2010 Programme

with Helen Melvin. During the month we will be exploring the variety of techniques I have developed for painting with fibres. Beginning with the design source and art work we will look at ways to assemble a palette with wools, silk fabrics, raw silks, yarns and threads before exploring ways of creating complex colour and texture in felt as well as different ways to define areas of the landscape. Finally we will look different methods of creating a whole picture and end with a felted landscape.

with Alison Daykin. We will discover a range of methods of dyeing with extracts from random dyeing fleece and fibre to painting fabric and warps and beyond. Any natural extract dyes can be used so start collecting them now, all the colours from all the ranges are inter mixable with each other so we should be in for a feast of colour by the end of the month!

with Rosemary Darrah. This workshop is designed to get you started knitweaving on a knitting machine. What is knitweaving? In a nutshell, it is the weaving in of a secondary yarn though a row of knitted stitches. During the workshop, I hope you will be able to complete at least two projects, and also experiment with various types of yarns, to give different fabrics for various applications.

with Val Walker. I would like to conduct the workshop along the lines of - preparing your fleece, good parts of the animal and how to use the parts that are not useable for spinning, but you cannot throw away, spinning if clean and spinning if dirty, tension for spinning and plying, washing and knitting.

with Judy Sheppard. Let's look in our kitchen cupboards and see what we can dye with - jelly, food dye, spices... Let's see where this will lead us. This will be an easy and "laid back" workshop using what is in our food cupboards, it is also a reasonably safe dye one as I won't be using any nasty chemicals. This is a dye method I often use with school children.

with Paul O'Connor/ Neil Stevenson. Paul O'Connor's double weave workshop will have three elements - double weave with a 4-shaft loom, taking the mystery out of double weave tieups, and double weave with an 8-shaft loom. Paul is a very experienced tutor and has been teaching these workshops at various guilds and conferences for over 15 years. The workshops have been well refined and are readily approachable; so don't be intimidated.

A time of evaluation for the Online Guild. This week features an open discussion in which all members are encouraged to participate.

A free month with no scheduled workshop or programme offers time to catch up on Guild projects and just chat.

with Liz Lovick. The workshop will take you from your first 'yarn over' to designing your own shawls! For lace virgins and old pros alike. Work with any thickness of yarn - either hand spun or commercial yarns.

We shall explore the properties of both fibres: how they compare with each other when spinning, dyeing, felting or anything else you can come up with. You may use either raw fibres or tops for the Shetland (or both) but only tops for the Falkland as no raw Falkland is available.

with Sue Foulkes. Baltic style picks ups using a rigid heddle and back strap. Patterned warp faced bands are a tradition in many cultures. Around the Baltic region, the designs are colourful expressions of a delight in beauty in small things. This workshop will progress through the skills in weaving from simple to more complex patterns. I will start with instructions for making a rigid heddle( from coffee stirrers!) and a back strap. The introduction will include a short history of the rigid heddle and then we will explore the wealth of patterned bands. In this type of weaving, the bands are warped with two background threads for each pattern thread. The pattern threads are usually double the thickness of the background threads. We will start with narrow bands using 5 pattern threads, then move on to 7, 9 and 11. For the very adventurous and those with multi-shaft looms, the final week will explore wider bands with many pattern threads. Bands have many decorative uses as we will discover.

with Rachel Hardy.

with Judy Sheppard. Gadget Discussion - have you got an interesting gadget? Something not usually used for what you are using it for? What is that interesting suggestion for winding warps you use? Care to pass them along? This month we are having a discussion on useful, essential items used in our crafts.