Glamorgan Guild of Weavers Spinners & Dyers

Our next workshop date has changed to the 16th of November - all spaces are now fully booked! Emails have been sent out to those who have booked, reminding them of the items they need to bring on the day. Please remember to bring your outstanding fees for the workshop. If you are a guild member you can still attend the day and not take part in the workshop - just bring yourself and something else to work on!

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 10th October and will be an open evening. This is a chance for you to bring along what you are working on and spend the evening doing what you love surrounded by like-minded people. We will also be discussing future events  and planning what the guild does in the months ahead - so please bring your ideas along with your work!

Our next meeting will be on Thursday 12th September where we will have Sally Pointer demonstrating using the lucet to create braids. Sally has a wide knowledge and understanding of objects and ideas from the past, and we are delighted to be fortunate enough to have her come to speak to us. The evening commences at 7:30pm at Kynance Hall in Dinas Powys (rear of the Methodist Church). Members £2, Guests £5 all visitors welcome. Please email us at glamorganguildwsd@gmail.com if you have any queries.

A quick update of activities we are involved with during July/August Vale of Glamorgan Show Members will be attending the Vale of Glamorgan Agricultural Show on the 21st August. Details can be found  here . Members will be demonstrating their skills for all to see. We are hoping for some good weather on the day - but are preparing our gazebo just in case it isn't. Do come along and say hello if you are attending the Show! Association Summer School A number of members enjoyed attending the Association Summer School this year in West Wales. One member was teaching and others attended the classes held. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed spending their time focussing on their crafts and are very much looking forward to the next one!

Much fun was had by all at our indigo dyeing day. With the fine weather we are having, we all turned up with our aprons, rubber gloves and sun hats in preparation for a grand day of dyeing fun! Graciously hosted by Kathy in East Aberthaw, we spent an enjoyable day learning how to prepare the solution for the dyebath and then got on with dyeing all the fabric, yarn and other bits and bobs we had prepared. Taking the opportunity to pick some berries whilst waiting for a washing line full of wrapped up goodies to dry. More berry picking and dyeing in the background! Some of the items after they were unwrapped. A great day was had by all - we're very much looking forward to whenever we plan out next one!

Our next meeting is on Thursday 13th June. We will have a talk by Helen Aanensen about Tablet Weaving. Tablet Weaving or Card Weaving as it is also called, is an ancient weaving technique often used in narrow items, such as belts. It can also be incorporated into larger pieces. As usual it will be held in Kynance Hall (rear of the Methodist Church) in Dinas Powys at 7:30pm. Members £2, Guests £5. All welcome! For further details or any queries, please contact glamorganguildwsd@gmail.com

Our next workshop will be on Saturday 11th May at the Scouts Hall in Dinas Powys - 10 - 4. This will be a workshop preparation for our dyeing day with Kathy Williams in July. Please bring your items for dyeing preparation, as our focus will be on Shibori dyeing. For those of you who may be wondering what Shibori dyeing is - Wikipedia explains it a bit here . At a very basic level it is similar to tie-dyeing, but the complexities of the end results with Shibori are significantly different to the tie-dyeing you may have experimented with in the past! We also now have a brand new Facebook page - right  here . Please go ahead and like us.

Our next evening meeting open to all is on Thursday 11th April at 7:30pm in Kynance Hall Dinas Powys (rear of Methodist Church). Our guest will be  Helen Foroughi who is a contemporary textile artist, and will be speaking to us on her work in a talk entitled 'Tapestry & Off Loom Weaving From A Different Perspective'. Helen's work, which you can see on her website, involves intricate weaving using contrasting materials, creating very unusual pieces - not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of weaving. Guests are more than welcome to attend - if you have any queries, please email: glamorganguildwsd@gmail.com Members £2. Non-members £5.

Happy New Year! We hope you've had a bit of a break over Christmas. Here is our programme for the coming year: Sat 12 Jan Open Workshop Scout Hall. Spend a day doing the fibre-y things you love! Thu 14 Feb Spinning Wheels with Jill David. Jill will be talking about her interesting and unusual wheels. Thu 14 March AGM followed by Jill Riley’s photos of the National Exhibition 2012 - a chance to see photographs from the National Exhibition - can you spot your ring on display?   Thu 11 April ‘Tapestry & Off Loom Weaving From A Different Perspective’- Helen Foroughi - Helen will be showing us some of her amazing pieces and discussing her work. Sat 11 May Shibori preparation for July w/s with Jane. Preparation for our dyeing workshop in July - learn about preparing items for shibori dyeing. Thu 13 June Tablet weaving with Helen Aanensen. Helen will be showing us some of the amazing things that can be done with tablet weaving. Sat 13 July Indigo dyeing