Programs and Workshops

September 18, 2024 | “How to Knit Dish Cloths Using Thrums” with Linn Sajdak

Evening Monthly Meeting

6:30pm, Weaving and Fiber Arts Center

 

“What to do with thrums and that half skein of yarn from that sweater?  I have been using my remnants of cotton and cotton blend yarns to knit face and dish clothes.    My personal aim was to design patterns that are reversible and can be knit without looking at the chart.  I will share hints and ideas to get you started. Can’t wait for you to take this idea and to run with it to create your own upcycled version of the “warsh rag” as my old Kentucky Gra’ma used to call them.”

Supplies are optional ;

cotton and cotton blend yarns in lace, fingering, 8/2, 5/2,  10/2, carpet warp.  Needles US 1,2 and or 3.

 

October 9, 2024 | “Weaving by Design” with Kelly Marshall

Guild Monthly Meeting

9:30am, First Baptist Church “Zoomed” to at-home members

 

Kelly Marshall is recognized for combining rep weave’s rich texture and linear structure into extraordinary textiles inspired by the aesthetics of the Arts & Crafts movement, contemporary design, and traditional Scandinavian weaving. Marshall’s self published book“Custom Woven Interiors: Bringing color and design home with Rep weave, includes projects, design inspiration, and technique and tips to weaving Rep. Her talk “Weaving by Design” will show you the inspiration behind her designs and walk you through the development of her successful weaving business.

 

 

 

Supplies are optional ;

cotton and cotton blend yarns in lace, fingering, 8/2, 5/2,  10/2, carpet warp.  Needles US 1,2 and or 3.

October 9-11, 2024 | "Revelations in Rep" with Kelly Marshall

Guild Workshop

Wed, Oct 9, 1-4pm, Thurs & Fri, Oct 10 & 11, 9am-4pm, First Baptist Church, Garden Room, In person only

This workshop will encompass a lecture covering the unique characteristics of rep weave, color blending and designing, pattern block movement as well as demonstrating weaving technique and material selection. The workshop is for intermediate to experienced weavers, each participant will be expected to bring their own loom, warped according to instructions provided by the instructor. Participants will receive a packet of warping instructions for either a 4 or 8 shaft pattern, to create a 10” wide table runner.

Level of experience: Intermediate

Class Size: 14 students (FULL)

Cost: $165 to WGR, $5 materials fee to instructor

Members can register here only if you are willing to be on a waiting list.

October 16, 2024 | “Resources on the WRG Website and in the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center” with Sharon Hamer and Miranda Howard

Evening Monthly Meeting

6:30pm, Weaving and Fiber Arts Center

 

This session focuses on the resources available through the WRG website and WaFAC facility.  Learn how to access resources such the Holiday Sale vendors’ page, rental and used equipment lists, WaFAC course catalog, WGR operations manual, and other links.  There will be a tour of WaFAC to introduce participants to the advantages the Center has to offer besides classes like the library, weaving software, and warping and other tools.

 

Bring your tablet or other devices for note taking and working along with Sharon and Miranda.

 

November 13, 2024 | “Shoddy: From Devil’s Dust to the Renaissance of Rags” with Hanna Rose Shell

Guild Monthly Meeting

9:30am, First Baptist Church “Zoomed” to at-home members

The history of modern-day old clothes recycling begins with a thing called shoddy. Starting in the early 1800s, shoddy was the name given to a new material made from reclaimed wool, and to one of the earliest forms of industrial recycling. Old rags and leftover fabric clippings were ground to bits by a machine known as “the devil” and then re-used. Usually undisclosed, shoddy–also known as reworked wool–became suit jackets, army blankets, mattress stuffing, and much more. Shoddy is the afterlife of rags. And Shoddy, the book, reveals hidden worlds of textile intrigue.

Shoddy is likely connected to something you are wearing right now. After reading, you will never use the word shoddy or think about your clothes, the environment, sustainability, or the intermingled world around you the same way again.

 

In her book Shoddy: From Devil’s Dust to the Renaissance of Rags, Hanna Rose Shell takes readers on a journey to discover shoddy, from Haiti to the “shoddy towns” of West Yorkshire in England, to the United States, back in time to the British cholera epidemics and the American Civil War, and into agricultural fields, textile labs, and rag-shredding factories. Shell’s narrative is both literary and historical, drawing on an extraordinary range of sources, from court cases to military uniforms, mattress labels to medical textbooks, political cartoons to high art. Shoddy moves between genres, bringing richly drawn characters and unexpected objects to life. Along the way, shoddy becomes equally an evocative object and a portal into another world.

If you have not listened to the Haptic and Hue podcasts, you are missing some very interesting

listening. The woman who does the podcasts, Jo Andrews, is a hand weaver. There is another podcast this year that also mentions Shoddy and recycling of textiles https://hapticandhue.com/secret-life-ofsecond-hand-clothes/

 

Bio:

Hanna Rose Shell is Professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she is Faculty Director of the Brakhage Center for Media Arts, and teaches in the Department of Art & Art History, and the Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts. She is the author of two scholarly monographs,

the director of two award-winning experimental documentary films about the nexus of science, art, and technology, and the founder of the “Beyond Words” audio-visual series produced for Technology & Culture to push the boundaries of public history and its relationship to the visual arts. Hanna’s passion for textiles and weaving practices is reflected in the subject of both of her books, the first of which is a study of the history of CAMOUFLAGE, and the most recent of which is an interdisciplinary exploration of REWORKED WOOL, otherwise known as “shoddy.” Shell has a PhD in the History of Science from Harvard University, and an MA in Material Culture Studies, and American Studies, as well as graduate-level training in documentary practices and experimental filmmaking.