Golden Threads Exhibition

HW, S & D guild 50th anniversary ‘Golden Threads’ exhibition a collection of beautiful weaving, woven textiles, spinning and dyeing created by the guild members

will be held at

ATWELL GALLERY

586 Canning Hwy, Alfred Cove, WA

Saturday Sept 1st to Sunday Sept 9th

Opening Sept 1st at 2pm 

The grand opening by the guilds patron Mrs Ruth Reid, AM CIT. WA

Devonshire tea will be served

A guild member will be present every day during the exhibition providing demonstrations on spinning & weaving. Tea & coffee will also be served.

Blog Stats

Weavers, as a new blog/web page for the weavers’ guild of WA, I am very proud to tell you we had a total of 81 viewers in under 24 hours.

This hopefully is an amazing start to promoting our weaving craft and shouting out to the rest of the world that we are here, in Perth, weaving & spinning and welcome new members and interested persons in our rare and unusual talents & art.

Remarkable Work woven by Connie Ward.

Connie shows off her latest ‘remarkable’ woven table wear. Connie crocheted the selvages to disguise the extra yarn ends that enabled her to achieve this amazing effect! Another great project completed after obtaining new techniques learnt in a recent workshop.

Well done Connie!

Margaret & Sue….in deep woven matter!

Todays group of girls busy weaving a yarn!

Setting up the Inkle looms. Sue Greig is our residient Inkle guru, and showed us how to make heddles and dress an Inkle loom. Each weaver will dress our looms differently & we get to weave on  all the looms so each weaver has a sample of all the types of patterns…….

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Weavers Group 10/07/07

July 10th, 2007

Beads, beads, beads…..

Beautiful beads made by Margaret & Carole in a recent workshop.

Beads are used alot to embellish woven pieces.  Great work girls! Bead on!

Happy 50th Anniversary!

  

The Hand Weavers’, Spinners’ and Dyers’ Guild of Western Australia celebrates it’s 50th Anniversary this year. To help celebrate this amazing mile stone, a fantastic luncheon was held at the Alexander Park Craft House, Menora. There was a great turn out of past and present guild members and some partners and it was lovely to meet and have a yarn (pardon the pun) with friends complete with superb food and music entertainment to wrap up the afternoon.

This year three members were presented with the honorary ‘Life Member’ award. Marie Wynne, Rosemary Skinner and our President, Jean Leary were all very surprised when their names were announced! They are all well deserving individuals of their new titles and I would like to congratulate them on achieving this wonder honor.

Well done ladies!

Marie with Connie Ward

Rosemary Skinner

A very surprised Jean being presented her ‘Life Member’ badge by Connie

Some more party people…..

The young table!?

Tapestry ladies, Karen & Toni.

Cheer up Alethea, no frown lines, remember!

The two Shirleys!! Yours truly and Shirley Pittard.

It was a day for sharing and networking with our peers……I had a wonderful time, thanks girls!

Brenda Roy with her two beautiful pieces of weaving.

The Six tapestries I saw in the Museum in New Norcia.

Margaret PC’s hat made from her hand spun possum hair!! Super soft!

Sue Greig wore her stunning outfit made from her hand woven fabric.

New Norcia – Rapheal “Head of an Apostle”

25.04.07  The Treasure Trio visited New Norcia combining a stock drop off with an exhibition viewing of the tapestries of the Rapheal painting/tapestry cartoon that is on exhibit in the museum and art gallery of New Norcia, Western Australia.

“Head of the Apostle” is an original tempera drawing on paper, circle of Rapheal and his pupil Giulio Romano 1492-1546. This is a fragment of a cartoon for the tapestry ‘Decent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost’ currently hanging in the Cappella Palina, Vatican, Rome.

One of the guild members Joy Skinner is one of the tapestry weavers involved in completing one of these highly skillful tapestries. (I will provide more info when I meet her next, and interview her on this amazing project.)

Tapestry Weavers try Production Weaving.

Today I had a visit from some lovely ladies from the Weavers’ guild WA, most of whom only tapestry weave.  They were on a weaving expedition to view the tapestries on exhibit at New Norcia. (I do intend to visit this week)

I showed off  Joanne (my Weavebird loom) and 3 took on the challenge to test drive her! Connie was up first (no photo of Connie at the loom as I was too late with my camera) I had to explain that production weaving doesn’t need the whacking that tapestry does. Connie whacked the beater so hard the ppc (picks per cm) went from about a 6ppc to a 2ppc!!! Good on ya, Connie!

Elizabeth Atahan’s talk.

Elizabeth Atahan was the Weavers’ guild guest speaker on the 14th of April.

Elizabeth has travelled around China & Myanmar, she buys and collects textiles from all over Asia and has the most amazing collection she has purchased on her travels.

The detail of these woven garments and body adornments were breathtaking. Elizabeth called them “Her Treasures”! Indeed they were a treasure to see, touch and admire all the intricated threads, yarns and embellishments on them. Again I got a few more ideas for my creations……..as Connie and Rosemary said ‘there is nothing new in weaving just old ideas produced differently.’

The Akha and Akau women wear colourful skirts and leggings. (pictured below) These leggings are used as ankle guards to protect their legs while they work in the Forrest. Almost all the Akau peoples garments are made from cotton as it can be grown easily, Elizabeth saw some goats which would have been spun and woven but she saw no sheep, so wool would be in short supply.

These are some of Elizabeth’s photos and notes taken on her trips.

This large red and black bag is used to store the warp in when working on the looms.

My pick of the bunch is this beautiful shawl/blanket made by the Narga people. I love the stripes and block weaving, again with hand made pom-poms and little personal bits to give it an individual touch.