This month’s meeting was lead by Maggie, who discussed different types of plying and their structures, and demonstrated Navajo plying. The benefits of navajo plying in relation to preserving colour sequences was also discussed and demonstrated in a lovely sweater spun from natural colours of Jacob fleece, and various samples.

What to do with leftover singles was also discussed, leading on to talking about Andean plying. Many members brought their wheels and both had a go at navajo plying, and worked on their own projects.

Preparation of Fibre for Spinning. 

Members were treated to an excellent talk and demonstration on this topic today by fellow member Susan Pearson. Susan had numerous examples of fleece of different qualities as well as a variety of finished examples of knitting from her spinning. She  covered hand carding , drum carding  and using wool combs to produce a variety of prepared  fibres, both naturally coloured and involving blended  colours. Her attention to detail and preparatory work before the carding process was a delight to see and clearly showed itself in the quality of the yarn produced. Many Thanks Susan, we were only sorry the session wasn’t longer. 

Before the session, Susan’s enticing range of carding related delights.

The show and tell contained a special item, Gwen’s nearly finished Inkle loom which she has made herself. Well done Gwen.

Gwen – with her Inkle Loom

This meeting had a variety of activities all under the heading ‘knitting and crochet’. We watched snippets of a video of 2 Shetland Knitters, talked about how we hold the yarn, had the chance to have a go at using a knitting belt, saw Tunisian knitting/crochet, learnt the basics of the continental and Portuguese methods of knitting, discussed crochet stitches, perused through vintage patterns and finished by watching the basics of machine knitting being demonstrated. The cake fairy visited again and we enjoyed another super cake, this time involving weetabix. There was the usual interesting show and tell and tempting items on the sales table.

Portuguese knitting, notice the clip- this style of knitting seems to make good use of a thumb

and we had crochet, this looked gorgeous:

We met upstairs in the Jon Cousins Room, for the first time and appreciated the inbuilt kitchen area. After the business and show and tell parts of the meeting we all joined in with the activity. Janet described how this mini workshop had come about and how the idea had been developed for Diss Guild. She talked us through getting as far as a half warped loom and then we took over with our individual looms. To save time these had been started for us and members enjoyed weaving them with the yarns we had taken. At times you could hear a pin drop with the concentration. Towards the end we were shown how to finish of the basic ‘little bag’ and ideas were given on adding a cord or closure of we wished. Some members used Mackintosh inspired colours enabling them to part of the Open section for the National Exhibition.

As always the show and tell section is inspirational, including this time, other items for the Open section. We are hoping for a significant Diss entry this year.

Many of us have met twice this year already. Many Thanks are due to Jen for hosting the ‘before 12th night’ Guild lunch. We had a lovely time and besides the great food Jen’s Christmas Tree was an unexpected treat with its unique decorations.

The January meeting was well attended. There was quite a bit of ‘arranging’ related to our various invitations during the year to demonstrate our skills and exhibit items at events.

We had our own ‘show and tell’ of completed items and textile related Christmas presents which as always spans a wide range and is always fascinating.

Pauline’s spinning of dog coat:

We also had home made cake during a brief interval in proceedings.  Anne gave a brief introduction to the Japanese Art of Kumihimo (the making of braids) accompanied by a boxful of wonderful examples. There is an opportunity to attend a workshop about this at Maker’s Month. Diss Guild has workshops on Tuesday afternoon (March 27th).

Just some of Anne’s braids.

The five Norfolk Guilds will be at the Forum from 26 March to 31st March, each day there will be demonstrations and bookable workshops. This is part of Maker’s Month at the Forum Norwich which has a vast number of different activities  on offer between 12th March and April 6th. Do look at their website.

Laurel gave us an inspirational presentation about Shibori. She began by discussing the roots of the technique before explaining the different methods involved and particularly their used in Japan. She had brought many examples of her own work in Shibori and was able to show us the end product of some of the work. In the question and answer session that followed her expertise in this topic came through. It was nice to see lots of books that could be purchased to get one going with Shibori. Anne had brought along examples of woven Shibori and a visitor had us in awe over a quilted hanging she had produced, whilst Janet showed how the technique could be used with fine Nuno felt. Laurel offered to run a workshop for us, which from the reaction will be sooner rather than later.

At the AGWSD 2017 Summer School, Lyn attended a course entitled “Flora not Fauna”; this was a chance to learn a little more about plant fibres, and have a chance to spin and experiment with them. Lyn spoke about the course and encouraged members to consider going to the Summer School in future years. She had brought along many examples of plant fibre spinning, plus examples of the various stages of preparation in the spinning of linen.

Members had a chance to try spinning linen, definitely not as easy as might be imagined. There were many questions, particularly about the linen, and Lyn showed us her beautiful Turkish drop spindle, an amazing and beautiful gadget, which neatly stores the spun thread in ball form ready for plying.

Anne began by explaining the technique was particular to a comparatively small area of North West India and Rajasthan where it was used to make strong camel girths. Four ply cords are made and then these the cords are worked together by splitting the ply and threading through one another.

Anne demonstrated how the cords were made, either self coloured, or a mixture of colours, and how the ply was spit and passed through.

Anne had many  examples of items made by ply splitting; bags, jewellery and small decorative items of many kinds.

In 1919 the R34 Airship took off from East Fortune in Scotland in an attempt to be the first aircraft to make the double crossing of the Atlantic to the USA and back. This they achieved but, for not completely explicable reasons, they did not return (as planned) to East Fortune but landed at Pulham near Diss. At the time, the celebration of this remarkable feat didn’t in any way reflect the enormity of the achievement.

Basil Abbott, Diss Museum Manager, is planning a centenary celebration in 2019, and has invited the Diss Guild to create craft items that can be exhibited as part of this celebration. His talk and slide show provided background information and inspiration for the creation of these items. It is impossible not to be enthused by Basil’s projects, and Diss Guild have risen to the challenge!