Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild Charleston SC

An Inspired Felter

2012-02-03T20:50:00.000-05:00

At our January meeting, Carolyn Thiedke not only shared with us the lovely felted wall hanging she made for the 2011 Creche Festival at Mepkin Abbey, but she also followed the thread of her inspiration back through layers of remembered images and a progression of experiences with a range of felting techniques.

Carolyn's piece is 32" x 36" and depicts Mary and Joseph in silhouette, outlined in light from the full moon. The bare tree and the night gives the image a sense of stealth and night-time silence.

Several pieces were wet-felted to make the deep blue background. The tree is a mix of fiber, thread and fabric, felted with a machine as well as a needle felting tool. Mary and Joseph and their shadows were needle-felted as were the white cloud wisps and the moonlight that outlines the figures.

Detail of Mary and Joseph

Carolyn tried to trace back exactly how the idea came to her to create this particular image. The shadow cast on the street by tree limbs in the street light she sees on a regular early-morning bike ride was part of it. Pictures in favorite art and quilting books were also an influence though not necessarily a direct reference.

After the wall hanging was completed, Carolyn found a picture with very similar themes in a book she has looked at now and again over many years. Those ideas must have taken up residence in the back of her mind because they were expressed again in this piece albeit with Carolyn's own interpretation.

An accomplished quilter and lifelong knitter, Carolyn said she felt like only a "dabbler" in felting but has enjoyed a progression of felting projects over the last few years.

First, intrigued by a "how-to" article in Martha Stewart Living magazine she bought a wool sweater at a thrift store and made a jazzy stuffed pig with a corkscrew tail.

Stuffed pig made from a felted sweater

Then she knitted this pair of slippers and felted them in the washing machine.

She had fun with some quick needle-felted animals and she began to look more closely at books on felting. Carolyn said she is a bit surprised that she chose to felt the piece for the creche festival, but based on her sketches, it "just seemed right."

Detail of tree limbs and moon.

We had 25 people at this first meeting of 2012. Our year is off to a great start! Thanks to Carolyn for sharing her work and her process with us. It is fascinating to think of the crooked path our sources of inspiration travel to find their expression in our design, image, and color choices.

Lots of Activity

2012-01-17T13:44:00.000-05:00

As this new year gets underway, activity among fiber artists and arts organizations is already picking up.

For those who create wearable art, the North Charleston Arts Festival is soliciting pieces for a juried show at the festival this year. The deadline to submit your articles of clothing and/or accessories is March 5. If you are interested in submitting items, get details by calling 843-740-5854.

Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild members Kelly Fort and Barbara Vanselow will be teaching classes through Charleston County Community Education. Kelly will be teaching an 8-week class for Beginning Knitters beginning Jan. 26 in James Island, and Barbara will teach an Introduction to Bobbin Lace on Feb. 4 in West Ashley.

And at our Guild meeting on Jan. 21, local fiber artist Carolyn Thiedke will share examples of her varied work (felting, quilting, and more) and talk to us about her design process and techniques. Carolyn showed creche pieces in the 2011 Mepkin Abbey Creche Festival.

And before we get too far into 2012, we should take just a moment and look back at a really good 2011 for our fiber guild. Highlights for the year included an active spinning group, a public exhibit at the Center for Women showcasing our wonderful wallhanging from the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative in Lesotho, a good showing at the Hand & Heart Show and Sale, and a fun bus trip to Asheville to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair in October.

Some personal highlights among our membership are that Michaela McIntosh is now serving as the South Carolina Representative for our parent organization; the Handweavers Guild of America and Linnie Trettin had the awesome experience of an 8-week stint at the Penland School of Crafts in papermaking.

Big thanks go to our Board and leaders: Lynn Holland, President, Kelly Fort, Vice President, Jessica Jones, Secretary and Garnette Tuten, Treasurer. Amy Heins, as Publicity Chair, set up a FaceBook page for us early in the year, which as been fun. And when Amy could no longer manage ongoing publicity for us, Judy Warren capably stepped into this important "get the word out" role.

Jessica Jones did a great job coordinating our first-ever bus trip and Linnie Trettin worked incredibly hard on the "Connected By a Thread" exhibit, including developing the photos, matting and framing them. Special thanks to all for jobs well done.

We are quite lucky that for 2012, all of our officers will stay in their roles and Michaela McIntosh will join them with a special focus on program planning.

Please join us on Jan. 21. We're off to a good start already.

Happy Holidays!

2012-01-06T22:25:00.001-05:00

Some of us celebrate Christmas, some Hannuka, and some The Winter Solstice, but our deep and abiding fiberphilia (made-up word meaning, of course, love of fiber) makes us easy to shop for. Let's see what fiber-related gifts Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild members received this holiday season.


Sandy Hutchinson's friend, who is widely known for her stunning quilts, surprised her with this lovely hand-knitted scarf, in rich colors and a flawlessly even seed stitch.

Nancy Warren got a new temple to help keep selvages in a straight line. This looks like a great size for table linens and scarves.

Nancy is already busy on her new small Mirrix tapestry loom. Here, she is bead-weaving without a shedding device. This piece is a beaded hatband that will be an anniversary present for her husband. This little loom will also be perfect for small tapestry weavings and beaded cuffs.

Dale Fort made these beautiful wool combs for Kelly.

Here they are in action on wool from a fleece bought at SAFF this Fall

And books! We have new books!

Barbara Vanselow has this new one: Around the Corner Crochet Borders: 150 Colorful, Creative Edging Designs With Charts and Instructions for Turning the Corner Perfectly Every Time by Edie Eckman.


Nancy Warren received Create Your Own Free-Form Quilts by Rayna Gillman. Notice it promises a "stress-free" journey to original design. That makes me think it's really hard.

And Sandy is looking forward to trying some of the projects in Modern Paper Crafts A 21st Centrury Guide to Folding, Cutting, Scoring, Pleating, and Recycling by Margaret Van Sicklen

Sometimes the gift over the holidays is the time to spend on our projects. That was the case for Linnie. She picked up on this sweater, knitted in intarsia, started by her mother 10 years ago. Her mom put it down after one row of diamonds and Linnie hopes to finish it to wear next year.


Linnie said when she got into this project, she learned her mother had a.) switched all the colors, b.) changed the ribbing and c.) stopped because she'd made a mistake and probably was waiting to take it out later (know how that goes!) Oh yeah, and it appears the Mission Falls wool is no longer in production, so Linnie hopes there's enough of these jazzy colors.

And when we said "what gifts did you get?" Liz Hoos thought of a wonderful trip to DC she and Judy Warren made back in the spring. They went to the Smithsonian and saw an exhibit of sea creatures, all crocheted.

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Exhibit


Judy moved to Charleston from the DC area where her guild had gallery space at the Torpedo Factory. Judy introduced Liz to some of her DC friends and Liz had a wonderful time seeing the sights guided by true insiders. What a gift that trip was! What are friends for?

It's great to have our fiber-peeps who really appreciate our new treasures and who so generously share what they have and what they know how to do. Thanks to everyone for sending in your pictures!

Here's to a Happy New Year for Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild!

Holiday Pot-Luck

2011-12-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

Can you believe the holidays are here? It's been a great year in the Palmetto
Fiber Arts Guild and we'll take a little time to enjoy each other and celebrate at our
December meeting.

Please join us for a Pot-luck meal on Saturday, December 17, at the Bee's Landing Recreation Center from 1:00 - 3:00. We'll also take some time for Show & Tell and have a gift exchange for all who would like to participate.

We don't have kitchen facilities so bring food that is ready to eat -- and remember, we'll have to take home leftovers. Paper products and beverages will be provided.

For the gift exchange, bring a gift that is somehow fiber-related and keep it under $15 in cost. We'll draw numbers and #1 will choose a gift. Then #2 can choose a gift OR take the gift #1 just opened. And so on around the circle. It can get quite heated.

Don't forget Show and Tell. If you've made gifts this year, we'll keep your secrets

Connecting your Way Towards Etsy Success

2011-11-08T18:54:00.001-05:00

Kelsie recently contacted the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild through our Facebook page and asked if anyone was interested in forming an Etsy team. Sandy sent out an inquiry and got quite a few positive responses from people who wanted to hear more. So, today, Kelsie is our guest blogger. Welcome, Kelsie!

Hello guild members!
My name is Kelsie and I own the Etsy shop and blog In Favor of Fuzz, dedicated to anything and everything textiles and fibers. I recently came across your group and was curious to know how involved you all were on Etsy, and if the guild had thought about forming an Etsy team. A few e-mails later, I was invited to write a guest post about being more active on this small business phenomenon called Etsy.

I am always hesitant to give Etsy advice. While I'm no novice, I have yet to achieve a level of success that would spur jealousy from the masses. Plus, there already exists such a wealth of information out there that I know I can't possibly be saying anything new. Yet, in my unending research, I have identified a few key practices that are built into the foundation of every successful Etsy business.

Use Your Resources: Etsy offers many tools for your success because, simply, your success is Etsy's success. The Etsy blog constantly churns out advice in the form of tips, video tutorials, interviews, and workshops, and the Etsy community forums is a great place to ask questions and get feedback from other sellers. At the very least, you should be signed up for the Etsy Success Newsletter, which delivers golden tidbits straight to your inbox twice a week, (Account > Settings > Emails > Your Subscriptions)

Participate in the Community: Selling on the internet is not the same as selling in a physical shop -- you can't just drop off your items and leave. You have to attract people to your tiny existence on the World-Wide-Web through your interactions with it. On Etsy, this means offering information about yourself under your profile, adding similar sellers to your circle, adding other people's items and shops to your favorites, and joining Etsy teams that reflect your goals and interests. Think of it as forming your online presence.

Conquer Social Marketing: In order to connect with buyers, you need to get your story out there by utilizing social media like Twitter, Facebook, or a personal blog. If your target demographic is older, you may consider doing a newsletter since even the aging population uses e-mail. The important thing to realize is social marketing differs from traditional advertising in that it is social: you are telling others about yourself in order to start a conversation and get them invested in your personality. Begin your education with this workshop by Diane Gilleland.

Feel free to share your questions and comments!

All featured work by Cindy Steiler of Mary's Granddaughter

2011-10-23T16:40:00.000-04:00

The lower floor of the arena at Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, Oct. 21, 2011.

With so much going on this fall, it has been hard to keep up with blog postings. But we have participated in three events that have been real visual delights. Here's a quick recap -- heavy on the pictures.

Our exhibit "Connected by a Thread - Photographs and Tapestries from Lesotho" will remain at the Center for Women until mid-December, and then, the Guild's own wall hanging from the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative will remain on display there indefinitely. Until we have a place of our own to hang it, what better place for a tapestry called "Women's Meeting"?

L-Linne Trettin of Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild, R-Jennet Alderman, Executive Director of the Center for Women. Between them you can see the wall hanging entitled "Women's Meeting". It was woven by the woman in the framed photograph to the far left, a member of the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative, and given to the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild in appreciation for support and funding.

On September 15, the Guild gathered for a reception to view the exhibit and celebrate our fortune to be connected by a thread to the weavers in Lesotho. Many thanks to Linnie Trettin who matted and framed the 14 photographs in the exhibit, all of which were taken by her husband Carl at various times when he has been in Lesotho.

The photographs have captions that tell the story of weavers in Lesotho and of our connection to them. Don't miss it if you haven't yet seen it -- just stop in at the Center for Women (129 Cannon St., downtown) when you have 15 - 20 minutes to spare. You'll come away with a little larger view of our world and the meaning of fiber art in it.

One month later on October 14 and 15, the Guild participated in the Hand and Heart Art Show and Sale, co-sponsored by our friends at the Center for Women and benefiting the Charleston Area Senior Center.

Here's the sign/painting at the Meeting St. door that welcomed the public into the Hand and Heart Art Show and Sale at the Charleston Area Senior Center.

Our table was an awesome, eclectic selection of fiber arts!

Knitted, woven, sewn, beaded, quilted, felted, crocheted, and/or dyed, we had it all!

Just a few highlights:

A close view of Linnie's manikin dressed in a lovely art jacket she made and draped with one of Judy Warren's shibori scarves.

Felted bags by Nancy Warren

Scarves, hats, and gloves knitted by Anita Sloan

Kaleidoscope Dolls in front of "the Good Fairy" made by Barbara Vanselow. In the lower right corner, a bit of a sweater (striped) and a tank top (celery-green straps showing) knitted by Jessica Jones. In the background, felted birds by Dedee Regan perch in a pine tree.

While our sales were not what we would have liked them to be, we were able to donate about $85 to the important work of the Senior Center and we learned a lot about what we, as a Guild, need for show set-up and display. Like our workshop last fall, doing this show made made us realize in a new way what a talented group we really are.

And just this past Friday, we made our bus trip to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair in Asheville. What a good way to go to an incredible fiber-lovers event! No worries about buying gas, knowing the way, driving, or parking. All we had to do was get up really early to catch the bus -- and everything else was taken care of!

The word I heard most often regarding our reactions to SAFF was -- "Overwhelming". Here is just a sample of why we might have felt that way!

Yarn, Yarn, Yarn, Yarn, Yarn, Yarn, Wool, Wool, Wool, Roving, Roving, Roving, Yarn, Yarn, Yarn, Yarn, and more Yarn!

More pictures from the day:

We all had big smiles by the time we left. Almost everyone had found some "treasure" to bring home. Twenty-eight went along on this trip and we were delighted to be joined by several who are not members, but had heard about the trip through friends or friends of friends.We're always happy to meet more fiber-lovers!

Thank you Jessica for a great job organizing and coordinating this adventure.

Hand & Heart Art Show & Sale

2011-10-10T21:26:00.000-04:00

Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild is proud to be participating in the Hand & Heart Project this weekend. It is an art show and sale co-sponsored by the Center for Women and benefiting the Charleston Area Senior Center. Proceeds will support programs that bring food, housing, fellowship, and more to the elderly in need throughout the tri-county area.

Friday October 14, 4:30 - 9:00 PM

and

Saturday, October 15, 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM

The Charleston Area Senior Center, 259 Meeting St.

This is a great time and place to start your holiday shopping. Featured artists include:

Jewelry -- Ruth Ann Ivey, Judy Eisele, Nelle Woodruff, Gretchen Keller, and Pam Wackym

Textiles -- Arianne King-Comer, Leilani DeMuth, Cookie Washington, The Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild, and Chery Johnson

Photography -- Nancy Smythe

Pottery -- Liv Antonecchia and Marty Bierbaum

Painting -- Gayle Newcomb, Francina Smalls-Joyner and Marty Bierbaum

Tell all your friends and see you there!

A Busy Fall

2011-09-08T08:49:00.000-04:00

Our summer hiatus is officially over and lots is coming up for the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild.

There is still room on the bus going to SAFF in Asheville for the day on Oct. 21. If you would like to go, contact Jessica Jones at flyingspindle@gmail.com ASAP to reserve your seat. The cost is $45.

Saturday, Sept. 10 - at 10:00 AM, 2nd Saturday Spinners will be at the home of Brenda Tilson on Seabrook. For directions, e-mail Brenda at jbtilson@bellsouth.net

Thursday, Sept. 15 -- Our public reception for "Connected By a Thread - Tapestries and Photographs from Lesotho" 5 - 7 PM at the Center for Women, 129 Cannon St., downtown Charleston.

Saturday, Sept. 17 -- Guild Meeting. The program will be a panel discussion on dye products, their uses, and cautions. This will be at our new permanent meeting space The Bee's Landing Recreation Center.

Saturday, Oct. 8 -- 2nd Saturday Spinners will be at the nonprofit tent at the Marion Square Farmer's Market, hosted by Garnette Tuten, owner of Charleston Spice Company. Time, TBA. This will be during National Spinning and Weaving week where guilds and fiber artist everywhere take their art "public" to give people a chance to see spinning and weaving -- and to flush out more potential group members. Thank you Garnette for arranging for us to be at The Market.

Friday and Saturday, Oct. 14 & 15 -- Our guild will have a table at the Hands & Heart Project, an art show and sale benefiting the Charleston Area Senior Center. The artists' reception and sale will take place Friday night with the sale continuing all day Saturday. Sandy will be heading this up. You have another month to finish your pieces for this show and the one at Unite at the end of the month (keep reading). 20% of sales from this show are donated to the Senior Center.

Friday, October 21 -- Our day trip to Asheville to go to Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair. Our bus leaves the Unity Church parking lot (Leeds Ave.) at 6:30 AM and we'll be returning between 8:30 - 9:00 PM. If you haven't signed up yet, there's still a few seats left. Contact Jessica Jones ASAP at flyingspindle@gmail.com.

Sunday, Oct. 23 -- In case you didn't sell everything you hoped to at Hand & Heart, Lynn Holland has purchased a table for the Guild at the annual craft show at Unity Church. Get items you'd like to have a this show to Lynn, priced and labeled with your name, ahead of time and Lynn will be our representative at this show. Some proceeds from this show go to support Unity Church.

Are you on Facebook? So are we. Find us here and "Like" us. You'll get our updates and help us get the word out about Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild.

Connected by a Thread

2011-07-19T02:04:00.000-04:00

The following press release was sent to local and state media outlets this week:

Fiber Art Exhibit -- Connected by a Thread

Charleston, SC -- July 15, 2011 The Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild and the Center for Women will con-sponsor an exhibit of photographs and woven tapestries entitled Connected by a Thread on display August 8 - Oct. 1 at the Center for Women.

The exhibit celebrates the three-year collaboration between the local fiber arts guild and the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative, a sustainable weaving operation in Lesotho, which is a small nation located in southern Africa.

Lesotho is an autonomous "kingdom" located within the boundaries of South Africa. It is a mountainous country whose residents depend on herding goats and sheep for subsistence income. Men raise the livestock and manage its sale and distribution in cooperatives. Opportunities for women who are "head of household" have been limited, but in the 1980s a half-dozen women-owned tapestry businesses were organized in Lesotho and local women trained to be spinners, dyers, and weavers. These businesses were sustained with involvement of European mentors until the 1990s when the local women took them over as cooperatives.

In 2009 the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild raised money to train four women in Maseru as tapestry weavers and the students responded by sending the Guild a wall hanging entitled "Women's Meeting." This tapestry serves as the centerpiece for Connected by a Thread which includes several other large pieces woven by members of the coop along with a series of photographs taken in Lesotho of the weavers, their looms, and their work space.

Detail of Women's Meeting, given to Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild by the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative in 2010.

A public reception for Connected by as Thread will be held Thursday, September 15, 5;00 - 7:00 PM at the Center for Women located at 129 Cannon Street in downtown Charleston. August 8 - Oct. 1 the exhibit is available for viewing during the Center's hours of operation (Monday - Thursday, 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM, and Friday, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM) except times when the meeting room is in use. To determine availability, please call 843-763-7333.

A photograph from Connected by a Thread: Dressed in traditional Basotho finery, Me. Mesetumo Lebitsa, manager of the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative, demonstrates spinning wool on a spinning wheel made of wood and a tube-less bicycle wheel, commonly seen around the town of Maseru.

An affiliate of The Handweavers Guild of America, the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild serves the greater Charleston area as a membership organization that promotes traditional and contemporary skills in a wide range of fiber arts including, but not limited to, weaving, spinning, dying, felting, basketry, quilting, knitting, crocheting, tatting and bead weaving.

The Center for Women is the only comprehensive women's development center in South Carolina. It offers programs and events aimed at making personal and professional success an everyday event for women in the Lowcountry.

To learn more about either organization, please visit their web sites at www.palmettofiberartsguild.blogspot.com and www.c4women.org .

For prior postings Maseru Tapestries Cooperative see:
www.palmettofiberartsguild.blogspot.com/2009/05/fundraising-for-small-south-african.html

and http://palmettofiberartsguild.blogspot.com/2009/06/upcoming-guild-meeting-june-20.html

Summer Hiatus for Guild Meetings

2011-07-12T21:52:00.000-04:00

The Guild takes a hiatus from regular meetings in July and August, but that doesn't mean our hands aren't busy. Michaela recently reminded me that summer in the South is comparable to winter in the North -- the inhospitable weather makes it a good time to stay in and weave or spin or knit or whatever you most love to do.

I hope you are all doing just that because, as a Guild, we plan to participate in The Hand and Heart Project Oct. 14 - 15. This is an art show and sale co-sponsored by The Center for Women and benefiting the Charleston Area Senior Center. We will have a table at the show and hopefully each member will have at least a few items to sell. Our table will represent the wide range of fiber arts we love -- woven goods, hand-spun wool, knitted items, paper creations, dyed items, felted pieces, samples of bead weaving -- it's time to let your creative flag fly!

The coordinating committee will do all the promotional and set-up work. They will provide publicity, print the program, host a reception Friday night, and provide and set-up tables. The Guild has had several meetings at the downtown location and it beautifully transforms for this annual art show.

The Guild will pay the $50 fee for our table. 20% of the price of each item sold will go to the support of Charleston Area Senior Center -- a good organization that serves our community's more vulnerable older adults. They do the Meals on Wheels and the Foster Grandparent programs and manage Ansonborough House, the apartment complex for lower-income seniors that is next door to the Center.

So start thinking about what you would like to put in the show and look for upcoming e-mails that will help us organize our table at The 2011 Hand and Heart Project.

In June, two members showed us their recently completed shawls. Here's one Lynn's made with a luscious, rich-hued yarn she feel in love with:

And Kelly was celebrating the completion of her cotton shawl -- in the works for four months. She said the pattern was 20-pages long!

The progression of color change in this wrap comes, not from a variegated yarn, but from 4-ply thread where one strand changes color at a time. Kelly manipulated it to come out just the way she wanted it.

Many Uses for Hand-dyed Cotton Rag Strips

2011-06-18T19:07:00.001-04:00

Fiber Guild members are enjoying the hand-dyed cotton rags we have recently come into in large quantities. Each time we get together the weavers paw through bags of colorful balls of cotton strips.

After taking home balls of cotton from our April meeting, Kelly wove a couple of rugs on her rigid heddle loom. Dale did a braided rug.

Sandy showed up at the June meeting with two rugs made with a half and half warp.

Terri got the bug today and started picking out her colors.

There were some questions about warp. The 8/4 cotton rug warp Sandy used can be seen among the balls of cotton strips in the top picture. Almost any site that sells weaving yarn and supplies sells it. See it here at Earth Guild in Asheville. (I'm not saying this is the least expensive source -- but you can buy individual spools there -- some sites want you to buy in 10-spool minimums -- which is the way "stash" starts to take over your life.) Carpet warp comes in lots and lots of colors -- more than a rainbow!

SAFF is for Yarn Lovers -- Day Trip October 21

2011-06-04T21:10:00.000-04:00

What is SAFF you ask? Why, it's the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair, held every October in Asheville, NC and destination for fiber fondlers everywhere.

You can see the animals from which fiber is made -- sheep, goats, llamas,and rabbits, just to name a few -- and meet the people who raise them.

You can attend workshops on raising animals, spinning, felting, knitting, weaving, clothes construction and more.

And you can shop. Oh my Lord, you can shop!

Yarns, fleece, roving, spinning wheels, spindles, fiber tools of all manner. More things for sale and more beautiful things than you can imagine! SAFF is fiber lover's heaven.

So why am I going on about an event in Asheville in the fall? Because we're planning a day trip and hope you and your friends will join us!

We're chartering a bus that will leave the Unity Church parking lot (Leeds Ave. just off I-526) at 6:30 AM on Friday, October 21. We'll be in Asheville in time to spend the whole day at SAFF, leaving for home between 4 - 5 PM, getting back to Charleston at a reasonable hour.

For anyone who hasn't been to SAFF before, this is a good way to "stick your toe in the water" and see what is there. For someone who HAS been before, this is a fun way to get there. We can sit back on the bus and knit, or spin, or sleep, or talk -- we'll be there before we know it. Much better than driving up I-26 alone, dealing with traffic, and finding a place to park.

The cost is $45 with the initial deposit of $25 due June 15. You do NOT have to be a member of the Guild to go, in fact, we need other fiber lovers to join us to fill the bus. So, send your money in, if you haven't already, and pass the word to others you know who might be interested.

Make checks out to Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild and mail them to PO Box 31341, Charleston, SC 29417. If you have additional questions or are about the miss the deadline but want to go, contact trip coordinator Jessica Jones at flyingspindle@gmail.com.

SAFF has not yet posted this year's workshops or vendors on their website, but it will be there July 15. We'll have plenty of time to sign up for anything we want, so why don't you come along with us?

New Meeting Place and Time in May

2011-05-07T10:32:00.000-04:00

Next Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild meeting -- May 21, 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm at Bees Landing Recreation Center.

At our May 21 meeting, we'll try out another meeting site -- The Bees Landing Recreation Center in West Ashley. It has the advantages of being spacious, centrally located, having plenty of parking, and with a slight alteration to our meeting time, we do not have to be responsible for opening and closing someone else's building. That said, our meeting date will remain the 3rd Saturday of each month, but the meeting time will change to 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM.

The Recreation Center is located off of Bees Ferry Road in the Grand Oaks subdivision. The address is 1580 Ashley Gardens Blvd. Charleston, SC 29414. Click here for a map.

May's program will be a lot of fun -- we'll be dying some silk scarves and ties using techniques similar to the shibori Judy talked to us about January. Please bring a couple of silk ties you haven't yet taken to Goodwill -- or find them at local thrift shops. We'll be dying over their patterns and colors. Depending on the number of people who come, there will be a small materials fee for this program to cover the cost of dye and blank scarves.

Reserve Your Seat on the Bus:
Jessica Jones is working on the details for a one day bus trip to the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) in Asheville, NC on Friday, October 21. We have about 12 committed to go and need 35 to fill the bus. The cost is $45 with a deposit of $25 due by June 15. The entrance fee to SAFF will be an additional $3. To get your name on the list, contact Jessica at flyingspindle@gmail.com. And if you know of someone who would enjoy this, spread the word and encourage them to join us for the day.

On a recent Sunday afternoon, several Guild members took a ride down to Yemassee to visit a sheep farm and see the results of a recent shearing. Thanks to Terri Phillips for sharing pictures.


Kayleigh, Sonia, and Sonia's son all want to feel the wool.


Dale looks out over the sheep in the pasture

Bahh Bahh black sheep, have you any wool?

Here's a nice, white fleece

Wash Day

2011-04-03T09:27:00.000-04:00

Write about your typical crafting time. When it is that you are likely to craft? - alone or in more social environments?, when watching TV or whilst taking bus journeys? What items do you like to surround yourself with whilst you twirl your hook like a majorette's baton or work those needles like a skilled set of samurai swords? Do you always have snacks at hand or are you strictly a 'no crumbs near my yarn!" kind of knitter?

by Anne Ball

It's always time to knit. At least I think it's always time to knit. I think about knitting a lot. I think about it while I drive. I think about it while I'm doing dishes. I think about it when I should be concentrating on something else. I think about it when I crochet, or cross-stitch, or work on other crafts. But actually sitting down and knitting? That happens less frequently.

Recent finished project

Ringwood Gloves from Knitty.com

Certainly I knit most every Monday night at my knitting group. Well, that is unless the conversation is too good or I'm too tired or I feel the need to check out the magazines and books. (We meet at a local Barnes and Noble cafe. If you're in Charleston, SC - West of the Ashley to be exact - come join us from 7-ish to 9-ish.) I have to bring a project that doesn't require too much attention but it's a good way to get a project done or get some help from the other knitters.

On the needles

Nuthatch Gloves from Colorwork Creations

by Susan Anderson-Freed

There are times I knit under duress. You know, the holidays are coming. A birthday. Or my husband is getting deployed someplace cold and needs a warm sweater. At these times I knit anywhere I can. While dinner is cooking on the stove, for a few minutes in the waiting room of a doctor's office, in the car at a stop light. OK, I haven't knit at a stop light yet but I do think about it.

The knitting chair with cup of tea

But my favorite place to knit is my laundry room. I knit while the washer is swishing back and forth, the clothes in the dryer are lifted up and around and then fall with a soft thump. I sit in the old office swivel chair and keep a cup of tea, or sometimes even a pot of tea, at my side. When the dryer beeps to say its done, I give my knitting muscles a rest and fold or hang up the warm clothes. When the washer finishes I walk the four or so feet to the laundry basket and put in another load. Knitting and doing laundry takes on a low, slow rhythm. I get two things done at a luxurious pace. I get breaks from doing too much of either. My hands get worked in different ways. The sounds of the washer and drier with the clicking of the needles relaxes me. It is my favorite time of the week.

Self portrait of blogger with dryer

To see other blogs participating in the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blogging Week and also posting on this same topic today, enter " 2KCBWDAY7 " without the quotation marks into your search engine and browse the results.

Thanks to Amy Heins, Aurora Jones, Jess Jones, Michaela McIntosh, Anne Ball, and Pablo Neruda for stepping up to the writing challenge, for sharing your knitting experiences, and for making this a most interesting week for the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild's blog readers!

Something I Perspire - I Mean Aspire - to

2011-04-02T10:01:00.001-04:00

Is there a pattern or skill that you don't yet feel ready to tackle but which you hope to (or think you can only dream of) tackling in the future, near or distant?

by Anne Ball

Shyness is not a problem for me with knitting. This never ceases to surprise me because in my non-knitting life I am timid. I'm afraid to try new things because I'm not creative enough, smart enough, athletic enough, coordinated enough -- you get the picture. But show me something that involves needle and thread and I am 100% sure, sure, sure that I can do it. It doesn't matter that there are quite a few patterns and stitches that I have never figured out. It doesn't matter that I can cast-on and rip something out thirty or forty times and never get it. I KNOW that given enough time I can figure it out. Oh, yes. I am completely over confident and fearless when it comes to knitting. I flinch at nothing in the knitting world except - and I'm starting to hyperventilate now - weaving in the ends of cast-on threads, weaving in the ends of cast-off threads, weaving in more ends in the middle of pieces, and every Freaking Thing that has to do with Weaving In The Ends.

I have even steeked without breaking out in a cold hard sweat. Yes. I have to admit my heart fluttered ever so slightly when I did it, but really, how much damage can one do when cutting up several months of knitting? I knew I could do it. The Norwegians do it all the time. And I was taught to knit by a Norwegian. Steeking, shmeeking. The blessed thing about steeking is that all those irritating ends are captured in the seam and can't show. You can just snip them off and knit or crochet a nice edging over them. Pure heaven.

I just finished a scarf for Uncle Fred. See the picture? Not bad, huh? Not a particularly difficult pattern. I added an icord edge just because it made it the sides look neater. But holy cow I had to use TWO skeins of yarn for the scarf. That made for a total of FOUR ends of yarn I had to weave in. One at the beginning. Two in the middle where I ended one skein and added another. And one at the end. FOUR FREAKING ENDS. Note that I did't take a photo to show where I wove in the ends. That would be too humiliating. That lump of poorly woven-in yarn will undoubtedly sprout fraying ends before too long. My only consolation is I know Uncle Fred would be too polite to say anything about the mess (Thank you, Uncle Fred!)

My knitting friends don't seem to share this fear. I look at their finished projects and never see lumps or ends poking out. What is their secret? I must find out. I must wipe off this excess perspiration and get over this silly fear of weaving in the ends. This is my promise to myself. This year I will look those fraying yarn ends in the, er, end and learn how to hide them nice and snug in my knitted creation. I will seek out a teacher, a drill sergeant, someone with lots of patience who is willing to push me. And I will learn from them. I will practice and practice again. I will conquer the ends and become completely fearless. I hope.

To see other blogs participating in the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blogging Week and also posting on this same topic today, enter " 2KCBWDAY6 " without the quotation marks into your search engine and browse the results.

Something a Little Different on Day 5

2011-04-01T09:01:00.000-04:00

Try to push your creativity in blogging by doing something a bit different today. Try a post of all photographs, a video blog post, a podcast, a poem, or write from a new perspective (for instance, write about a day in the life of a sock from the sock's point of view.)

Contributed by Sandy Hutchinson

ODE TO MY SOCKS

by Pablo Neruda (translation by Stephen Mitchell)

Maru Mori brought me

a pair

of socks

which she knitted with her own

sheepherder hands,

two socks as soft

as rabbits.

I slipped my feet

into them

as if they were

two

cases

knitted

with threads of

twilight

and the pelt of sheep.

Outrageous socks,

my feet became

two fish

made of wool,

two long sharks,

of ultramarine blue

crossed

by one golden hair,

two gigantic blackbirds,

two cannons:

my feet were honored in this way by

these

heavenly

socks.

Click here to see Ode to My Socks in it's entirety.

All socks pictured in this post were knitted by Amy Heins and found on her blog, Purlene's Corner.

To see other blogs participating in the 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blogging Week and making their own creative entries today, just enter " 2KCBWDAY5 " without the quotation marks into your search engine and browse the results.

Where are they now? The three fates...

2011-03-31T12:26:00.002-04:00

Write about the fate of a past knitting/crochet project. Something you made for yourself or to give to another person. An item that lives with you or something which you sent off to a charity. How has one of your past knits lived up to wear. Maybe you spent weeks knitting your giant-footed dad a pair of socks in bright pink and green stripes which he then "lost."

By Jess M. Jones

Self-indulgence. Gift. Super fail. Those are the three fates of my knitting projects...

I love knitting stuff for myself! So the largest percentage of knits I've made have been for me. That's the easiest way to keep track of past projects, of coarse, because you get to wear them, use them, take care of them the right way :)

Some get more wear/use than others. Socks and hats seem to get the most play around here, but then I did make 2 sweaters last year and I wore them a lot this winter (being that I've only really been knitting in earnest for about 4 years, and I am a slow knitter, there are a lot of things I haven't yet attempted). But I may be selfish in the thought that others just won't quite hold the level of appreciation for the work, the intricacy of the pattern, the quality of the yarn, etc - so I knit for myself. Not to mention that I'm also prone to wanting to knit things that would be deemed as super strange by most! Like undies! They're great - made with sock yarn - and I feel like Wonder Woman when I wear them. Under-roos for the adult me!

When I do gift something knitted, it is probably for one of my daughters. Because they DO understand all of the details mentioned above! Still, how many things have I made for Rory, my 11 year old, which just aren't comfortable for her and therefore don't get worn? About 2 out of 2 too many, so I don't really knit for her anymore (she understands, tho, and I think that's good inspiration for her to make something for herself!). Gifting my knowledge, then, becomes the way to give. Here is a freely knit long cardigan I made for Vievy, which she actually has given good wear time to:

Outside my immediate household, I've given mostly hats. I made about 6 or 7 last Xmas (I'm slow, I know, cause I started MONTHS in advance!). These were for my brothers, my mom, sister, stepdad...they all loved them and evidenced that by truly wearing them a lot. That's great! In these cases, it's the care of the item that worries me but I know I have to try to let it go. Hard to do when you get a phone call from your mom....you're chatting...she mentions that, oh, that pom pom on the end of her hat? well, she took it off, "I hope that doesn't hurt your feelings," she says...

Besides trying to shrug off inevitable thoughts of, gee, I made that pom pom specifically for you, and I like it on the hat...I know that my mom did not CAREFULLY remove that pom pom! She has a certain strength about her that she saves for tasks like pom pom removal. Visions of the whole thing unraveling from the top down are now making me a little bit enraged, and I get quieter and quieter..."Well, mom, when it unravels don't call me about it, cause I put that pom pom on very thoroughly and you probably seam-ripped right thru a bunch of crucial stitches."

"OH NO, do you think it WILL unravel?" she shrieks. Oh, mom, I'll have a look at it next time I'm over...

If a knit of mine doesn't end up well, it turns into something else; the orange hemp yarn which I crocheted into the funky decorations on this button-up originally began its life with me on my 30th birthday trip to Georgetown with my mom, brother, and sister. There was a yarn shop! So I decided I'd make my first pair of knee-high socks with orange hemp...yep, hemp (BAD call!). I actually knitted the entire first sock, and it traveled with me for over a year until I decided there was no need to keep this one sock which was terribly un-elastic anyway. Plus I don't even think I had enough to make a second! So I ripped it out and have re-used it for all kinds of things! Those shirt decorations, stitch markers, gift wrapping twine - all were way better uses of that lovely yarn than its original intent. Now I know!

The important thing to me is that, no matter the fate of my knitting, so much was learned along the way - and I'm a better knitter and a better everything for it!

(to see other blogs also participating in the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blogging Week and posting on this same topic today, just enter " 2KCBWDAY4 " without the quotation marks into your search engine, and browse the results.)

Tidy Stitches...Check! (Tidy Mind...maybe not so much?)

2011-03-30T10:31:00.001-04:00

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organized? Maybe you are not organized at all, in which case I personally dare you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. If you are organized, blog about an aspect of that organization process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organized stash, or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

By Jessica M. Jones aka Flying Spindle

So, ya wanna know how I organize my yarn/knitting accoutrements/spinning fluff/all of the above? The only way I know how: A little order and a little chaos mixed together!

I often dream of all the ways I'd like to have all my creative ingredients organized - well, usually I just think of this after wandering around a gorgeous yarn store where everything has a cubby and is grouped by fiber and color...but in all honesty, that's really too perfect for my taste! My real goal in relation to knitting and spinning is to have next to no stash - just piles of gorgeous, homemade things; and I've found that when I let too much excess yarn/wool into my house, my actual creative energy kinda gets smothered.

But you know, a fiber freak like me can't be ruled by reason and I have to admit that I do own a slight bit of a stash: cones of cotton leftover from my recent dabble-ment with weaving, and the wool of 4 white sheep's fleeces (purchased last spring to fuel my love of spinning) makes up a pretty space-consuming collection! I have my cones displayed on the built-in shelf in my living room (my own mini yarn library)(see, I secretly DO want to be surrounded with the stuff!) Whereas the wool is shamefully shoved into the top of my bedroom closet...nagging at me for not having used it ALL UP by NOW!!! And then wool envy comes into the picture when all my friends are spinning up gorgeous colors and all I've got is -white-

Learn to dye already, Jess...Bust that stash!

To ease the pain of my wool hoarding guilt, I recently put together my very own knitting corner. It makes me feel cozy and creative, and it has actual places to keep my projects. So much nicer than how I used to do it, which was to keep a project tucked on a shelf that didn't have room for it, or out in the open where a friend's baby could grab and unravel my undies I'd been working on for a month! (tune in for tomorrow's blog post for a peek at those undies...)

This corner is composed of 2 comfy chairs I recently picked up at the thrift shop (a project in their own right - awaiting a re-upholstering).

Between the chairs is a 2-tiered end table on which rests my wooden yarn bowl (a souvenir from our time in Germany, when my daughter, Aurora, was so little she fit in the thing!), with space below for a work-in-progress; currently a braided rug for the girls' room.

Off the window above hangs my needle basket (another souvenir from our scant year in Portland, Oregon) which is flanked with some of my photography and a drawing from a friend. Another small table holds a task lamp.

I think the award for most organized in my house goes to my collection of project bags! Last year, I finally got smart and stopped disrespecting my knitting by making these bags - now it's SO easy to have a bunch of projects going; all ready for whatever mood may strike me...do I wanna work on my blue toe-up socks? They're in the purple and green bag! Or my hand-spun cardigan? That one lives in the "Moroccan Pocket" bag! All of them hang conveniently in the knitting corner and I love them!

I guess I'm a little more together than I realized - Too bad I didn't figure all this out years ago. (I was always the mom who forgot the diaper and extra blankie) But then that's what life is for...if things weren't ever a little outta control, would I appreciate the order as much? I don't think so :)

(To see other blogs participating in this 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blogging Week and posting on this same topic today, just enter " 2KCBWDAY3 " without the quotation marks into your search engine, and enjoy browsing the results.)

Skill + 1 Up!

2011-03-29T09:32:00.002-04:00

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or a crochet hook this time last year?

By Aurora C. Jones

I started knitting about over a year ago, but I didn't knit very often at all. I am 11 years old now.

I started to knit again after my mom, Jessica, joined the Fiber Guild which was last February. I still didn't knit very much, but I made a neck warmer which I ended up liking but was bummed that it had some holes in it and gained stitches along the way so it wasn't as good as I was expecting. I couldn't hold my needles right at all - I don't remember how I held them, but it made me slower to knit. Now I do much better and right now I'm knitting a wall decoration for my room with very tiny yarn and needles. It looks really cute! ♥

With the neck warmer Mama said I could just go with the mistakes and make it look more like I meant to make them.

After the neck warmer, I made a skinny silver scarf. At the beginning of that project, I still didn't know how to hold the needles right, but then mama taught me how. I also made to sure to get mama to fix when I accidentally made holes and skipped stitches or added stitches.

Then I was knitting a scarf that was turning out really good, then some how kind of bent to the other way and then I started to knit a little messy then I got better again! I've decided to use it as a waist band for a skirt which I am going to sew.

About the wall decoration, my needles are really small and so is the ♥ yarn (its like thread) and its rainbow colored but very light and it makes stripes. I'm also going to put lace at the bottom of it. I also knitted a head band for myself from the same yarn but then turned out mama told me that the yarn for my head band was going to stretch and was going to be too big for me even though i had already took it off the knitting needles.

I ended up giving it to my cousin Brittany and she loved it!

Genevieve, my sister, recently showed me how to knit cables so I have been practicing that and I have been getting pretty mad about it because I kept messing up and I would keep taking out my knitting and starting over again for like 50 times! (not really 50 times, but a lot!) I finally am doing pretty good at my cables and I can actually see the cable twist.

I am a lot better at knitting now than a year ago, and I think I will get better at knitting as I practice.

(to find other blogs participating in the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blog Week and writing on this topic today, enter " 2KCBWDAY2 " - without the quotation marks, into your search engine and browse the results.)

Skill and 1UP

2011-03-29T09:22:00.000-04:00

by Amy H., who is ames of Purlene

OK, so the gamer was obviously going to write for the 1UP day. For those of you who may not get the (perhaps unintended, yet fitting) reference, a 1UP in video games is a new life. You run down the street, you hit a box, and boom - an extra life, a chance for a do-over, a 1UP.

We get those in knitting as well. Every time we rip out a poorly-done cable, or tink back a row or seven, or frog an entire project to repurpose the yarn for something more fitting, we get a 1UP. And it is good! It keeps us fresh, even when we're frustrated.

1UPs in games aren't used just to redo mistakes. With enough lives, you can finish the level, go to a more challenging one, and one after that, and after that. The parallel to knitting holds true here, as with each finished project (or project that is "finished enough"), we have the opportunity to take our knitting up a step. We can try a complicated twisted stitch pattern, or knit in a different fiber blend than we're used to, or dive into the wild world of designing our own projects.

2010 was a year of many changes for me. I moved back home to regroup after a challenging end of 2009, and to be closer to my family. Many things in my life were becoming simpler, both in content and in context. My knitting followed suit - all of the changes in my life made it difficult for me to settle down with a project. But I hit a knitterly milestone in 2010 - I knit a sweater. A grown-up sweater that fits a grown-up person, and I did it WELL.

That's right, I'm tooting my own horn. The pattern wasn't super difficult, this wasn't a 1UP in a knitting technique sense. In fact, it was really easy to knit, and if you go and get Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns, you can knit one too. Why does it count, then? Two reasons. First, there was SEAMING. I learned how to seam evenly, how to set in a sleeve without bunching, how to prepare each section so they lay flat and matched up evenly.

Second, it was my first real knit-in-pieces sweater. Yes, I did the February Lady Sweater like 90% of the knitting world, but it never felt like it "counted". It's like there's a hierarchy of knitting skills. You learn a washcloth, a scarf, a hat. You graduate maybe to a baby blanket or maybe mittens. Suddenly socks enter your life, and you've changed forever. And then, at the pinnacle of Knitterly Accomplishment sits the Adult Seamed Sweater. And I DID IT. I did it, I wore it, and my mom wore it, and darned if it doesn't look better on her than it did on me, ha.

So there's my 1UP for 2010. The sweater, which reinvigorated my knitting and dragged it out of sock-and-hat land, which is a functional garment that is also cute as heck, and which has the added benefit of keeping my mom warm in the winter. It's almost April, we're well into 2011 now. I wonder what my 1UP for this year will be?

(Secret: it will probably be spinning.)

(to find other blogs participating in the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blog Week and writing on this topic today, enter " 2KCBWDAY2 " - without the quotation marks, into your search engine.)

A Tale of Two Yarns

2011-03-28T15:24:00.023-04:00

Part of any fiber enthusiast's hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash, or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them

By Michaela McIntosh

At the time, I was in a hurry, wanted something to knit on an eight hour plane trip and needed to be able to finish. I wanted, for once, to buy the yarn and the pattern for it at the same time. I even was going to buy the recommended yarn for the pattern. Well, doesn't everybody?

Well, no. Not if you are a spinner and used to making your own yarn. Nor does being a spinner keep you from buying yarn you fall in love with but don't have project for. So, this time I was going to get the pattern for the yarn I had chosen or vice versa, depending on which came first.

So, out I went to our wonderful Village Knittery in Summerville. Emily, the shops most knowledgeable proprietress, was happy to stop what she was doing and help. I told her I wanted something easy, fast, and luxurious feeling. She suggested a shrug, and produced the pattern and showed me where the particular yarns for it were. There were skeins of blue, rose, and soft sage green; all with just a touch of heathery slubs. It felt delicious.I could picture the recipient snuggling into it and thinking what a wonderful solution to the chill of a wet Northwest winter. I selected the blue and purchased the skeins, pattern, and a few other items.

It knit up beautifully to gauge. It felt so good in my hands I didn't want to put the project down. I didn't want to give it away, but that was the purpose of this not-so-cheap foray. I got a beautiful yarn and expert advice. It was heaven, the kind of project that makes you want to keep knitting forever! When I gave it to my friend, you can imagine my disappointment when she said without enthusiasm, "Oh, now nice, homemade." Well, maybe it wasn't her color.

I took that pattern and decided to substitute some hand-spun, hand-dyed Shetland that I had plyed with sewing thread to make my hand-dyed yarn go further. At the time, my employment was as a demonstration weaver and historical interpreter from the 1700s. Using some odd skeins of other shades of hand-dyed yarns that were not Shetland, but from the plantation sheep, yarn that had been spun mostly as demonstration yarn, with much stop and go, I started another shrug.

The gauge was slightly different, but I didn't make any adjustment for it. There was really no fitting to this garment. While the texture was different, I was enjoying this project just as much as the first. The rusty, reddish Shetland I used for the first three inches, then added in madder-dyed yarn from the second batch out of the dye bath, then I totally dropped the Shetland and continued with the madder-dyed for most of the way up to where the should seam would be if there was one.

Here, I switched to a skein of light gold yarn and finally to a dark gold that I know was dyed from coreopsis plants. The fabric was quite stretchy and springy, perfect for stretching over your shoulders and very apropos of the setting I was going to be wearing it in. I can wear it with the rusty red end as the collar portion or turn it upside down so the yellow-gold shades form the collar (which I don't do, but only because yellow is not one of my colors.) I've received many compliments on its authenticity.

This project also gave me a greater appreciation for the value of spinning intentionally. None of the yarns that I used had been spun with a project in mind. It shows. In this particular instance, it didn't really matter, but I will make it matter in the future. Whether your yarn is spun commercially or hand-spun, using the correct yard for a projected outcome is key to being satisfied or even thrilled (as with the blue yarn) about the end result.

(to find other blogs participating in the 2nd Annual Knitting & Crochet Blog Week, enter
" 2KCBWDAY1 " - without the quotation marks, into your search engine.)

Knitters & Crocheters - Watch This Space

2011-03-21T09:10:00.000-04:00

We'll be participating in the 2nd Annual Knitting and Crochet Blog Week March 28 - April 3. Knitters and crocheters in our guild will weigh in on the assigned topic for each day and we'll link with sponsor, Eskimimi Knits, to see what other bloggers have to say about the same topic on the same day.

The 2011 Topics:
March 28 -- A Tale of Two Yarns
March 29 -- Skill +1UP
March 30 -- Tidy Mind, Tidy Stitches
March 31 -- Where Are They Now?
April 1 -- Something Different in the Way of a Blog Post.
April 2 -- Something to Aspire to
April 3 -- Your Knitting/Crochet Time

Get in touch with Sandy if you want to participate (It's fine to have more than one blogger on any day.) And, stay tuned!

February with Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild in Charleston

2011-02-25T10:30:00.001-05:00

This is one of Judy's own pieces

Saturday's meeting on Shibori was a good one. Judy has found a true passion in these varied and hard to totally control dying techniques. She brought lots of samples that she has dyed as well as pieces she has collected. The patterns and textures were just beautiful!

She would like to get together with others on a regular basis for "dying days." Anyone interested?

Our group begins to gather in a comfortable area off the main lobby.

We enjoyed being in the spacious Charleston Area Senior Center. Downtown streets were teaming with people enjoying a perfect day at the Southeastern Wildlife Expo. It was kind of fun being in the middle of it. Jessica, Aurora, and Genevieve walked from their house, and two women arrived on bikes. We'll use this space again for our March meeting (March 19).

Show and Tell was especially good on Saturday. Dale Fort brought the completed wool rug he has been working on since taking some workshops last year. One workshop was on making Shepherd's Rugs (traditional braided wool rugs) and one was on Standing Seam rug techniques. Dale's rug combined and altered the two traditional methods, creating something very beautiful and unique.

Kimberly Gibson also shared traditional hooked rugs she has made. She's made four door toppers -- one for each season.

And this beautiful piece drapes over the back of a wing-back chair at her house:

New member Jennifer Ley comes to us from the local group "Art That Works." Members of this group begin with a shared interest in quilting, but use the group to explore "all things fiber." Jennifer made this lovely block, but because of the curved seams, it didn't lay flat enough to suit her. As a fix, she experimented with machine quilting stitches. Now, it lays flat nicely and is not only a beautiful color block, but also interesting as a quilting-stitch sampler.

As a preview of our meeting next month, DeDee Regan brought two needle-felted rabbits that she dressed in party hats!

At our meeting in March, DeDee and Kayleigh Osborne will get us all started on felting our own whimsical "critters." Stay tuned!

The World of Shibori

2011-02-15T21:13:00.001-05:00

Shibori is a method of resist dying that includes stitching, clamping and binding techniques. Guild member Judy Warren has explored this form for many years. At our regular Guild meeting on February 19, Judy will share the basics and show samples of her work as well as the work of others.

Shibori Sampler

Our meeting will be Saturday, the 19th, from 2:00 - 4:00 PM at the Charleston Area Senior Center located at 259 Meeting Street (this is right next to Jestine's Kitchen and across the street from the fire station.) Click here to see a map.We are considering using this meeting location on a regular basis so, in February and March, we will be "test-driving" the space -- and they will be trying us out as weekend guests as well.

A real plus to this centrally located, downtown space is free parking. The parking lot runs parallel to Meeting Street and fills the block between Wentworth and Society Streets behind the Senior Center and Jestine's Kitchen. Since the Southeastern Wildlife Expo will be in full swing this weekend, we highly recommend car pools. After you park, just walk around to Meeting Street and use the front entrance.

Another piece dyed using Shibori techniques

If you have recently completed a project, please bring it for "Show and Tell." As always, guests and visitors are welcome. See you on Saturday!

Off to a good start!

2011-01-24T22:12:00.003-05:00

Our first meeting of the year was one of the first sunny winter days we've seen in awhile. Twenty-three of us piled into Kelly and Dale's house for a grand afternoon Spin-in! With opportunities to try out different drop spindles and a wide variety of wheels, our group ranged from total novice to getting better to pretty accomplished.

Aurora is definitely one of our more accomplished spinners.

The hand spinners ended up downstairs and the wheels went upstairs into the studio Kelly & Dale recently made out of the (grown-up now) kid's playroom. Now it's Kelly and Dale's playroom with plenty of room for Dale to work on his rugs and Kelly to spin away. There's a wall of cubbies for storage and workspace on top, great natural light, and a TV so they can spend hours there!

Peggy has had her wheel for awhile but rarely has time to spin, so our Spin-in was an ideal opportunity for her to work on her technique and ask a few questions, too..

Michaela is explaining twist.

Sonia got her very contemporary wheel for Christmas, but needs help getting it all set up. There was some Google-ing going on to find an online User's Manual. Look at that beautiful roving in her lap! Won't that make some gorgeous thread!

Behind, Garnette Tuten and Melissa Dertian are loving the drum carder. Much easier than using paddle carders.

Downstairs, experienced spinners were happy to help the novices get started with the drop spindle.

Jessica is watching Terri get started using the "park & draft' technique -- a good one for beginners!

The "spin" Terri gave the spindle before she "parked" it, causes the yarn to form almost magically as Terri moves her hand up.

This is how all-consuming hobbies get started!

Thanks to Kelly and Dale for letting us have the run of your house for the afternoon. And thanks to everyone who shared what they knew with those who were just getting started. It was fun!

One announcement: With a new year, we have new officers who will be planning things this year. Help them out whenever you can!

President, Lynn Holland

Vice President, Kelly Fort

Secretary, Jessica Jones

Treasurer: Garnette Tuten

Publicity Chair, Amy Heins

Rosters have gone out via e-mail, so you should have contact information on everyone. If you need a roster, contact Sandy (sandee63@bellsouth.net). And if you haven't paid your membership fee for 2011, send a check made out to Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild to Garnette. Best $25 you'll spend this year!

Celebrating "Back to Work"

2011-01-08T11:04:00.002-05:00

In the Middle Ages, January 6 -- "Old Christmas " -- was celebrated with one last party before the household resumed its normal routine after the holidays.

The "normal" household routine was strongly associated with the constant chore of spinning and weaving -- so after this last holiday celebration it was time to return to spindles and looms. It all came to be known as "Distaff Day" or even "Roc Day." The drop spindle all women carried in their apron pockets to use during odd moments of idleness was called their roc.

Modern Fiber Guilds have revived the old custom of making this day a celebration, often holding special meetings or workshops. This year, our Guild will observe Distaff Day by gathering at the home of Kelly Fort for a "Spin-In" on Saturday, January 15, from 2:00 - 4:00 PM.

Bring your wheels and your spindles if you have them. If you don't have the tools or the skills, this is an opportunity to see the process, try your hand at it, and learn some of the fine points of spinning raw fiber or roving into thread to suit your purpose. Do you want fine or full thread? Single or double twist? As we discovered in June when we tried drop spindles, an afternoon is long enough for a novice to make some headway.

What a great way to kick off a New Year! Cheers!

2010 Highlights

Charleston -- Arts and Crafts Shows Galore

2010-11-06T17:18:00.001-04:00

You may have noticed, but the skinny column to the right is a wealth of information and pictures. There's a great little section that changes regularly called "What's Coming Up." Along with meetings and guild events, we've tried to use that area to announce exhibits and shows our members are participating in. Here are a few pictures from a couple I've been able to attend recently.

The Hands & Heart Project was sponsored by the Charleston Area Senior Center downtown and featured work by local female artists who are over age 50. Arianne King Comer participated with a wonderful variety of her work. Wraps, scarves, ties, lampshades, and painting (you know she's painting on silk, right?) were just some her offerings.

Arianne is a batik and indigo artist with many accolades to her name. She also teaches -- often giving young people who struggle to express themselves a new, unexpected way of doing just that.

This painting by Arianne was part of the South Carolina Palmetto Hands Fine Crafts Exhibition juried show at this year's North Charleston Arts Festival and was one of 14 pieces selected to be part of the state's Traveling Exhibits Program this year.

For our program at our Nov. 20 Guild meeting, Arianne will speak to us about "The Gift of Our Creativity." What a good topic at the very beginning of the holiday season. This Thanksgiving, we will be thankful for our ability to be creative and to enjoy the creativity of others.

The second show I attended was the famous Holiday Craft Show at the home of Anita Sloane on James Island. Anita's house is located on a beautiful setting on the Clark Sound. For this show, all of her furniture is relegated to the upstairs to make way for crafters' displays throughout the downstairs and spilling out onto the sunporch.

The always effervescent Anita, has her holly on as she rings up my purchases. I bought a lovely 10-inch dried flower wreath, a sea-shell wreath, and two bundles of lavender. I later came back with more -- some Christmas ornaments and a loaf of pumpkin bread!

This show is huge -- close to 30 crafters participated -- there was jewelry, pottery, stuffed toys, Charleston-themed crafts, painted trays, plus lots of Christmas items. And this year, there was even food! Anita's daughter-in-law was the cook -- I asked which one she was and Anita told me "She's the cute one."

You can tell I'm a fiber-girl, because with everything at this show, Anita's knitting was my favorite thing -- she had hats and scarves using lots of beautiful and fun novelty yarns that made you want to touch -- and she also had a lot of shrugs and wraps that I especially liked.

There's one more day on this show. You can go tomorrow, Sunday the 7th from 1:00 - 5:00 PM. It got me in the spirit -- and believe me, I'm usually resistant until Thanksgiving is over and the leftovers are gone.

There will be tons of craft shows and art exhibits coming up in the next few weeks. If you are participating in one, or know of one you think our members would find particularly interesting, let me know and I'll put it in our list of "What's Coming Up."

The 1st Annual Fall Fiber Workshop -- A Big Success

2010-10-15T22:09:00.004-04:00

Everyone agreed this should become a yearly event, so I'm now referring to last Saturday's workshop as "The 1st Annual. . ."

Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild member Jessica Jones built her own loom. For the frame, she used wood from a discarded cedar chest. The 10-dent reed was painstakingly constructed using bamboo strips.The string heddles color-code each harness (brilliant idea!) and there's even a built in warping board on the side.

It was a pretty fall day. Our meeting room was comfortable. We had more food than we could possibly eat. We had said we hoped for 30 people. We ended up with 31 and one couldn't come (hmmm, how's that for "The Power of Goal Setting". . .)

Because of wide-spread publicity, we now have seven new guild members -- all interested in some or all of the fiber arts we featured -- knitting, weaving, spinning, wool rug making, and felting.

Beryl Tippin was our instructor for the day and she was awesome!. She spent the morning doing just we'd asked, covering the basics of raw fiber -- the different fiber animals, unique qualities of the fleece of different animals and of different breeds of sheep, the best parts of a fleece to use for spinning, and how to evaluate raw fleece we might consider buying. Certainly anyone who attended this morning session can now attend Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair in Asheville later in the month and shop for raw fiber and fleece with more confidence.

We were amazed when Beryl took a piece of raw fleece -- rolled it between her fingers, sniffed it, held it to her ear while she pulled until the fiber snapped--and announced that about nine months before shearing, this sheep had run a fever and not eaten for several days. That brief illness and time "off her feed" left lingering evidence in the shorn wool.

However, those of us with teenage boys were not all that surprised to learn that it's pretty easy to take a whiff and know when fleece is from a ram rather than a ewe. There's no mistaking the scent of that testosterone!

Would it surprise you to know that there was a lot of knitting going on while we listened to all this good information?

Here is Beryl's "Sample Board" with over 100 four-inch-squares knitted from a variety of fiber sources -- each one labeled. There's all the sheep breeds plus other fiber animals including alpaca, llama, rabbits, goats, a very soft cat named "Jezebel", several dog breeds, and a rough, scratchy swatch made from horse hair.

Our afternoon was spent needle-felting. This gave everyone a chance to get our hands on fiber and play with color and design.

This was lots of fun!

Most of us weren't sure what we would come up with when we started, but eventually, designs and concepts came together -- some concrete and some more abstract. Lynn struck a nice balance with her bird on a colorful background.

This time we did needle felting, but wet felting is another technique. Here is a "wool painting" Beryl did with that process,. Embellishments added with needle felting also add a third dimension to the piece.

On the sides you can see some of Beryl's knitted toys peeking out. Since she retired, she says she is enjoying knitting for the special young ones in her life. And of course, along with "people" dolls, she has knitted a whole menagerie of farm animals, bugs, snails, vegetables, and flowers.

This workshop showed us what a well-rounded fiber arts guild we really are. Our own members shared their special skills throughout the day and together, we are accomplished in a wide range of fiber arts including weaving, knitting, spinning, felting, plus wool rug making!

Dale Fort is going way beyond braided wool rugs with the standing wool rug technique he was introduced to over the summer at a Maine workshop. He admits he's figuring it out as he goes, but this rug is growing quite handsome. He cuts wool in 3/4/" strips, stacks several strips on top of each other, then starts at one end and rolls tightly, stopping occasionally to stitch the layers together using strong thread and a curved needle. You can see Dale has a good sense of design as his combination of wool discs vary in size, color, and texture. I can't wait to see how this piece evolves!

There was a 4-harness floor loom set up on the screened-in porch, but inside, Cindy also saw a lot of interest in her more portable, easier to warp, rigid heddle loom. When she wasn't fielding questions about the loom, she was demonstrating spinning with a drop spindle -- and there was also a lot of interest in her I-Pad!

Aurora Jones is getting quite good at spinning with the drop spindle.

Beth Parrott is our go-to member for all things knitted -- but her special love and her widest renown is for knitted socks and sock patterns. She has co-authored two books that would be great Christmas gifts for any knitter you know. The socks above are samples knitted for the photographs in Beth's books

The Little Box of Socks is literally a box which contains 20 individual cards each with instructions for a sock pattern. You can carry only the card you're working on and leave the rest in the box!. Each instruction card is on a heavy, glossy, card stock, and opens like a greeting card. The instructions are great and so is the photography.

Sock Club: Join the Knitting Adventure is Beth's newest book. It is a paperback and includes 23 sock patterns contributed by sock clubs. These patterns are not widely available outside of clubs so this is a good book to give someone who may already have a book with sock patterns. There is also interesting information about each sock club featured.

Other talents we saw from our members on Saturday included beautiful felted birds made by DeDee Regan and Kelly Fort showed all comers how to operate her spinning wheel. Most people who attended the workshop found others doing fiber arts they were familiar with and also met people doing things new. This variety of interest and skill is one of our guild's strengths.

Finally, we raffled off two nice items . A knitted, child's hat with a cute felted flower and a year's subscription to any of the Interweave Press publications. We raised $45 that will be sent to the weaving coop in Lesotho that we enjoy an ongoing relationship with.

It was our first attempt at a day-long workshop. We didn't know how it would be received or if it would be a valuable experience for enough people to ever try again. I think we surprised ourselves with our success in terms of attendance and participation. The organization and cost was manageable for our group, and we learned some things that will help next time we plan something similar. So, we should all be thinking of what we'd like to do NEXT!

What We Did Over Our Summer Vacation

2010-09-10T17:12:00.000-04:00

Summer doesn't mean three months of vacation for many of us anymore but it is still a time when our routine changes a bit. We might travel more or, since we live in a place that is a popular vacation destination for everyone else, we might just have more company. New experiences and new influences tend to feed our creative souls. Here are summer fiber highlights from a few of us:

Kelly and Dale Fort planned their summer vacation around their shared interest in fiber arts. In June, they traveled to New England where they attended weekend classes at the Pleasant Mountain Fiber Workshop in Maine.

Kelly got to practice several new spinning and drafting techniques in a "Beyond the Basics" spinning class.

This medallion is the beginning of Dale's project in a class he took on Standing Wool Rugs. This technique is from the early 1800s and is done by manipulating wool strips in various ways to make a super-plush rug. Dale will be at our October workshop with samples of this and other wool rug techniques he has explored.

Garnette had the very satisfying experience of beginning and completing a project over the summer. She not only crocheted this cheerful, contemporary baby blanket as a gift for an expecting co-worker, the design is hers as well. Admirably, it is finished before the baby arrives.

Cindy Cooksey's job as a scientist with NOAA had her on a ship monitoring the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for much of the summer. But during her time at home, she continued to enjoy her rigid-heddle loom. Combining new and old technologies, she made this case for her I-Pad using sock yarn for warp and weft. The lighter edge at the top of the case is a homespun yarn Cindy made earlier with her drop spindle.

The back of the I-Pad's case has different colors in the weft. In this picture, the I-Pad itself is tucked inside, out of sight. Cindy made her case fit snug and she lined it with a synthetic microfiber that cleverly cleans the screen as the I-Pad is taken in and out.

As the summer came to a close, Michaela was happy to go to her mailbox and find two copies of Peggy Osterkamp' s new book Weaving for Beginners finally hot-off-the-press. One copy is for her to place in our Guild Lending Library, but the other one is Peggy's gift to Michaela with a handwritten thank you note penned onto the title page. Every author needs trusted SMEs (Subject-Matter-Experts) who will read early drafts and gently suggest edits and this is how Michaela contributed to Peggy's latest book. Michaela is mentioned in the book's Acknowledgments along with Madelyn Van der Hoogt and a host of other nationally known weaving teachers and authors.

I came into my own summer highlight when I came into a huge stash of yarn that once belonged to a special weaver friend from years ago in North Carolina. Mrs. Ashby, the wife of a much-loved college professor, was the first weaver I knew who was an artist, as opposed to someone who wove useful things. By coincidence, in that way that makes you wonder if anything is just a coincidence, I have gotten to know the Ashby's daughter here in Charleston. She doesn't weave or knit and has had her mother's yarn packed away for years. She offered it all to me and the day I picked it up, I became a wealthy woman. Cones and skeins of beautiful wools, textured cottons, silks, jute. . . It has taken quite a bit of reorganization and culling of my own stash, but I have found a home in my loom room for nearly all of it. The picture above is tag ends of multicolored mohairs.

We know of other summer highlights but don't have the photos -- While in New Jersey, Lynn Holland bought some lovely wool/tencel for a scarf -- maybe two. Jessica Jones finished knitting a sweater with yarn she bought at The Village Knittery in Summerville after the owner, Emily Spearman, spoke to us at our meeting in April. And Amy Buckley came upon a wonderful yarn shop when she was in Nova Scotia. Of course this is where she bought her best souvenirs from that trip!

Summer was good, but fall is now upon us. Today, I put my check in the mail for our Fiber Workshop on October 9. Why don't you do the same thing, so we can look forward to what is sure to be this season's fiber related highlight for all of us!

Fall Fiber Workshop -- Oct. 9

2010-08-13T19:52:00.000-04:00

For all those interested in spinning, weaving, knitting, felting, and more!

Fall Fiber Arts Workshop

9:00 AM - 4:00 PM

James Island County Park

Beryl Tippen, former New England Shepherdess, frequent judge at sheep shows, coordinator of countless sheep-to-shawl events, currently living in Calabash, NC and teaching knitting in the Myrtle Beach area, will lead sessions on:

Breeds of Sheep for Spinning/Knitting

Preparing and Working with Raw Fiber

and

Painting with Wool (a needle felting technique)

Give yourself a day to nurture your creative spirit with fellow fiberart-lovers in a beautiful, Lowcounty setting.

There will be demonstrations of weaving on rigid heddle and floor looms, rug braiding, spinning with wheels or with drop spindles, and more.

PFAG Members: $20 Non-Members: $35
Fee includes materials, gate entrance and lunch

Find registration form here

Print out, complete and mail to register by Oct. 1

June, July, and August

2010-07-05T20:54:00.000-04:00

"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning."

It is hard to be an effective blogger when you are such a crummy photographer! Not only can I not take very artful, or even technically good, pictures, but all too often, I don't take any at all! Such was the case at our June meeting which should have been a treasure trove of wonderful shots of a larger than usual group of us trying our hands at spinning with drop spindles.

Jessica Jones had everything we needed to get started. For those of us who didn't have one already, she helped us fashion a simple drop spindle, gave us a bit of information and demonstrated over and over again – and then we were off. Some already knew how and had the hang of it, some picked it up quickly, some of us, (ahem) floundered, and took heart from everyone who promised it would happen for us, too.

Long after we had left and my camera was far away from anyone who could have provided a pretty sample of what it was supposed to look like, I spread my lumpy results on a towel and took this picture. A little embarrassing, but maybe later I can post another picture that shows progress.

Thank you Jessica for such a fun program, thanks to all who brought spindles, fleece, and roving to share, and thanks to Amy for opening the conference room at the Charleston Water System Department for us to meet. It was a great room. Wish you weren't planning to retire this fall!

Coming up July 17

Anne Ball has invited us back to her house for an afternoon of beading. This was a fun afternoon when we did it in February – this time Anne says she'll teach us something new, or we can each look through her books and pick out something we'd like to make. She'll have seed beads, thread, and needles on hand. If you have a beading mat, (or a small tray you can line with a piece of felt or 1/2 inch foam) bring it along.

Like many groups, we are relaxing a bit during the summer, but this is our regular guild meeting time -- the 3rd Saturday of the month from 2:00 - 4:00 PM. I will send Anne's West Ashley address to members in a separate e-mail, but if you would like to visit with us on the 17th, leave a comment here or contact Sandy at sandee63@bellsouth.net or at 843-766-0752 and I'll help you out with directions.

August and Beyond

We will be taking a break in August but we'll still be in touch. The board is busy planning a one-day fall retreat that will focus on preparing and working with raw fiber. Details to come, but for now, please plan on joining us on Saturday October 9 from 9:00 - 3:30 at James Island County Park.

Coming Up in June. Drop Spindle Spinning

2010-06-05T10:19:00.000-04:00

So far this year, we've explored beading, bookmaking, visited the Avery Center to see their exhibit on Sweetgrass baskets (so far everything starts with a 'B'!) and learned a bit about watercolor quilting. In June, we will continue our experiential romp through the fiber arts with a program on Drop Spindle Spinning. This is your chance to learn the secrets of turning a fat wad of fluff into, miraculously -- a thread!

Please plan to join us Saturday, June 19 from 2:00 - 4:00 PM in the conference room at the Charleston Water Systems Department on St. Philips St. in downtown Charleston (more about this location at the end).

At the North Charleston Farmers Market in April, visitors were amazed to see the spinning process. Here, Genivieve Jones uses a drop spindle .

Jessica Jones will show us how it's done and we'll get to see some fleece Jessica has recently bought-- literally right off the sheep from a farmer in Beaufort County who recently sheared his flock.

For this program we need you to RSVP so Jessica will have enough supplies on hand for us. For those who don't have their own drop spindle, Jessica will bring materials for us to fashion one that will have us spinning thread before the afternoon is over. Just leave a comment here or send a quick "Yes, I'm coming, No, I don't have a spindle." message to: sandee63@bellsouth.net.

Like Goldilocks, we continue to move around to find ideal, available meeting space. Amy Buckley has invited us to try out the conference room where she works -- the Charleston Water Systems Department. It is a good size room, it's centrally located downtown, and has free parking. Thank you Amy! The building is located at 103 St. Philip St.on the corner of St. Philip and Vanderhorst (click here for map). Enter the parking lot from Vanderhorst. The entrance is to the left of the drive-in window.

See you there!

Watercolor Quilting

2010-05-09T14:34:00.000-04:00

The May 15 Guild meeting will be interesting and fun for anyone who enjoys "playing" with color.

Lynn Holland will share 'Watercolor Quilting" with us. This is essentially painting with fabric (that's with fabric, not on fabric) to achieve a quilt that makes you think of an impressionistic painting.

Watercolor quilt projects are often sold as kits – and often done as wallhangings – but Lynn will show us how to go about designing our own projects and she will bring her "masterpiece" for us to see – a full-size bed quilt – it is just amazingly beautiful!

We'll hear all about the best kinds of fabric to use, design strategies, cutting options, and general sewing instruction for assembling the final product. And yes, Lynn will bring fabric squares so we can try our hand at laying out our own design.

All of this will take place on Saturday, May 15, from 2:00 - 4:00 PM at the downtown library at 68 Calhoun Street, upstairs in Meeting Room B. The first hour of parking in the deck under the library is free – and additional time is $1.00 per hour.

As always we look forward to seeing you all, and visitors are encouraged and welcome!

Ideas for PFAG Meeting Space?

2010-05-06T22:35:00.000-04:00

At my church they talk about the "spiritual discipline" of hospitality -- that gift of making the people around you feel comfortable and welcome. The Unity Church in Charleston has certainly been gracious in their hospitality to us and we have appreciated them allowing us to meet at the church and also to crash their gates a couple of times when we were unexpectedly locked out of The Meeting Place space in North Charleston.

The Meeting Place forgot we were coming once to often and we finally terminated our agreement with them to use The Meeting Place regularly. In the beginning, it seemed like a good plan, but the reality was that it was hard for them to be sure someone opened and closed the space for us on a weekend -- and when they didn't, we were left on the sidewalk scrambling to devise a Plan B before our group dispersed disappointed in our inability to be organized.

So, we are without a regular place to meet and will be bouncing around like Goldilocks trying different options until we find something that feels "just right." We appreciate members who have invited us into their homes this year -- and this month, we'll try out the centrally located downtown library.

If anyone knows of possible meeting places we might try, we'd love to hear about them. We come from many different directions, so if not centrally located, then at least easy access to major roads is good. Space for at least 20 to spread projects out on tabletops is ideal. And of course, parking is important. Thanks for any ideas as we search for a new home. In the meantime, we'll enjoy the opportunity to ramble around town a bit.

"Women's Meeting"

2010-04-20T22:43:00.000-04:00

Women's Meeting

A Gift to the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild from the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative in Lesotho

At the end of March, Guild member Linnie Trettin received this message from her husband Carl, who was working in Africa.

I went to the Maseru Weavers today, and they did have a "gift" for the Charleston Fiber Arts Guild. I'm sure the Guild will appreciate the recognition. It's entitled "Women's Meeting." One of the trainees did the piece, which I thought was quite an accomplishment.

Our Fiber Guild met Carl and Linnie when they came to a meeting last May and shared the story of the Maseru Weaving Cooperative and showed us samples of tapestries made by a small group of women in the African country of Lesotho. Carl's work with the Department of Labor takes him to the area with some regularity. He had become a fan of the fine weavings produced by this small cooperative -- and he had become aware of the barriers they faced to increase their capacity to be able to operate on a more sustainable business model.

By American standards, a relatively small amount of money was needed to train additional weavers so the cooperative could fill more orders and serve more customers. Our Guild decided to help out.

A member of the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative at work

When the women in Lesotho learned financial assistance was on the way, they immediately made arrangements for an instructor and began to recruit students. Women began to jockey for a place in the class as soon as they heard it would be offered. One woman was so eager to learn a skill through which she could earn an income that she came to the coop daily before the class ever started, and began to learn by watching the other members at their looms. Her initiative earned her a spot in the weaving class that started at the end of July.

Within six weeks, our Guild raised over $800 and contributed another $500 from our treasury -- a tiny bit more than was requested.

First you make your plan, then you warp. . .

Our contributions helped this young woman take a 3-month tapestry weaving class to become a part of the Maseru Weaving Cooperative. The simple loom propped against the wall has the warp strung over nails at the top and bottom of a wooden face. The "cartoon" taped behind the warp gives the weaver her pattern to follow.

Here is her completed tapestry.

New Weavers -- New Coop Members

These are the students who completed the training class and joined the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative. It is hard to believe these tapestries were made by "beginners."

As Carl's message to Linnie indicated, the students have made and sent us the beautiful hanging seen at the beginning of the post as a thank you gift. It has arrived and we cannot wait to show it off to you personally. You will be amazed at the fine work and the vibrant colors.

Since we do not have a permanent "home" where we can hang our tapestry, we will investigate the possibilities of a small scale "traveling exhibit" to various galley and display spaces in the Charleston area. Our connection with weavers across the world is a good story to share with the larger community.

Resources for Spinners

2010-04-15T22:36:00.000-04:00

Several members responded when we asked about favorite resources for spinners. The websites they told us about not only offer all you could ever need for spinning but many of them are beautiful to look at as well.

Paradise Fibers -- Here they sell everything for spinners, knitters and weavers AND they donate 2% of their annual profits to preserve fiberarts traditions. Check them out.

Crown Mountain Farms -- Another very nice site catering to spinners and knitters. Their BFL is said to be just incredible.

If you want pre-dyed wool dyed by real people there are lots of choices available on Etsy -- plus you gotta love that you're supporting small business owners. Just search for "Fleece" under "Supplies." One Etsy business that was specifically mentioned is Fiber Fancy. Our member said they have amazing hand-dyed Punta and Falkland.

International Fleece -- this company "imports unique, beautiful fibers from around the globe to provide new, exciting opportunities for fiber artists." The PFAG spinner who recommended this site says she hasn't bought from them yet -- but she's heard good things about them and she's impressed with their selection.

Of course the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) held each fall in Asheville was mentioned. This year the dates are Oct. 22 - 24.

To shop local, go to Local Harvest. You can shop for spinning fiber and specify a geographical range to support those who raise and care for animals close to you.

Kristin Nicholas lives on a sheep farm in western Massachusetts and designs, and knits, and paints and teaches and does a million creative things. Her blog is always fun to look at and right now, they have new lambs on the farm. Worth bookmarking for a regular look-see.

That's our list for now. If you know of additional resources we could share with Lowcountry spinners, we'd love to hear them.

What Is Involved in Owning a Craft Business?

2010-04-05T22:44:00.000-04:00

Have you ever dreamed of having your own craft business? Wouldn't it be awesome to spend your days surrounded by your chosen crafting materials and tools, and meeting people who share your passion? What if encouraging creativity in others was your "day job?"

Added bonus: You might actually have a chance to finish some of the many projects you've started and time to start more of those projects that you never seem to be able to move past the idea stage.

At our Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild meeting on April 17, our guest is living this very dream. Emily Spearman opened Summerville's The Village Knittery (pictured above) in 2008 and has created a thriving business which has also become a community center and classroom for the area's knitters and crocheters. Her website tells us:

"The Village Knittery is more than a yarn shop. It's a place to relax, to share and to celebrate the joys of creating. We cherish the history of knitting, while embracing the future of the fiber arts."

Now, doesn't this sound like someone you'd like to know? We're delighted to have Emily join us on the 17th to share her experience in becoming the proprietress of one of Charleston's favorite LYSs (local yarn shops). I'm sure she'll find us to be a group of like-minded souls and we'll be inspired to hear how she transformed her dream into her job.

In our on-going effort to build our own crafting community, our meeting on April 17 will be a pot-luck brunch at the home of Lynn Holland in Summerville. Bring a dish to share and we'll start at 11:30. We'll let Emily talk to us early so she can get on back to her shop -- Saturdays are busy days there. Afterwards there will be time to enjoy each others' company and we'll share what we've been making lately. (So bring your latest project along.) Several members have been to the John C. Campbell Folk School recently so we look forward to hearing about their experiences there.

As always, all are welcome. If you've never been to one of our meetings, this would be a great one to begin to get to know us. We are a friendly, sometimes noisy group, diverse in our range of interests and skills. We enjoy a wide range of fiber arts. In getting together regularly, we each sometimes find ourselves teaching others and sometimes learning something brand new.

And one more important note: If your life is crazy busy and you can find time to make it to the meeting, but you can't manage bringing a dish -- please come anyway and let us feed and nurture you just a little bit. Based on prior experiences with this group, there will be no shortage of food. We'd rather have you join us than anything and no one will be checking that you bring a plate as you come through the door!

We won't publish Lynn's address here, but if you'd like to join us and need directions, contact Sandy Hutchinson at sandee63@bellsouth.net or 843-766-0752.

Thanks to Lynn for having us again. We enjoyed a similar meeting at her house in December and decided it was worth repeating!

Sweetgrass at the Avery Center

2010-02-19T23:36:00.000-05:00

For our Guild meeting on Saturday, March 20, we'll meet at the Avery Research Center for African-American History and Culture for a special tour of their current exhibit entitled Sweetgrass: A Living Legacy of Families and Communities . The focus of the exhibit is the baskets themselves and the intergenerational relationships between basket makers whose art connects them to past generations back to Africa. Click here to see a recent article in the Post & Courier about the exhibit and local basket makers.

The Avery Center is located at 125 Bull Street in downtown Charleston. Free parking is available behind the Center. There is no charge to enter the Center or see the exhibits. As an added bonus, at this time the Center also has an exhibit on local painter, Jonathan Green whose work will be familiar to almost everyone.

Thanks go to Garnette Tuten for making the contact at the Avery Center. She and Kelly Fort will meet our group at the entrance to the Center between 1:45 - 2:00 PM. Let's use our e-mail lists to coordinate carpools to avoid taking so many cars into downtown.

Artists' Books

2010-02-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

The Guild will meet on February 20 at our regular meeting place -- The Meeting Place at 1077 E. Montague Ave. in the historic business district of North Charleston.

Our own member, Linnie Trettin, will present our program on a fiber art that holds endless possibilities for beginners and the experienced -- artists' books. Since most of us are unfamiliar with book arts, this will be a wonderful introduction -- an overview of techniques, formats and structures used in producing artists' books along with materials used and opportunities to learn more

A search in Google Images resulted in a fascinating variety of examples -- just a few are here to intrigue you. Linnie tells me artists' books may include traditionally bound books, pop ups, and accordion structures. Some are computer generated and others are completely hand-crafted with stitching, beading, metal and woodwork, and fiber arts. Some artists alter existing books in interesting ways and some create one-of-a-kind objects. Linnie warns that we might even come to surprising conclusions about what constitutes a "book."

Linnie is our "inside" member who connected us to the Masaru Tapestries Cooperative in Lesotho, South Africa. She will take a few minutes and give us an update on the progress the Coop has made to increase their production capacity by training new weavers. We might want to think about how we, as a Guild, can continue to build our relationship with this group. Even though they are far away, our shared knowledge of fiber arts is a common thread that connects us to them.

Saturday the 20th, from 2:00 - 4:00 PM will be an interesting and fun. Hope to see you there!

Study Group for Weavers Forming

2010-01-25T20:48:00.000-05:00

Fiber Guild meetings cover a wide range of fiber arts as evidenced by our last two meetings -- in November we did some needle felting and in January we had a wonderful winter afternoon around Anne Ball's dining room table exploring bead weaving. We have a contingent of new and experienced handweavers in the guild and since looms are not always very portable it is sometimes difficult for a two hour program to address this group's desires to build their skills beyond an introductory session.

To solve this problem, Michaela, certainly one of the more prolific weavers among us, will convene a study group for weavers to meet at her house, the 1st Wednesday of the month from 7:00 - 9:00 PM beginning next week, February 3. The group will meet regularly and the sessions will be progressive, so it is a wonderful opportunity to gain a better grasp of weaving basics, explore weaving techniques in depth, and develop more confidence in our abilities to tackle a variety of projects.

If you are interested, contact Sandy at sandee63@bellsouth.net or contact Michaela directly. Participants should commit to regular attendance, and be willing to complete homework assignments between group sessions. A $10 materials fee will collected at the first session.

In the first session, Michaela will share her ideas for the group and the group will make some choices about topics to include in later sessions. The evening will focus on Warps and Setts.

Thanks to Michaela for offering this group to encourage local weavers to develop more weaving skills and to get to know each other better by meeting together regularly.

Best Sources of Yarn for Weavers

2010-01-19T21:27:00.000-05:00

A new weaver recently asked where to buy yarn. She had been in a local knit shop and wondered if that was her best source. To quote Michaela,"It's possible to use knitting yarns as weft, but even that isn't recommended. They are fine for an accent yarn, but usually are too stretchy for warp and are really expensive to buy from shops."

In fact, most of us are buying yarn on-line but it is understandable that someone new to this wants a place where they can see and touch. We recommend starting slowly. A quick poll of the weavers in our guild resulted in this list of favorite sources for yarn.

WEBS

The Yarn Barn of Kansas

R & M Yarns

(Tennessee)

Halcyon Yarns

Earth Guild

(Downtown Asheville, NC)

Textura Trading Company

The member who recommended this company has not yet bought anything from them, but she likes what she sees on their website.

The Yarn Circle

(Murphy, NC -- close to John C. Campbell Folk School)

E Bay

always worth checking

Today is Distaff Day -- Let 2010 Begin!

2010-01-07T20:19:00.000-05:00

A "tweet" by Weavolution caught my eye today. It tells me that in European cultural traditions, today; January 7 - the first day after the feast of Epiphany, is Roc Day, or Distaff Day. It is the day weavers and spinners return to their looms and their wheels after the holidays. The distaff or rock, used in spinning, was the medieval symbol of women's work. Today, some modern-day crafters' groups have incorporated Distaff Day into their New Year's celebrations. It is a good day for us to begin our 2010 year.

Please plan to join us Saturday, January 16, from 2 - 4 PM for our first Guild meeting of the year. Our own Anne Ball will present our program on Peyote Stitch -- a form of bead weaving. We will meet at Anne's house and work around her dining room table. As with other popular hands-on Guild programs, Anne will show us samples of her work to give us an idea of what is possible, then give us some basic instructions -- and then let us try our hand at bead weaving in this style.

If you would like to attend as a guest, please know you are welcome. Contact Sandy at sandee63@bellsouth.net for additional information. If you are a member and know someone who would enjoy this program, please do bring them or encourage them to come.

The business portion of our meeting will be brief to allow as much time as possible to learn Peyote Stitch. It is, however, time for most of us to renew our annual membership in the Guild. Please bring $25 or a check made out to PFAG to take care of dues for the 2010 year. Garnette will ask you to complete a quick form to update your contact info at that time.

Announcement #1 The PO Box for the Guild has been relocated to a more convenient location for the current officers. The new mailing address is P O Box 31341, Charleston, SC 29417. If you ever need it, you can find it in the footer of this blog page.

Announcement #2 Anne needs to know how many people to expect for her bead weaving program on Jan. 16, so please respond to the e-mails that go out before Wednesday, January 13 -- or leave a comment at the end of this message.

We look forward to seeing as many of you on the 16th as possible. Until then, stay warm!

A Quick Look Back at 2009

2009-12-29T22:22:00.000-05:00

It is already 2010 and we are about to fling ourselves pell mell at all the things before us. Before the opportunity is completely gone, I'd like to quickly summarize the fiber guild's 2009 year. It was a good one and deserves a nod before we move along.

Wendy Ross came to us in January for a jaw dropping program on her experience doing the Certificate of Excellence in Weaving through the Handweaver's Guild of America -- the national association of which our guild is an affiliate. Those of us who weave, went home promising to challenge ourselves a bit more -- even in small ways -- rather than to continue to do what we've always done.

In February, Catherine Lamkin and Cookie Washington took our breathe away again telling us about and showing their "story quilts." These two artists learned to sew at their mothers' knees, and now translate the events of their lives into beautifully, creatively embellished and crafted pictures that you can also wrap yourself up in. When we met them, their work had recently been featured in Charleston Magazine, Cookie had just delivered a quilt to a show in Washington in conjuction with the Presidential inauguration, and they were leaving our meeting to attend the opening of Mermaids and Merwomen in Black Folklore that they were curating together at the Avery Research Institute downtown. In the picture to the left, Catherine is holding her entry in the show -- a quilt depicting the Gullah legend of Sukey and the Mermaid. She had quite literally just made the last stitches in it before she stood up to speak to us. Amazing, inspiring women!

In March, Vera Hannaford spoke with us about how internet resources and tools, and particularly social networking, has transformed her experience as a "cronic crocheter." Vera's Crafty Blog started as a means to document her projects, and after a while, people she didn't even know were logging on to see what she was doing, what thread she had discovered and what patterns were catching her eye. Vera told us about a whole world of sites for people who love yarn and all it will do. Ravelry has been big for several years, now a similar site for weavers called Weavolution is just getting off the ground.

In March, Denise Spanos did a well received Open Studio with felted postcards for the North Charleston Cultural Arts Center. Heather Howell came in April and told us her fascinating story of living and working with indigenous weavers in a remote area of Costa Rica. At the left you can see a sample of the Barucan tribe's weaving. Heather's expertise in dying natural fiber opened the door for her to spend several months living and working among these traditional spinners and backstrap loom weavers. Also in April, some of us helped out at Middleton Plantation's Sheep and Wool Show.

In May, our program was an introduction to the idea of weaving with materials taken right from our own yards and gardens. We were also introduced, through Carl and Linnie Trettin, to the Maseru Tapestry Cooperative in Lesotho South Africa and their need for support. Our Guild quickly mobilized and successfully raised over $800 to finance a weaving class for new weavers to increase the capacity of this tiny cooperative. We continue to have a connection with this group through the Trettins. As you can see to the right, their tapestries are just wonderful, but produced in what we would consider quite spartan and humble surroundings.

In June, Beth Parrott conducted a workshop on knitting socks and the Guild's program was a Super Show and Tell. Fun! Arianne King-Comer came to us in July and shared her journey from housewife to professional batik artist and expert on indigo. She is another treasure working here in the Charleston area.

In September, we brought in dried materials from our gardens and tried our hand at weaving with such plant material as day lily foliage, honeysuckle, and iris leaves. (See the sample on the loom to the right.) In October we were introduced to a Japanese paper spinning process and in November, Kelly Fort got us experimenting with hand felting to embellish jackets, sweaters, bags and to make 3 dimensional objects.

We ended the year with a holiday brunch at Lynn Holland's home and enjoyed a gift exchange where gifts were either handmade or selected with an awareness of what an avid fiber artist would like. Below you see how pleased Del is with her grapevine wreathe embellished with a felted poinsettia, inspired by our November program on felting and made by Liz Hoos. It was a grand year, lots of fun and very inspiring and good reason to look forward to 2010.

Holiday Brunch -- Saturday Dec. 19

2009-12-12T11:24:00.000-05:00

Piedmont Fiber Arts Guild Holiday Brunch

Saturday, December 19 11:30 - 2:00

Lynn Holland's house

Bring a brunch-type dish to share and -- if you'd like to participate in a "Dirty Santa" type of gift exchange -- bring a wrapped, fiber-related gift. Spectators are welcome, but it's a lot of fun to jump into the fray!.

Our meetings are always so packed-full and busy, we rarely get the time to visit and get to know each other better. This is our opportunity to do that.

To protect Lynn's privacy just a little bit, we aren't posting her address and directions to her house here -- please refer to your Guild roster and Mapquest -- or get in touch with Sandy Hutchinson she'll help you out with directions.

Even if you haven't made one meeting all year, please join us for this. Can't wait to see you all on Saturday.

Closing Out Our Year with a Felting Workshop

2009-11-29T17:12:00.000-05:00

Kelly Fort has been dabbling in felting for over a year now and shared some of what she has learned with the rest of us at our Guild meeting on Nov. 21. Here is the jacket Kelly embellished that got everyone interested in learning what we could do with a plain wool jacket from the bargain basement and time to get creative.

Our instructions were to bring a jacket, cardigan or bag we wanted to embellish -- or to wash old wool items in very hot water and a little soap to make them mat to felt. We could then cut the felt to make items pretty in themselves, or to use as a background to experiment with needle-felting techniques. Here is everyone diving in:

Here, Del tries her hand at needle-felting a design onto a felted background. The barbed needle(on the end of the pink pen in her hand) causes the roving to intertwine with the wool fibers in the background.

And here, DeDee shapes the red-colored roving and needle-felts it into a three-dimensional flower. She experimented with working over a foam background and over a brush.

Everyone went home with lots of ideas of ways felting might become part of their own repertoire -- but for the day's efforts, Kelly's jacket still stole the show!

A bit of significant business at this meeting was the election of next year's Board -- Sandy Hutchinson will serve as President with Lynn Holland as Vice President, Kelly Fort as Secretary, and Garnette Tuten as Treasurer.

After a busy year of superb programs and activities, Michaela McIntosh steps away from a Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild board position for the first time in a very long time. Deep appreciation was expressed to her for her vision, leadership and dedication to bringing together people who share interest in handweaving and fiber arts. Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild will continue to rely on Michaela's knowledge and willingness to teach and mentor.

PFAG Announcements

2009-09-23T20:50:00.000-04:00

Saturday, September 26, 10 AM - 1 PM, Beth Parrott will be doing a workshop on Fixing Knitting Mistakes at Knit in downtown Charleston.

Do you subscribe to any of the Interweave Press publications? If so, bring a check to our next meeting on Oct. 17, and complete an order form for the magazines you want at the meeting. When we send the order in as a guild, you will save $5 per subscription.

Judy Warren sends us heads up on the upcoming observance for the UN's "International Day of Felt" coming up Oct. 3. Felters around the world, working with reds, oranges and yellows are planning one-day park displays, hangings/drapings from fences, trees, etc. They are primarily fun, easy displays, just meant to raise awareness.

That segues nicely to our felting program coming up in November. The date is Nov. 21. Our program in Oct. will be new and different for almost all of us -- a Japanese paper spinning technique called Shi-fu. Should be fun.

We have heard from the Masaru Tapestries Cooperative and the weaving class we raised money for is in progress. A new Peace Corps worker is our contact now and she is just getting her bearings. She sent the picture above of one of the students at work. Carl Tretton, who brought the project to our awareness initially, is planning to go back to Lesotho in the near future and is planning to check in with the Co-op.

Our September Guild Meeting

2009-09-22T20:46:00.000-04:00

Saturday's meeting was a lot of fun -- In the local spirit of the United Nation's declaration of this as the year of natural fibres we got to experiment with weaving with the most natural of fibres -- plant materials right out of our yards.

Michaela and others came through the door with what seemed to be truckloads of dried bundles of plant materials in a range of browns, yellows, golds, and greens. In this picture you see just part of what was available for us to experiment with on a table loom that was already warped up for us. The things we agreed we were quite successful with included day lilies, iris foliage, and sweet grass. We were less successful with coreopsis and honeysuckle, but both might have had more potential with a different warp

Take a look at the picture in the right column of a mug mat still on the loom, that was done in just a matter of minutes by several weavers trying their hand with different plant materials. There is lots of potential here -- and we're not even talking about basketry, yet -- though Garnette came in with enough grapevine that we could have done a whole program on that.

For Show & Tell, Kelly showed us a plain zippered jacket with a hood that she bought for a song and added her own colorful felted trim. The webmaster's camera batteries died so there is no picture at this time, but trust me, it was beautiful.

Michaela sent in this picture of a shawl she was commissioned to do -- the weave structure is a variation of Ms & Os. Michaela says the weft floats are too long for practical use, but isn't it pretty? In the close-up lower picture, you can see why she calls it a "Stained Glass" shawl.

September Meeting

2009-08-26T19:38:00.000-04:00

Back in May, Michaela shared with us a recent article in Handwoven about weaving with garden plant materials. Our assignment was to spend the summer gathering appropriate plants from our gardens and even from the roadways. The foliage of iris, cattails, marsh grass, -- anything long-ish and pliable. Those things were to be brought indoors, wrapped in newspaper and left to dry.

Well, it’s time to bring these dried materials with you to the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild meeting on Saturday, Sept. 19, from 2 – 4 PM. We’ll experiment with weaving with these truly natural fibers. Michaela will lead our session based on the work of Connecticut master weaver, Rita Buchanan.

Come even if you haven’t been hunting and gathering all summer. It will be one of those meetings where you’ll get all kinds of new ideas about weaving materials.

Successful Fundraiser! No Meeting in August.

2009-08-05T20:20:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Arianne King Comer for a wonderful program at our July meeting. Fiber Guild enthusiasts really turned out for the opportunity to hear Arianne share her deep experise in dying -- specifically indigo -- and the art of batik.

It is the height of summer and Palmetto Fiber Arts guild members are traveling and otherwise enjoying family, friends and our beautiful coastal lowcountry. We'll take a break from our regular meeting in August, but plan to join us in September on Saturday, the 19th.

We should all be proud that in a very short period of time, we exceeded our fundraising goal of $1100.00 for the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative in Lesotho South Africa.

To the left you can see a member of the Coop standing in front of and holding samples of Coop members' work. Notice the wall behind, completely filled with soda cans. Is this for decoration? insulation? in lieu of Sheetrock and painted walls? We'll have to ask about this .

Along with our common interest in spinning and weaving, one of the appeals of this project was the huge difference a relatively small sum of money, by our standards, could make in the survival of entire families.

The Board voted to contribute $500 from the Guild's treasury and Beth Parrot got things rolling with a challenge to raise or contribute $50 each. Members and friends responded generously, including a gift of $200 from the Community and Global Mission Group at Circular Congregational Church. The 3-month weaving class for at least five new weavers is underway now. Thank you to all who participated. We'll continue to post pictures as we get them.

Guild Meeting July 18 -- Arianne King Comer

2009-07-04T09:47:00.001-04:00

You'll want to be sure to make the July guild meeting to meet one of our newest members, Arianne King Comer, who will be presenting our program. Arianne is a multi-talented artist specializing in batik using the traditional indigo dye process to create batik paintings, wearable art, and decorative items. The picture is a detail from Arianne's depiction of a Gullah rendition of one of the Psalms that hangs across the back wall of the sanctuary of Charleston's Unity Church on Leed's Avenue.

A graduate of Howard University, Arianne has also studied textiles at the graduate level at Detroit Center of Creative Studies and Cranbrook Art Academy. She worked as a certified art teacher in Michigan before pursuing art full time and studying the indigo dye process on a United Nations grant in Oshogbo, Nigeria in 1992. She was the director of the Ibile Indigo House at Penn Center until 2004 and she relocated to Charleston in 2006.

Clearly Arianne is not only a gifted artist, but an experienced teacher as well. We understand she plans to let us try our hand at a dying process.

In August, we'll take a summer break and not meet formally. Alternative ideas under discussion are to either gather in someone's home at our regular meeting time on Saturday, Aug. 15, or to organize a field trip to visit the woolen mill in Jamestown. Let us know what you'd like to do.

Social Networking Site for Weavers and Spinners

2009-06-23T09:46:00.001-04:00

Ravelry became such a popular networking site for knitters and crocheters that weavers and spinners sort of horned in and created groups that addressed their own interests. Now there's a new site built along the same vein as Ravelry, but specifically for handweavers -- it's Weavolution and it's brand new.

Weavolution was created by three experienced weavers, -- Tien Chiu in San Francisco, Claudia Segal who lives outside of DC and Allison Giachetti in Colorado. They dreamed of an online community of weavers from everywhere and one-stop-shopping to access all the weaving/spinning resources that are spread out all over the Internet. The site has been in development for well over a year and just launched on June 9.

Because it is so new, it is not quite as intimidating as Ravelry to jump into (there is no wait for your membership to be approved). To get started, just set up your profile (easy), post some pictures of things you've made (optional), join the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild group that has already been established -- and look around to see what else is interesting to you.

You can find people who are using the same loom you are, or you can see what other people have made with your favorite yarn or your favorite pattern. Enter anything you'd like to know or see more about into the search field and you'll find tons of information. I found 7 - 8 weavers from South Carolina, looked at Peg from SC's blog, and saw that no one has posted any projects using one of my favorite yarns, a white nubby cotton called Queen Anne's lace.

Expect to encounter some technical glitches, lots of people way more experienced than you, lots of people with far more and far more sophisticated equipment than you have, but it is there for us to make of it what we want it to be. It can certainly be a vehicle for people who are looking to connect with handweavers in our area -- so for that reason alone, it is to our benefit to represent ourselves online as an active group interested in connecting with others -- because we are.

Have fun and let me know what you think of Weavolution.

Upcoming Guild Meeting -- June 20

2009-06-12T09:49:00.001-04:00

Our program in June will be an afternoon of "Super Show & Tell". Bring your work -- what you're working now on or something you've recently completed. We'll take time to ooooh and ahhhh and hear some of the details about the materials you used and why, how you came up with your design, what you tried that you hadn't tried before and what you liked about it and what you didn't. It's always fun and inspiring to see the all different interests and talents that are within our group. We look forward to seeing you -- and to seeing your recent work and/or work in progress.

The word on the street is that Beth Parrot's Mini-sock Knitting Workshop on June 6 was a big success with six students, two of whom were brand new to sock knitting. Beth covered a lot of ground during the day, teaching two heels and explaining why she does a three-stitch garter band on either side of the heel. She also showed how to eliminate the hole at the gusset. Anyone know what "tinking" is? This group does -- and practiced doing it. If you know, send a comment and tell the rest of us!

Everyone was so busy knitting at the workshop, no one took any pictures. I hope someone will bring a mini-sock to Super Show & Tell, so we can get a snap and post it here.

The Guild is making good progress in our fundraising project for the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative in Lesotho, South Africa. They need $1,100 to train five new weavers who can help them double the capacity of the Cooperative. The Guild is contributing $500 from our treasury and as of this writing, has collected an additional $400 for the project. Our deadline is June 30, so if you haven't contributed yet, please bring a check to the meeting on June 20 or mail a check made out to the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild, to P O Box 42119, Charleston, SC 29423.

A recent item in the paper indicated that Prince Harry of England is also concerned about improving the conditions in Lesotho. He and Lesotho's Prince Seeiso both lost their mothers when they were young and both of their mothers were involved in solving problems caused by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. So, in 2004, the two princes joined forces and founded Sentebale, (which means "Forget Me Not) an NGO for Lesotho's orphans and vulnerable children who are too often the forgotten victims of HIV/AIDS and poverty.

This 3 minute video shows Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso with children in Lesotho. It is worth watching to see a bit of the haunting beauty of the countryside and a great scene of Prince Seeiso dancing with a group of children. The women in the Masaru Tapestries Cooperative are raising children alone just like the ones you see here. Our contributions will give them a better chance to support their families in very difficult circumstances. Isn't it amazing how our common love of art and craft can knit and weave a safety net for another family in another place?

Fundraising for a Small, South African Weaving Cooperative

2009-05-28T10:11:00.000-04:00

The Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild has agreed to contribute $500 toward the cost of training five women to weave for the Maseru Tapestries Cooperative in Lesotho, a small, landlocked country in South Africa, southeast of Johannesburg (Google maps). The area has a ready supply of wool and mohair, and weaving cooperatives are helping many women support their families in a region that, while politically stable, has lost nearly a third of its population to HIV/AIDS.

The Maseru Tapestries Cooperative currently has a steady, low-volume business providing for a few tourist craft outlets and handling periodic custom orders. Peace Corps volunteers have been working with the cooperative to help them improve their business practices and become more sustainable. One of their limiting factors is not enough trained weavers to produce the quantity of goods needed for long-term viability. Five additional weavers will double the capacity of the cooperative, allowing it to expand its business while providing livelihoods for families in need.

The cost of a 3-month training program for five women is $1, 100. The Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild will contribute $500 from the treasury of the Guild and will accept other donations through the end of June. Let's see how much of the needed $1,100 we can raise!

Beth Parrot has issued a challenge! She has pledged $50 to the project and she will raise it by our next meeting on June 20th by finding 4 others besides herself who will give $10 or, one other besides herself who will give $25 or, she will write a check for the entire $50 or, some other combination of her own money and finding others to contribute. She challenges each of us to do the same.

Checks should be made out to the Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild with Maseru Tapestries Cooperative indicated in the Memo line and mailed to: Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild, P O Box 42119 , Charleston, SC 29423 . Our Guild is not a tax exempt non-profit organization, so your contribution cannot be tax deductible, but we hope you will support this good cause anyway. We will let you know the results of the weaving training class and show you pictures of what the cooperative is able to do with more weavers.

Khotso, Pula, Nala! -- Peace, Rain, Prosperity!

Need a Loom?

2009-05-13T11:33:00.000-04:00

If you are a member of the guild and are interested in any of the available looms listed here, use your membership roster and contact the person mentioned. If you are not a member of PFAG, leave a comment and we will put you in touch with the contact person.

Gert Sever wants to sell her 8 harness Baby Wolf. No high castle, no extras, just the loom. $900.00.

Michaela knows of a woman who is anxious to sell a 60" LeClerc jack loom -- 8 or 10 harnesses. It is worth at least $1500.00 but she will sell it for less.

A chance to own a piece of history! Middleton Plantation wants to sell a loom from their weaving shop that was built in the 1930s for the WPA (Works Progress Administration). It is a 4-harness counter balance, 45" floor loom made of fir with a sectional beam. The canvas on the front beam is in good condition. $300.

Mini-Sock Class with Nationally Recognized Knitter, Beth Parrott

2009-04-20T15:18:00.001-04:00

Mini-Sock Class with Beth Parrot
Saturday, June 6 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM
The Meeting Place in North Charleston
$20 for PFAG Members
$30 for Nonmember
plus $7 materials fee.

Mark your calendars for Saturday June 6. The Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild will offer a day-long Mini-Sock Knitting Class by nationally recognized knitter Beth Parrot. Beth co-authored The Little Book of Socks with Charlene Schurch and will be teaching at John C. Campbell with Charlene in May. Beth lives in Charleston and is a member of Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild. We are pleased to make this affordable opportunity available to local knitters who have knitted socks already and to those who want to get in on the fun!

Participants should be able to cast on and knit. Yarn will be provided, but you should bring a set of 5 size 3 or 4 dp needles, (they often come in sets of 4, bring a spare so you will have 5 needles) a ruler, tape measure and/or a stitch gauge, small scissors, stitch markers and a tapestry needle.

The workshop will take place at The Meeting Place in North Charleston and the cost for the day will be $20 for Palmetto Fiber Arts Guild Members and $30 for non-members. Each person is also asked to pay a $7 materials fee (only $3 if you bring your own yard. Make it DK weight in a very light color or white

To register, print and mail the registration form before the May 29 deadline.

A Fiber Fact

2009-04-06T19:53:00.000-04:00

As noted in the January 2009 issue of Martha Stewart Living, crocheters and knitters each made about 21 items in 2007, up from 17 in 2005. The favorite projects were scarves, afghans, and baby blankets. Source: The Craft Yarn Council of America.

One Weaver's Costa Rican Experience

2009-03-27T15:43:00.001-04:00

Upcoming Guild Meeting -- April 18 -- 2:00 - 4:00 PM at The Meeting Place in N. Charleston.

At Colorado State University in the late 1990s, Heather Howell majored in Apparel & Merchandising with a concentration in natural fibers. As a senior, she designed an independent study project that took her to a remote Costa Rican village where, for four months, she lived with and learned from the ancient Borucan tribe known for their spun cotton and backstrap loom weavings. The tribe welcomed Heather's ability to coax more colors and more vibrant colors from native plants and indigenous materials and Heather grew in her atunement with the earth's natural processes and gifts. Today, Heather has three young children and a thriving home-based natural skin care busin ess. It all started during that special time over 10 years ago in Costa Rica. At our meeting in April she will share her story of that time and show us examples of woven goods made in Costa Rica.

At our last two meetings, Vera Hannaford has been crocheting these afghan squares out of Kureyon Sock Yarn. She says the yarn sometimes behaves badly, but the beautiful colors make it worth the trouble. The next step in the process will be the addition of a bright blue border to tie it all together.

Upcoming Guild Meeting -- March 21

2009-03-01T18:37:00.000-05:00

Our guest this month is Vera Hannaford, author of Vera's Crafty Blog - a local blog that details the on-going projects of one of Charleston's most prolific crochet-ers. If you knit or crochet, if you love yarns and patterns and finding new sources of both, you will find Vera to be a wealth of information and inspiration.

Vera combines her passion for a traditional craft many of us learned from our grandmothers with an up-to-the minute command of technology resources for crafters -- her internationally followed blog is just one case in point.

In January, our newsletter included a list of links and websites of interest to fiber crafters and artists. Vera will share how she uses these and other web tools -- and how the World Wide Web is making resources, tools and the people who inspire us easier to connect with all the time.

These felted baby booties were knitted with yarn spun from rabbit fur by Paula Ashworth.