 4" wide and then carefully topstitched together.		In preparation for a sale at the Depot Gallery, Suzy knit a series of 25 hats.  Each is unique in color and pattern.

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September 2019 Meeting
(Thanks for the photos, Lisa and Ken!)

We met at Three Moons Fiberworks where Rebecca graciously hosted us.  The program for this first meeting of 2019-2020 was a super show and tell of very attractive and creative projects members had worked on during the summer and brought to show us. Congrats to the members who entered county fairs and won prizes for their weaving!

Here we are during the business meeting.


And here you can see some of the temptations we were exposed to during the refreshment break :-).

Sherron wove eight towels with random color warps; some were in tabby weave and some in twill.		Using green wool for the body of this duster coat cardigan, Jeanne then added red wool/alpaca yarn in the trim areas.		Sue wove towels in different colors and different weaves for a 4-guild towel exchange.

Over the summer, Paula wove the 28-shaft Echo and Iris tencel scarves shown on the left
and the 8-shaft 5/2 pearl cotton rep weave rug on the right.

Mary brought this scarf to show us.  She wove it using two colors (red and orange) of 8/2 tencel in a 4-shaft shadow weave.		The baby blanket in the photo above is just one of the many prize-winning woven items Margaret had at the Lake County Fair.  She wove this with a combination of variegated cotton knitting yarn and 8/2 cotton in a twill.  It was awarded a Blue RIbbon.

Tom wove this 3/2 cotton twill fabric on his rigid heddle loom.
The fabric (11 feet long) will be made into a blouse.

Mandy was awarded a Champion Ribbon at the Porter County Fair for this scarf.  The warp is cotton and the weft is hand-dyed blended yarn of wool, silk and a little glitter.		In a Michigan Fiber Festival class, Chris dyed these silk scarves using different mordants and leaves collected from nature to produce colors and patterns.		Terry felted this scarf in a workshop at the Niles Weavers' Guild this summer.  She used a thin layer of roving in shades of pink and added contrasting bamboo yarn for an accent.

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