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2004. Our Silver Anniversary Year

Our Guild was set up in 1979 and is one of 100 guilds in the British Isles which together form the Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers. 2004 was our 25th Anniversary so we organised some special celebratory events.

We held anniversary exhibitions at;

Castle Park Arts Centre, Frodsham. This was held in February and March 2004 and was a great success.

Atkinson Art Gallery, Southport 8th December to 3rd January 2005. A Silver Anniversary Wall-hanging with contributions from all members was unveiled at this exhibition.

The President of the National Association of Guilds of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers, Professor Maureen Wayman, Dean of the Faculty of Art and Design at Manchester Metropolitan University gave an Anniversary Lecture on Saturday 2nd October at 2pm. The Lecture was entitled 'Textiles - The Way Ahead' and was most enlightening.

For more details about our Anniversary Year click here.

Our Logo

Our Logo was designed by one of the Guild's founder members, Margaret Seagroatt. It is based upon what weavers call a block weave, where blocks of threads are lifted up or down together on the loom to form a pattern.

Margaret chose to develop the design using a particular technique called four block overshot, where thicker contrasting threads float over or under blocks of background threads. This forms a pattern on the front of the fabric and the reverse pattern on the back. This technique was particularly popular for weaving bedspreads in North America.

Reports John Allen at North Cheshire Guild Hilary and Gina went to hear John Allen's talk at Croft Village Hall. He spoke of his latest travelling exhibition now at Morley College, London and the work in it. He does the designs and samples and then has the work woven in Nepal. He said that being President of the Guild had brought him back to weaving - we think of his work involving knitting. He always advocates cross discipline work and wants us to spread our wings and try to combine crafts, not keep ourselves in separate little cliques of weavers, felters, spinners etc. As usual he was an entertaining and thought provoking speaker. Guild Activities during the 2nd National Week of Weaving, Spinning and Dyeing A group of members who live in and around Southport met in the Wayfarers Arcade, Lord Street, Southport on Saturday 8th May to engage visitors interest in our activities. It proved to be very busy, with children drawn in particular to the hands-on activities which included the two guild rigid heddle looms. Penny had also brought with her a clever small 2-shaft table loom that folds flat with the warp on, which she had bought in a toy shop in Sweden for about £16 (already warped up!). June's colourful rag-rug pictures were popular and sparked many a memory of evenings spent turning old clothes into rugs for the floor. In particular, I enjoyed meeting "real" weavers, retired from the mills of Lancashire and on a day trip to Southport with always a story to tell of hard times. A sad sequel is that Doyles, the antique shop in the arcade that lent us lovely chairs to sit on was gutted by fire three days later and everything was lost. Fortunately the fire brigade contained the fire and the rest of the arcade was saved.
Reports of our Monthly Meetings April Meeting A Tapestry in a Day? A workshop with Eta Lawrie - April 3rd 2004 What a day we were to have! We all thought we were just coming to a tapestry workshop, but it turned out to be more than that for Eta arrived with not only the looms and fibres, but several enormous tapestries of her own. They were such beautiful and colourful works of art and she hooked them up all around the stair-well outside Sister Anthony's studio so that it looked as though we were having an exhibition! After a welcome cup of tea we warped up our looms, with Eta instructing where necessary. The baskets of wools and threads were piled high on the tables and we were able to dip into those - it was like touching rainbows with our fingers; the colours and fibres encouraged us to play! Eta assured us that we would complete our tapestries in the day but we all thought this was a little optimistic. She then went on to show us how to do stripes, diagonal lines and curves and how to use the varied weft fibres to put shading into our work and under her direction the tapestries began to grow. We did complete them in the workshop and then we were shown how to remove them from the loom and how to finish them off. Everyone was very pleased with what they had produced and as they came off the looms and were twirled in the air, the colours and designs sang out from each tapestry. Eta had a box of crooked twigs, picked from trees, and we hung our tapestries on these. It was a day very well spent and we all went home with our works of art. JUNE HOWARD
May Meeting Members Meeting This was a well attended meeting when plans were made for our "Learn to Spin" day at the museum. Members brought their pieces for the Silver Jubilee Wall Hanging and a good chat. If you haven't yet brought your piece for the Jubilee Wall Hanging, please do have it at the June meeting complete with velcro on the corners so that the whole piece can easily be put together.
Speke Hall Weekend May 22nd - 23rd Margaret, Celia and Ollie went to Speke and set up the display before demonstrating on the 22nd May in the Education Room. Penny, Beatrice, Julie and Pheobe took over on the 23rd. As usual there was lots of interest and people coming to see what we do.

Reports

John Allen at North Cheshire Guild

Hilary and Gina went to hear John Allen's talk at Croft Village Hall. He spoke of his latest travelling exhibition now at Morley College, London and the work in it. He does the designs and samples and then has the work woven in Nepal. He said that being President of the Guild had brought him back to weaving - we think of his work involving knitting.

He always advocates cross discipline work and wants us to spread our wings and try to combine crafts, not keep ourselves in separate little cliques of weavers, felters, spinners etc.

As usual he was an entertaining and thought provoking speaker.

Guild Activities during the 2nd National Week of Weaving, Spinning and Dyeing

A group of members who live in and around Southport met in the Wayfarers Arcade, Lord Street, Southport on Saturday 8th May to engage visitors interest in our activities. It proved to be very busy, with children drawn in particular to the hands-on activities which included the two guild rigid heddle looms. Penny had also brought with her a clever small 2-shaft table loom that folds flat with the warp on, which she had bought in a toy shop in Sweden for about £16 (already warped up!). June's colourful rag-rug pictures were popular and sparked many a memory of evenings spent turning old clothes into rugs for the floor. In particular, I enjoyed meeting "real" weavers, retired from the mills of Lancashire and on a day trip to Southport with always a story to tell of hard times.

A sad sequel is that Doyles, the antique shop in the arcade that lent us lovely chairs to sit on was gutted by fire three days later and everything was lost. Fortunately the fire brigade contained the fire and the rest of the arcade was saved.

Reports of our Monthly Meetings

April Meeting

A Tapestry in a Day? A workshop with Eta Lawrie - April 3rd 2004

What a day we were to have! We all thought we were just coming to a tapestry workshop, but it turned out to be more than that for Eta arrived with not only the looms and fibres, but several enormous tapestries of her own. They were such beautiful and colourful works of art and she hooked them up all around the stair-well outside Sister Anthony's studio so that it looked as though we were having an exhibition!

After a welcome cup of tea we warped up our looms, with Eta instructing where necessary. The baskets of wools and threads were piled high on the tables and we were able to dip into those - it was like touching rainbows with our fingers; the colours and fibres encouraged us to play! Eta assured us that we would complete our tapestries in the day but we all thought this was a little optimistic. She then went on to show us how to do stripes, diagonal lines and curves and how to use the varied weft fibres to put shading into our work and under her direction the tapestries began to grow. We did complete them in the workshop and then we were shown how to remove them from the loom and how to finish them off. Everyone was very pleased with what they had produced and as they came off the looms and were twirled in the air, the colours and designs sang out from each tapestry. Eta had a box of crooked twigs, picked from trees, and we hung our tapestries on these. It was a day very well spent and we all went home with our works of art.

JUNE HOWARD

May Meeting

Members Meeting

This was a well attended meeting when plans were made for our "Learn to Spin" day at the museum. Members brought their pieces for the Silver Jubilee Wall Hanging and a good chat.

If you haven't yet brought your piece for the Jubilee Wall Hanging, please do have it at the June meeting complete with velcro on the corners so that the whole piece can easily be put together.

Speke Hall Weekend

May 22nd - 23rd

Margaret, Celia and Ollie went to Speke and set up the display before demonstrating on the 22nd May in the Education Room. Penny, Beatrice, Julie and Pheobe took over on the 23rd. As usual there was lots of interest and people coming to see what we do.

This page last modified 30 September, 2005