June 10, 2021 at 11 a.m.
Linda Brasel has very generously offered to host us at her home in Aberdeen, Maryland. She has a large outdoor deck area where people may socially distance while enjoying the company of other Guild members. Should the weather be unfriendly, there is a large ground floor “Crab Room” to allow for plenty of fresh air circulation.
Guild members are asked to bring your own boxed lunch and table service.
If you have a camp/beach chair to bring, that would be helpful. If you feel comfortable carpooling.
We will also have the opportunity for you to show any works you have made recently. This includes members of the Tote Bag group, who should bring their handiwork to show off!
Start setting aside your yarn stash, fiber arts books and magazines, weaving tools, and dye plants that you would like to donate to Guild for our Annual Auction. Always a fun part of the June Picnic!
There will be a business meeting, elections will be held and plans for the coming program year will be discussed as well.

November 12, 2020

Anastasia Azure will present a program entitled   Weaving a Story:  Personal Expression in Handwovens

Weaving a Story is a design-oriented approach towards creating self-expressive and meaningful handwoven cloth. As weavers we often focus on the end product, however there is an alternative approach that allows higher creativity to lead the way. Anastasia will share step-by-step exercises that can connect you to artistic weaving.

Anastasia earned her MFA in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2011 and BFA in Jewelry Metal Arts at the California College of the Arts in 2005. She has participated in many artist residencies and travels the globe teaching imaginative textile and jewelry workshops. Presently she is developing a fair-trade, woven jewelry collection that will provide economic empowerment to Mayan women weavers in Guatemala.

March PROGRAM
MARCH 12, 2020
AMANDA ROBINETTE–TAI CHI FOR FIBER ARTISTS LECTURE AND WORKSHOP* Amanda Robinette is a professional weaver and Tai Chi instructor residing in Mechanicsburg, PA.
She has published several articles in Handwoven magazine, taught at The Mannings Handweaving School and as a guest at weaving guilds, and spoken at the Weaving History Conference at the Thousand Islands Arts Center and Handweaving Museum, as well as at weaving guilds across the U.S.
Amanda shares her interest in all kinds of weaving and clothing recycling on her blog at westernsakiori.com. Through combining her knowledge of weaving and Tai Chi, she also developed Tai Chi for Weavers, a program dedicated to teaching weavers how to use the principles of Tai Chi to improve their weaving ergonomics and stamina. She has taught the program at The Mannings Handweaving School and at weaving guilds, and in 2017 released the program on DVD.
Her current work is focused on continuing to extend the possibilities of rag weaving, yarn recycling and Tai Chi programs for other fiber artists. She lives with her husband and two children (and lots of looms and rags) in central Pennsylvania.design process and textile explorations.

We are having our Holiday Party on Thursday, December 12th at Vulcan’s Rest Fibers
on Route 213 near Chesapeake City, MD.

We will be gathering in their nicely appointed room upstairs starting at 10:30. Our meeting will begin at 11:00 with Show and Tell to follow. Please bring a favorite dish to share at our potluck luncheon. After lunch, please plan to browse around Vulcan’s Rest
Fibers to see what they might have to add to your knitting and weaving stash!

Joanne Gretz will share her experience with the Theo Moorman technique starting with some background and the basics of the weave.  Then she will show you some of her own experiments and finished pieces hopefully giving an idea of how versatile this weave structure can be.

Last fall, Sue wanted to experiment weaving with fine threads. She had some in her stash, but ordered a few more from Habu Textiles and Colourmart. She enjoyed working with these yarns and after sharing my samples at one of the guild meetings, offered to lead a program and workshop on fine threads.
The program will focus on what may be learned while warping and weaving with yarns of a very fine grist, types of yarns available, sources for fine threads/yarns and a review of the different sizing systems used for yarns.
Sue will bring woven samples and some of the different yarns used. Participants who have signed up for the workshop will be provided with over 30 different fine threads to sample. We look forward to learning and sharing what may be learned working with fine threads!

The October guild meeting and the workshop will be held at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Bear, Delaware.

MAY 9, 2019
ST. ELIZABETH ANN SETON CHURCH
345 BEAR-CHRISTIANA RD (RT. 7) BEAR, DE
JADE PAPA, CURATOR, THE DESIGN CENTER, JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY

The Textile and Costume Collection also has under its care hundreds of items from the Philadelphia Civic Center, which closed in the early 2000s. These objects represent commercial textile and costume production from around the world in the late-19th and 20th centuries and are a rich, new area for research. Holdings include textiles made for export in Eastern Europe, China, and India, a remarkable collection of woven straw hats, and much more.
Jade Papa, Curator, of the Design Center, will bring samples of items from the collection and talk about the Design Center’s work and mission.

October 11, 2018 at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church 345 Bear-Christiana Rd (Rt. 7), Bear, DE 19701

Weavers seduced by gorgeous colored yarns often fail to use them successfully. The usual approach to this problem is to learn color theory — a huge and daunting undertaking. Learning terminology is NOT the equivalent of learning to use color well. What is needed is a method to translate color theory, terminology and yarn wrappings into actual weaving. You don’t need to master color theory to use color masterfully.

Ruby will share her extensive collection of samples for a production line of scarves, which document her evolving approach to color design. This progression led to the development of a practical approach to color theory as applied to weaving and a process for designing swatches for Handwoven magazine’s ‘Color Forecast’ series that is applicable for all fiber artists.
Project Colorway: For Weavers Who’d Rather Die than Dye…
Weavers who don’t dye their own yarn are dependent upon color palettes provided by commercial sources. Learning how to blend color while working with already dyed yarn is a different beast than learning how to dye specific hues. “Project Colorway” to the rescue! This is a hands-on approach to learning how to increase your color range when dealing with a finite number of yarn color choices. A variety of off-loom exercises using Ruby’s basic approach to color theory and optical blending, together with a complete color line of Tencel yarn will help you train your eye to see color and value and begin to understand how to incorporate design and color principles into woven structure.
Ruby will demonstrate her method for winding warps with multiple colors without using a paddle and how to design color wrappings that translate into realistic, usable warps. She’ll share an extensive collection of samples for her production line of scarves which document her evolving approach to color design. This progression led to the development of a practical approach to color theory as applied to weaving and a process for designing swatches for Handwoven magazine’s ‘Color Forecast’ series that is applicable for all fiber artists. Participants will be invited to bring in a project that’s giving them headaches, or yarn that they’d like help incorporating into a design. These are the sorts of challenges that this class aims to help resolve.

September 13, 2018 Program

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church
345 Bear-Christiana Rd (Rt. 7), Bear, DE 19701

DESIGNING AND WEAVING TAPESTRY WITH MYRA REICHEL

Myra Reichel is a hand tapestry weaver. She has been weaving since 1970 and has exhibited weavings and tapestries at museums, galleries, craft fairs, wholesale markets, and other venues. Ms. Reichel had two artist’s residencies through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and has taught classes at the Philadelphia Guild of Handweavers, The Wallingford Art Center, and the Media Friends School. was a student at the Philadelphia College of Art. Myra is listed in Who’s Who in American Art, was one of the top 500 American Craft Council crafts persons on the East Coast for at least five years,and has exhibited in solo and group exhibits in galleries and museums.
Myra’s Tapestries are currently on view at the Workerman Gallery, 4031 Cresson Street Manayunk, Philadelphia, PA and at the Reiki Healing Center in Media, PA