SWSG Sat July 21 12

(Note: Click pictures for larger images)

Saturday July 21 2012 - Members of the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild - Saturday Group met at the library in Rancho Cordova, Calif. Above from left to right: Ardith tidies up some inkle loom bands, Vonnie talks about spindles, Janelle crochets with plarn, Linda S spins on drop spindle, Connie crochets a christening gown.

 

 Linda Y twirls and shows off a shrug she wove with yarns she dyed at our dye party at Cathy's house, while Susan W, Lynn, and Connie watch in background.

 Connie showed us the christening gown she is crocheting. She called it an "Irish Rose" pattern. Connie with also be teaching us crochet at our Saturday meeting in August.

 Left:: Janelle is crocheting a shopping bag with "plarn" made from plastic grocery bag strips, It sounds strange but the shopping bag she crochets will be many times stronger than the bags they come from. Center: Green yarn is handspun by Vonnie and you can see the texture you get with handspinning. Right: Ardith brought some bands she wove on her new inkle loom. These are just practice but I see some real potential in where she is going with this.

 Cathy has been away for a while and she brought some of the yarns she has dyed and plied for upcoming sweater project. She has been living in the Sacramento Delta area, a major waterway in Calif. She tells us the mineral content of the water in the sloughs changes the way her dye behaves. She also brought her book of "samples" of dying. She puts them in a book and labels them for reference so she can duplicate a color in the future.

Also present but not pictured Guild Librarian Cheryl  visited with us to swap out equipment we borrowed and bring us our Guild name tags. And Lisa is a guest who found us on the internet! She was looking for a Saturday fiber group.

 Our topic this month was Sprang! I want to give a Sprang class at Lambtown in October and so I practiced on my patient associates in the Saturday Group. Top pic: At home I prepared some sprang frames using plastic baskets, wood dowels and cotton yarn. I wound yarn around the cardboard 9 times and then cut it. That's how I measured yarn to have 8 turns and a little more to tie on with. Bottom pic: This is my larger version frame to use for demonstrating. Note: Little dogs are not impressed by sprang.

Above is some of the product of our sprang class. We had 10 people and I had 10 frames all made up ready to get your fingers into. We focused on basic sprang, nothing fancy. So I learned some things to overcome in future classes. Having the frames wound in advance was a great choice so people can get their fingers into it right away. The sticks to hold each row came from an IKEA placemat that I cut apart.

I am glad to have the opportunity to try this out on a group before I charge people to have a class with me. Not that I would charge a lot of money. Part of the class fee goes to Lambtown USA to support the event and I want folks to get their moneys worth.

NEXT MONTH: Connie is going show us how to CROCHET! But you are welcome to bring your spindles, wheels, and looms to show us what you are working on.

Visit the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild web page for updates, meeting times, and places.
http://www.sacweavespin.org/saturday

Lambtown USA
Dixon, Calif
http://www.lambtown.com/index.html

Other places mentioned:
A Verb For Keeping Warm
Oakland, Calif
http://www.averbforkeepingwarm.com/

Purlsecence Yarns
Sunnyvale, Calif.
http://purlescenceyarns.com/

It was a good day!