| The following guilds were awarded a $500
FiberHearts award for their efforts to create new weavers. If you are looking
for new ways to reach newbie weavers, try a few of these clever ideas. Learn
more about the annual awards or the latest
winners.
2006 | 2005
| 2004 | 2003
FiberHearts
2006
Large Guild Award Winner: Fairbanks Weavers & Spinners
Guild
The Fairbanks Weavers & Spinners Guild simply does not
know the meaning of the word “no.” In 1991, thirteen new members joined
the guild with the hope of learning to weave. At the time, the guild did not have
a formal education program. Members petitioned the University of Alaska, Fairbanks,
to reinstate the weaving courses that had lapsed due to lack of funding and classroom
space. The Fairbanks Guild made the extraordinary offer of accepting responsibility
for renting studio space and providing an instructor. After the first semester,
the guild realized that these classes alone would not create sufficient revenue
to cover the instructor’s salary, insurance, supplies, and rent. The guild
devised a plan to use the weaving studio during the summer for children’s
classes that would sustain the adult weaving classes during the school year. Over
three hundred adults have taken one of the two university-level weaving classes
sponsored by the guild, and countless children aged six to fifteen have been exposed
to the art of interlacing threads. The guild plans to use the FiberHearts $500
cash award to market the weaving program.
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| Weavers are intent on their work in the Fairbanks Weavers
& Spinners Guild studio. Photograph Courtesy of Fairbanks Weavers &
Spinners Guild. |
Small Guild Award Winner: Bisbee Fiber
Arts Guild
Born of necessity, this newly formed guild has nearly doubled
its membership in the past year. The Bisbee Fiber Arts Guild was an outgrowth
of the Bisbee Fiber Arts Festival, held for the last fourteen years during Spinning
and Weaving Week. Founded by fiber enthusiasts Ana Marie Storr and Joan
Ruane, the mission of this annual event is to educate the public about weaving,
spinning, and other fiber-related arts. After a particularly successful festival
in 2002, a small group of newcomers wanted to learn to weave. The Bisbee Community
YMCA offered the use of its basement and Ruane offered free classes using donated
looms. The program continued to grow, and in 2003 it became apparent that some
sort of organization was needed to maintain it. The guild was then created by
ten founding members. By the winter of 2005, the weaving studio had become the
place to be in Bisbee. The guild is now run by a full board of officers that oversees
the publication of a newsletter, hosts a library, maintains its own meeting space
and education program, sustains the Bisbee Fiber Arts Festival, and has applied
successfully to the State Historic Preservation Heritage Fund to refurbish the
donated space. All of this was achieved in a small rural community ninety miles
southeast of Tucson. The Bisbee Guild will use their $500 cash award to host an
outside instructor. Many of their students and potential students cannot afford
to travel to conferences. Hosting nationally known teachers will provide
additional opportunity to build community awareness of their education program
and inspire this fledgling guild to continue to stretch its wings and grow.
 |
| Exotic animals such as this Angora goat always draw a crowd
of interested viewer of all ages at the Bisbee Fiber Arts Fair. Photograph
by Meadow Hunt |
Equipment Awards
In 2006, Handwoven welcomed four industry partners
to broaden the reach of the FiberHearts award: Leclerc
Looms, The
Kessenich Loom Company, New
Voyager Trading Company, and Schacht
Spindle Company.
Humboldt Handweavers & Spinners
Rescuing thirteen floor looms from the closure of Humboldt State University’s
textile program, the Humboldt Handweavers & Spinners opened a weaving studio
in The Ink People Center for Arts in Eureka, where the guild meets and sponsors
an education program. They were awarded a handcrafted Kessenich table loom to
promote their education programs outside of the studio.
Northern Colorado Weavers Guild
In the past twelve months, volunteers from the Northern Colorado Weavers Guild
committed over 2,000 hours demonstrating weaving to the public! The guild was
awarded five 24-inch Leclerc Berger rigid heddle looms for demonstrations.
New Voyager Trading
High Plains Spinners and Weavers
This newly formed guild was created as an offshoot of the Northern Colorado Weavers
guild to serve the rural farming communities of northeastern Colorado and westernmost
Nebraska. Among other creative outreach efforts, this small guild of fewer than
thirty people donated a bevy of beautiful wearables to Rocky Mountain PBS’s
on-air fund-raiser, garnering publicity for their small guild. They were awarded
two Kromski rigid heddle looms for their equipment lending program.
Evelyn Franklin Weavers Guild
Maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship with the Backus Heritage Village
near Port Rowan, Ontario, this guild volunteers its time to demonstrate in a living-history
setting and maintain a shop in the village where they sell their handwoven textiles.
Over 40,000 visitors visit the village annually. They are awarded two Schacht
inkle looms to use for demonstration in the shop.
FiberHearts 2005
Large Guild Award Winner
Peace Arch Weavers and Spinners Guild
The Peace Arch Weavers and Spinners Guild is housed in the
Hooser Weaving Centre at the Elgin Heritage Park in Surrey, British Columbia,
Canada. The guild has eighty-eight members ranging in age from their late thirties
to late eighties. Located minutes from the U. S. border, twenty-five percent of
guild members live in the United States. Last year the guild spent over 4,000
hours demonstrating weaving and spinning. The guild gets most of its new members
from these public demonstrations. Interested bystanders are asked to leave their
contact information and receive a follow-up phone call from a guild member letting
them know when the next meeting will be held. New members are given a personal
tour of the center and then matched with a mentor to help them get started. The
mentor program emphasizes an informal, easy approach to teaching. Many formal
weaving classes are taught (many by guild members) in the area. Once the student
has mastered the basics, their mentor helps them find the right class to continue
their learning. In 2005, the guild launched a new partnership with the textile
program in nearby Capilano College. Students from the college are invited annually
to give a one-and a-half hour program on their work. The sharing between generations
of weavers is remarkable.They will use their FiberHearts award to create a tapestry
for the new Surrey Museum. It will be woven in public by members of the guild
and the community at large in the lobby of the museum.
 |
| Ann Dumper weaving a tapestry at the Hooser Weaving Centre.
Photograph courtesy of the Now Newspaper. |
Small Guild Award Winner
Lethbridge Handicraft Guild of Weavers
Established in 1949, the Lethbridge Handicraft Guild is housed
in a studio in the Bowman Arts Centre in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. With a membership
of thirty-six women ranging in age from twenty-five to eighty-six, this small
guild does extraordinary work. They provide the only weaving classes in their
town. As part of the class fee, students are given a membership to the guild.
All guild members have access to the weaving equipment and guild library located
in the art center. This is a valuable perk of membership—a loom and a room!
To attract new members, the guild volunteers time in a wide array of community
events such as the town’s Art Walk and a province-wide event called Science
Alberta, designed to teach children about the interplay of science and the arts.
And if this tiny guild didn’t have enough on its hands, in 2004 it hosted
the annual conference of the Hand Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers of Alberta.The
Lethbridge Guild plans on using their FiberHearts award to create a resource kit
for new instructors that will include teaching guidelines, printed and audio-visual
material, and teaching aids such as dry-erase boards and markers. Members will
use these tools to teach a friend to weave.
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| The Lethbridge Handicraft Guild of Weavers sponsors many
study groups including one on tartans. Displayed here is the City of Lethbridge
tartan that was designed by members of the guild. A tartan sash was presented
to the mayor, and ties and scarves handwoven by guild members are available for
purchase from the city hall. Photograph courtesy of Frances Schultz. |
In 2005, an honorable mention was also awarded. The winning
guild received a bevy of books for their library.
Honorable Mention
Prairie Fibers Weavers and Spinners Guild
You just have to sit up and take notice of a guild that almost doubled their membership
in two years, from forty-four members in 2003 to its current membership of seventy-five.
How did this happen? The Plum Nelly, a weaving shop, opened in their town. The
guild and the shop created a symbiotic relationship. The Plum Nelly is centrally
located to attract many non-weavers and the guild meets in the shop to encourage
their membership to support it. Nice going!
FiberHearts 2004
Large Guild Award Winner
Weavers’ Guild of Rochester
When the Rochester Museum and Science Center shifted its focus in 2001 and ceased
to offer weaving classes, the Weavers’ Guild of Rochester acted swiftly
to ensure that the classes would continue in the community. They immediately arranged
for long-term loan of the museum’s loom, spinning wheels, and related equipment.
They found studio space in a centrally located complex of lofts, artists’
studios, shops, and restaurants, made the necessary business arrangements, and
opened the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center in January 2002.
Class fees are kept affordable. Teachers are paid, but volunteer guild members
do the administrative work. The center is open seven days a week and offers classes
morning, noon, and night. Since May of 2003 they have taught over 425 students
ranging from guild members to home-schooled children. Thirty of the guild’s
course offerings are on shaft loom weaving. Other classes include tapestry, simple
loom techniques, felting, beading, knitting, crocheting, kumihimo, surface design,
dyeing, spinning, wheat weaving, coiling, fabric and finishing for garments, and
basketry.
In the meantime the guild still manages to do all the things that guilds do: demonstrate,
hold open houses, maintain a library and website, publish a newsletter, provide
rental equipment, and host programs. They plan to use their award to organize
a fiber festival in the courtyard of the building complex that houses the center.
The festival will include demonstrations, “make it and take it” opportunities,
and exhibits.
|
Students hard at work in Joyce Robard’s weaving
class at the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center in Rochester, New York. The Center
is run by the Weavers’ Guild of Rochester. Photograph courtesy of the weaver's
guild of Rochester. |
Small Guild Award Winner
Waterford Weavers Guild
The birth of this guild is a familiar story. Thirty years ago ten weavers in Northern
Virginia founded a guild to share their passion for the craft with the larger
community. Three years ago the guild got the bright idea of establishing a grant
program for teachers to expose children to the fiber arts. Their first grant enabled
nearly 500 elementary students in grades one through five to participate in creating
a tapestry mural depicting a mountain lion, the school’s mascot. The grant
program for teachers is designed to supplement and enhance the curriculum of area
schools so that children can come to appreciate weaving as an interesting and
viable part of their lives. The guild encourages teachers who are creative and
innovative in their use of fiber arts to engage both children and parents in the
craft.
The program generates a lot of publicity and is supplemented
by the guild’s annual fund-raiser at the Waterford Homes Tour and Crafts
Exhibit, a three-day fair that features juried crafts exhibits in which participants
wear period dress and demonstrate their crafts. Volunteering in this event is
a condition of active membership. At the Waterford fair, guild members demonstrate
spinning, natural dyeing, card weaving, tatting, and bobbin lace. Their pre-warped
4-shaft and rigid heddle looms allow fairgoers, especially the children, a chance
to try weaving a part of a larger piece or to take home a bookmark they wove themselves.
Their FiberHearts award will be used to support and expand the grant for the teachers’
program.
|
At Mill Run Elementary School in Ashburn, Virginia, teacher
Lynn Padgette’s students stand before a partially completed tapestry. Each
student contributed a tapestry square before the project was passed onto the next
class. The resulting tapestry hangs in the school cafeteria. Photography by
Lynn Padgette |
FiberHearts 2003
Large Guild Award Winner
The Philadelphia Guild of Hand Weavers
The Philadelphia Guild of Hand Weavers boasts 190 members. They cleverly sponsor
a weekend program open to the public called “Walk In and Weave.” For
a nominal fee, anyone can drop by the guild house and weave a scarf on a prewarped
loom. The best part of this outreach effort is that the guild has not stopped
with this first step. They have built a network of opportunities to keep new weavers
weaving. Anyone who expresses an interest in continuing to weave is immediately
signed up for a six-week beginning class. But did the guild stop there? No! These
innovative thinkers also offer a class called “The Next Step.” This
one-day class helps combat the frustration that beginning weavers often experience
after taking their first class, when they find they still can’t quite remember
what goes where. New weavers can wind warps at the guild house or in members’
homes; the guild offers equipment rental (to members), and many experienced members
offer ongoing mentoring services. Once a month the guild conducts a lunch-hour
program called “Design and Discuss” where rank beginners and pros
alike share ideas. The guild is fortunate in having an ideal location. They own
a building in the artsy Manayunk section of Philadelphia and regularly host open
houses on weekends and during community events. They intend to use the FiberHearts
award to offer more “Walk in and Weave” programs.
|
Pam Pawl (at right), current president of the Philadelphia
Guild of Hand Weavers, demonstrates weaving at an open house. |
Small Guild Award Winner
Foothill Fibers Guild
Serving the rural areas of Nevada County in California, the Foothill Fibers Guild
recently reached an all-time high of sixty-one members. Established formally in
1980, this guild felt it was important to establish a “fibers” guild
that includes the crafts of weaving, spinning, and knitting. The increased popularity
of knitting has attracted many new members since the mid-1980s, and the guild
takes the opportunity to expose these new or experienced craftspeople to weaving
by regularly offering programs in cardweaving and inkle weaving. Both techniques
are easy to learn and don’t require a large outlay of funds. The guild offers
ongoing support to new weavers with a “Dial-A-Mentor” program that
matches a new weaver with an experienced one to provide encouragement, advice,
and, we suspect, a few laughs. The guild also brings newbies into the fold through
“The Project.” Teams of five to six, combining old and new members,
are each given a pound of wool roving and a year to create a project. This year-long
endeavor keeps new members connected to the guild and the craft, and it offers
both learning opportunities and the satisfaction of completing a project. The
guild also maintains an extensive library, hosts an impressive website, and demonstrates
at many local community events to attract new members.
The guild will use the FiberHearts award to offer a new beginner’s weaving
workshop. In order to sustain the program they will design a community weaving
project that will result in a pile rug. The rug will be auctioned to fund continued
weaving workshops.
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Foothill Fiber Guild members Marjorie McConnell (in blue)
and Sue Habegger (in headband) demonstrate at the Draft Horse Classic in Grass
Valley to attract new members. Photo provided by the Foothill Fiber Guild |
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