Blue Ridge Fiber Guild

Karen Critcher in King St Gallery weaving on the Norwood loom donated by Kathy Mangum.

We will gather on Saturday at 10:30 am at the Western Watauga Community Center for our annual potluck and fiber swap. Bring a dish to share and something fiber related to swap. If you are new to us and don’t have anything to share/swap, come anyway. We always have more than enough for all. Because this will be a party atmosphere, there will be no Zoom for this event. I encourage you to come in person if you are ok with this. Precautions will be taken. Masks are required in the building. We did this last summer as well and a great time was had by all.

 

Our bylaws committee was very busy during the month of November writing revisions for the guild bylaws which hadn’t been updated since they were written in 1984. We will be sending out information to our members on this sometime after our meeting on the 11^th for  you to review prior to voting to accept them.

Here are some pictures from our Dye Workshop last Saturday. The variety of fibers gave some wonderful color combinations. We had silk, wool, mohair, linen and cotton to name a few.

We are holding our dye workshop tomorrow (Nov.6^th) from 9:30-12:30. We will also have a business meeting via Zoom at 10:30 where we will discuss updating our bylaws, show a dye overview and share upcoming events so if you aren’t attending the dye workshop, please join us on Zoom at 10:30. This will be our meeting for the month. Next month we will have our Fiber Swap and Potluck on December 11^th from 10:30-12:30. This is always a fun event so plan to join us if possible.

The Blue Ridge Fiber Guild Natural Dye Workshop is planned for Saturday, Oct 16, at the Western Watauga Community Center, 9:30 AM-12:30 PM.

A $10 fee for materials will be charged, payable on Saturday. To reserve your space in the workshop, contact Susan Sharpe, email redwing@skybest.com. 

Our Blue Ridge Fiber Guild meeting for this month will be next Saturday September 11, 10:30-12:30 at the Western Watauga Community Center. All are welcome to attend, but we will Zoom again as we did last month.

 

10:30-11:00 short business meeting– planning our booth at the Arts on the Mountain festival in West Jefferson Sept 25. Many thanks to Susan Payne and the Mountain Laurel Quilt Guild for the loan of a canopy. All are invited to demo/sell your craft and promote the guild. Rita Collie is organizing this event.

 

11:00-12:30–Susan, Rita, and Rhonda will give demos of the natural dye process, showing color effects that can be achieved on wool, cotton, and silk fibers using only one dye–rose madder. 

We will also learn about how to use mordants in natural dyeing.

A review of the ikat techniques that were featured in last month’s meeting/workshop will give everyone a chance to catch up if they haven’t got their materials ready yet.

 

NOTE:  The dye workshop was originally planned for this September meeting, but due to covid issues we are rescheduling to next month, October 11-16, so that more people can participate. We plan to have at least 4 different dye vats then, and members can sign-up for different times and days to allow for social distancing.

We will be having our meeting Saturday the 21st at the Western Watauga Community Center at 10:30. The program will be a hands on mini workshop on how to wrap an Ikat warp plus there will also be mordant baths there to mordant the warp in preparation for the dye workshop in September. You can bring any natural fiber to do this with: wool, cotton, linen, silk, etc. We will be winding a warp on a warping board and while it’s under tension there, the wrapping technique will occur. Susan Sharpe will show several different techniques for wrapping the warp. Projects might include doing a belt, an Inkle loom warp, a small pillow or a scarf. This is a hands on in person meeting but we will have a Zoom option available if you can’t attend (Zoom link was sent in email). If you are going to attempt this at home, you will need some way to wind a warp under tension such as a warping board, C clamps, or a peg coat rack for instance and can bring your warp to the center to soak in the mordant. Susan used Painters tape as one of the wrapping techniques. Saturday will be the 1st part; the winding and mordanting and the dying part will take place in September. Neither Susan nor I will be available Sept. 18th so we will discuss at the meeting a time for this to take place.

Here is the agenda:

10:30 -11:00 Meet and Greet and Show and tell

11:00-11:15 Discuss our upcoming and outgoing shows and Dye Workshop
• Our show at the Western North Carolina Visitors Center will be taken down on August 30th.
• Whippoorwill Academy is having a Daniel Boone Day on I am thinking will be September 18th. The dates on their website are incorrect and they are looking for demo and perhaps sales? http://www.whippoorwillacademy.com/
• In October there is the opportunity for a show with the Arts Council
• Discuss date for September dye workshop

11:15-12:30 Mini Workshop on Ikat wrapping
• Bring fiber to wind a warp and wrap or do this at home.

We are finally going to meet in person on Saturday for our guild meeting. It’s so exciting. We are having our annual Fiber Swap and Potluck at the Western Watauga Community Center at 10:30 so please join us. Bring something to swap and something to eat or just bring yourself. See you on Saturday.

The High Country Modern Quilt Guild has an exhibit at Edgewood Cottage this week through June 13^th and the hours are 10 am – 5 pm each day. Susan Payne just said she sold several wall hangings yesterday so major congratulations to her. Our Banjo Buddies group will be playing there on Thursday at noon so stop by and listen, view the show and say hello.