news letter

Eeek, I got my news letter! I can’t wait to dive into it.

Nuno Felting

The registration on our Epic workshop in Nuno Felting is closing next weekend July 15th. Visit Laurie Steffler’s webpage to see the beautiful things she does. This Course would be a great Mother /Daughter adventure, or find a friend to bring.  workshop dates are Oct 12-14th.

https://www.saltspringfiberadventures.com/

Nuno felted Scarves

Fairview Weaving show.

Spring Conference.

It is coming soon! If your thinking of entering the show and sale today is the day!
April 7th.
   INTRO TO NUNO FELTING - Cheryl Peebles - instructor

This workshop will act as an introduction to Nuno Felting for many, some may have experience with this technique and will be honing their skill. 

Nuno Felting differs from other heavier forms of felting in that it uses very little fibre which is felted to a light weight fabric of natural fibre such as silk or cotton cheesecloth. For this class we will create a gorgeous scarf with a nice soft drape however, this technique lends itself very well to all manner of clothing. 

With this workshop one will have an understanding of the technique and the skill to take on the Fall Nuno Felting workshop with Lorrie Stefler creating a vest or tunic at Saskatoon Lake. (Watch for further course info from Saskatoon Lake Weavers). 

NUNO FELTING  Participant Supply list

Pool Noodle – about 24” wide (one noodle can be shared between a couple of people)

I will be bringing some along so don’t worry if you can’t find any

Bubble Wrap - min 12” wide – max. 24” by 6 -7’ long. This must be a continuous piece. Taping pieces together does not seem to work due to the water… 

Dowel – 3/8” dia. about 3’ long - to go through the noodle

Dish Soap bottle – empty (or a 500ml water bottle capable of sprinkling or squirting water) 

Old towels – to sop up water on the floor

Masking Tape – This can be shared 

OPTIONAL- small amounts of Interesting bits of yarn or fibre to be felted in for embellishment.

To be supplied by instructor: 

-materials fee $15. Fibre kit – includes either silk or cheesecloth, Pool Noodles, up to 4 - 10gr pieces of merino in your choice of colors

- Plastic to cover the table tops. 

Additional Fibre and cloth will be available for purchase.

Spring Conference, April 7. 2018

Fairview Fine Arts Centre, 10801-103 Ave. Fairview            phone; 780-835-2697        Fax: 780-835-5561 

REGISTRATION FORM- Nuno felting with Cheryl Peebles

NAME----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ADDRESS;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Email or Phone:_______________________________________________________________________________Course fee: $35 for member plus material, $60 for non-member plus materials

Materials Cheryl has kits for $15 or you can bring your own if you prefer.

Please forward your registration toLvia Canada post)

Marion Walker(Treas)                                                            Email: mewalker@gpnet.ca

RR2, Site 17, Box 2,Sexsmith, Ab.T0H 3C0

Agenda:

8:30 a.m. arrival for coffee and snacks

9-12 Nuno felting with Cheryl Peebles instructing

1-2 PCSW meeting

2-4 Opening of our exhibition at the gallery- come and meet with the public; enjoy refreshments and goodies.

Please submit your entries for the show to the area reps by March 15. The gallery takes 30% so price your items accordingly- we need list of items 2 weeks prior to the show so that the labels can be made- hope we get lots of entries!_

I

Plum Daisy by Inge Dam 2016 Honorable Mention   CALL FOR ENTRY The Handweavers Guild of America is Accepting Entries for the City Lights Festive Nights Wearable Art Runway Fashion Show & Exhibit   Deadline: February 26, 2018 City Lights Festive Nights is an international exhibit sponsored by the Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. (HGA) featuring the work of juried and invited artists and Fashion Design Challenge wearable art fashions. Any fiber art technique may be used. Reno, Nevada: the biggest little city full of lights, casinos, glamour, and a history of the longest running show full of costumed showgirls; let the creativity, colors and textures of the area inspire you to create beautiful wearable art. Juried by Daryl Lancaster, a former production weaver with more than 50 years experience sewing and teaching garment construction, the exhibit will be held July 6-12, 2018 as part of HGA's biennial fiber arts conference, Convergence®, taking place at the Peppermill Reno Resort in Reno, Nevada, USA.    Entry fees are $32 for HGA Members (Join Now) and $47 for Non-Members. Students attending an accredited educational institution may enter with no fee.   For more information visit our website or email Linda Campbell, HGA Exhibit and Editorial Assistant at Exhibits@WeaveSpinDye.org.     The Handweavers Guild of America's mission is to educate, support and inspire the fiber art community.

Tell Me About.... A Brief History of Spinning wheels or How Spinning Wheels Made the World as We Know It Today.
A Brief History
There is no archeological evidence of early spinning wheels, so evidence of their history has to be derived from artwork and historical records.
This hand scroll ‘The Spinning Wheel’ was painted in ink and colours on silk by Chinese artist Wang Juzheng, who lived during the Northern Song Dynasty between 960 and 1127 AD. (from: www.wildfibres.co.uk/html/spinning_wheels_history.html)
Spinning wheels spread from China to Iran, then on to Europe, arriving there in the early part of the 13th Century. The early wheels were like the Chinese wheel and didn’t not have rims, but had string running through holes in the ends of the spokes, much like a Swift today.
These early wheels were turned by the hand or a stick and the spinner would spin off the end of the spindle with the other hand. Great wheels are an example of this kind of wheel.
Leonardo Da Vinci worked on the mechanics of a flyer wheel, like our modern wheels, but he did not invent the flyer wheel itself. The earliest known flyer wheel is in a picture from southern Germany, dated from 1475-1480.
There is no clear evidence for wheels with a treadle until the 17th Century. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution it took a minimum of five spinners to keep up with one weaver. In 1764 a British carpenter and weaver called James Hargreaves invented an improved Spinning Jenny, which was a hand-powered, multiple spinning machine

that was the first mechanized invention to improve upon the spinning wheel.
For the 8,000 or more years before the development of the spinning wheel, all fibre was made into yarn with various kinds of spindles.
The Following information comes from the Wild Fibres website cited above:
The drop spindle is a slow way of making the long lengths of fibre required for weaving cloth. And an even longer length of fibre was required to make the sails of Viking longboats. Spinning was therefore so important and time-consuming for cloth production that it was the bottleneck for clothing and for sail-making at a time when vertical warp-weighted looms were already in use to weave cloth and to an even greater extent when horizontal heddle looms took their place in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
According to Lynn White, the invention of the spinning wheel speeded up the rate at which fibre could be spun by a factor of 10 to 100 times, removing this bottleneck to cloth production. Lynn
White argues that the spinning wheel lead to a breakthrough in linen production when it reached Europe around 1200 AD, with many more linen clothes being produced and many more linen rags being produced, with some unintended consequences.
Spinning wheels and paper production
In his paper on technology assessment, Lynn White suggests that the availability of linen rags, which resulted from a step change in linen production, also removed a bottleneck in paper production, which had been recently introduced from China.
Prior to the introduction of paper, books were made from parchment and a large Bible required the skins of two to three hundred sheep or calves to produce sufficient parchment.
Cheap paper then led to the introduction of printing by
Gutenberg, the production of cheap books and
broadsheets, and provided the opportunity for universal
education and a basis for modern democracy. Therefore
modern democracies are a direct, if unintended, consequence of the invention of the spinning wheel in China one thousand years ago.

Cesare Marchetti argues that

The spinning wheel and naval warfare
It is equally likely that European colonial expansion and naval warfare are also a consequence of the invention of the spinning wheel.

and nations.

The sails of Viking longboats prior to 1000 AD were entirely spun on drop spindles and the fibre for each sail would have required months of spinning before it was woven. The introduction of the spinning wheel, in combination with developments in weaving looms, would have allowed a dramatic expansion in the number, size and speed of sailing ships for national and merchant navies. The consequence, or historical opportunity, of this being the colonization of the Americas, Africa and India by European navies

Therefore, the invention of the spinning wheel provided the historical opportunity for modern democracy and for naval warfare, as well as kick starting the large-scale production of woven textiles.
Here's the sources cited in the article:
Cesare Marchetti (1979) A postmortem technology assessment of the spinning wheel: the last thousand years. Technological Forecasting and Social Change vol. 13, pp 91-93.
Joseph Needham (1965) Science and Civilisation in China. Vol. 4 (2). Cambridge, England.
Lynn White (1974) Technology Assessment from the stance of a medieval historian. American Historical Review. Vol. 79 (1), pp 1-13.
Isn’t it great to know that the ancient craft of spinning was instrumental in making our modern world?
Marjo Wheat 

Hello Happy 2018! I'd like to introduce myself as the new editor of this Blog. I have never done a Blog so this feels like it will be a steep learning curve for me. So far, just the sign in process has been an experience. 😳  I think we have it figured out now, Faye has gotten lots of emails; that she kindly answered, and I think she may get more as I try and figure out this blogging thing.  Thanks Faye

From Chanelle Schoepp

October 2017

Tell Me About…. Antique Canadian Spinning Wheels – Marjo Wheat

I volunteer at a local museum and got a wonderful surprise this last week.  A local family donated a spinning wheel that had belonged to the family’s grandmother.  It is a beauty and is in working order!  Here’s a picture of it:

As you can see, it is a double drive single treadle wheel.  Part of my excitement was that up to now I haven’t seen any evidence that pioneers in this area did any spinning.  There’s lots of evidence that they made carded wool quilt; there are hand and drum carders in the museum’s collection.  This is the first spinning wheel, and it is a working one! 

I put this picture out in a discussion group on Facebook to see if anyone could identify this wheel.  The first response was that was a Canadian Production Wheel.  These were made in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec and had some distinctive features.  They used a tilt tension system and had a metal treadle.  Here’s a picture of a typical one: 

This is not the same as the museum wheel.  I found another lead on the internet, that it might be a wheel made by the Bisson family, Louis or Joseph, also from Quebec.  I googled these names and found this picture of a Bisson Wheel.

Bisson Wheels typically had only 8 spokes and a steeply tilted table.  They also used a screw tension, unlike the Canadian production Wheels.  It looks like this might be the original maker of this wheel.  I’ll have to do some more digging and see if I can find out more.

This wheel has also had a good repair job done to the flyer.

If only this wheel could talk and tell me about its long life!  Do any of you have an antique wheel?  What have you found out about where and when it was made?    

This is only one of the many articles in Threads Along the Peace Newsletter available with membership to Peace Country Spinners and Weavers.

***

 We received this email:

 

In May we led our fourth textile tour around the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia on board the Ombak Putih. The weavers and dyers in this area really do produce some outstanding textiles and our group visit is one of the highlights of their year. 

Six of the twelve cabins are already booked for next year’s tour. (Click on the web site)... which gives more details in case this is of interest to your members. Best wishes, Sue Richardson

www.asiantextilestudies.com/tour.html

***

Here are current group projects at Artspost in Fort St. John.

 This is Norma's shawl project in wool/acrylic.

 Cheryl has started the cotton bath towel project.

Alex is weaving the first cotton tea towel.

Spinners' and Weavers' activities:

• October 13,14,15, 2017 PCSW Fall Conference. Spinning Art Yarns with Sarah Elizabeth Fibreworks, Lakeview Inn, 10103 98th Ave., Fort St. John. Class size is 15. Deadline for the spinning workshop is one week before workshop. A Weaving Retreat is the second option. No instruction, just bring lots of projects to work on at your own pace. There may be last minute registration for the retreat.  See registration form in June blog. Come to the Annual Meeting on Saturday at 4:30.
• April 7, 2018 PCSW exhibition at the Fairview Fine Arts Centre for the month of April.  Show opening is from 2:00-4:00.  Regular gallery hours are Monday to Saturday 12:00-5:00.  Details of Spring Conference and how to enter work to be announced. Items can be for sale or not.  
• Remember to find Peace Country Spinners and Weavers on Facebook. 
• For more information contact peacecountrysw@gmail.com.

Happy Spinning and Weaving!

September 2017

***

The North Peace Spinners and Weavers held a Sheep to Shawl Demonstration at the North Peace Fall Fair in August.  Other years at the Fair we would gather to spin in front of the log cabin that the quilters used.  We did share that building with the quilters at one time but it somehow became too small for both groups.  We now have our own small building, new to us this year, renovated by Rene and Kathy and husbands - also known as patrons of the arts.  With tents adjacent to the building for a working area and displays inside the building, there is lots of room. We have been asked to do a sheep to shawl demonstration next year at the Fair.  Thanks to everyone who helped make this year's event so successful. Way to go Fort St. John!  Here are some pictures of this event:

 Alex kept an indigo dye pot going all weekend.

 

Indigo dyed yarns and fabric and purple?

 

 Sheryl carded fleece for the spinning of the weft.

 Kathy and Rene inside the building with our display.

 Marjorie and Doug enjoying the day.  Marjorie helped to spin the warp which was done beforehand.

Cheryl was the weaver all weekend and the shawl was finished about 4:00 on Sunday and is beautiful.  More pictures can been seen on the North Peace Spinners' and Weavers' Facebook page.

Norma helped to spin the weft too.  It was a grand weekend of spinning and weaving.

***

Spinners' and Weavers' activities:

• September 2, 2017 Peace River Fibre Arts at the Station display and sale. 11:00- 4:00.  https://peaceriver.ca/event/fibre-arts-at-the-station
• September 9, 2017 North Peace Spinners and Weavers are celebrating their 40th Anniversary with an open house at Artspost, 10320 94th Ave. Fort St. John. Come and see spinners and weavers in action, and displays of their work.  Come and join us celebrate and eat cake! 1:00-4:00. 
  
• October 13,14,15, 2017 PCSW Fall Conference. Spinning Art Yarns with Sarah Elizabeth Fibreworks, Lakeview Inn, 10103 98th Ave., Fort St. John. Class size is 15.  A Weaving Retreat is the second option. No instruction, just bring lots of projects to work on at your own pace.  Deadline has been extended until a week before workshop. 4 spaces left in spinning course. Please register as soon as possible. See registration form in June blog.
• April 7, 2018 PCSW exhibition at the Fairview Fine Arts Centre for the month of April.  Show opening is from 2:00-4:00.  Regular gallery hours are Monday to Saturday 12:00-5:00.  Details of Spring Conference and how to enter work to be announced. Items can be for sale or not.  
• Remember to find Peace Country Spinners and Weavers on Facebook. 
• For more information contact peacecountrysw@gmail.com.

Happy Spinning and Weaving!  Happy Harvest!