Being creative in the time of COVID-19

Well 2020 is turning out to be quite an unusual year. Hate to see so many creative fibre festivals and events being cancelled and our own group in-person meetings are now on indefinite hold. But we can turn to online video chat to lift our spirits and share what we are up to. Zoom software seems to work for us and we are now setting up small web conferencing meetings to keep our spirits up while remaining safe. If your own guild or group can't meet you may wish to try the same.

Some projects may particularly lend themselves to a really long period of confinement in the craftroom. Pictured here is the first of Clare Howard's woven curtains. Weft for this curtain is handwoven by Clare using her handspun hand dyed yarn. Inspirational!

So when we do finally emerge in public again don't be surprised to see some of us showing off some impressive and extensive work made in the meantime.

Please stay safe and special thanks to anyone reading this who is spending time caring for others who are ill or isolated at this worrying time.

Sheep, spinning, suits and Savile Row

Rugby School holds an annual Festival in the Close, which tends to coincide with another Rugby town events that the spinners have taken part in in the past - Rugby Festival of Culture. Sadly we cannot take part in RFOC this year (its cancelled but we hope will be back in 2022). However, via the Rugby Artists and Makers Network I learned that Rugby School would run its festival this year, albeit in scaled-back, internal-to-school mode. I was very drawn to the idea of demonstrating with a talk and demonstration alongside another RA&M network member - Savile Row trained bespoke suitmaker Nicholas Hammond. https://nicholas-simon.co.uk Drum carding a batt based on the colours in apple and blackberry crumble, with spiral spun yarn made from this There will be two demonstrations on the afternoon of 30th June at the school. We really hope to provide something interesting to see and some things that Rugby students won't have tried before. So six local spinne

Machine knitting - watch out for the steel eye spun brigade!

If you - as we have - spent the past year generating handspun yarn, turning stash into squishy skeins and experimenting with dyepots, you may well have quite a lot of transformed yarn to use up. For those (like me) who are slow knitters, turning this into finished items is not the quickest thing. I have handnit three sweaters during lockdown but one of these was knit much faster than either of the others. It was (gulp) machine knitted. On a vintage (1980s) flatbed knitting machine. Before lockdown I had dabbled in ownership and use of various antique and modern circular knitting machines, but now I have moved out one of my looms and in its place I have a small stack of knitting machines. Several of which still require some hard work before they can knit again. Why so many? Because I am trying them out to see what will work with handspun. Also because I have been persuading some of my spin spun sisters that they too need a knitting machine in their lives. Enter Clare, Jo, Liz and Abby

September and October spin in public dates around Rugby

Some of the 'sisters' (Liz, Ruth and Chris) brought along wheels and Steve (our spinning/weaving equipment repair guru) to Rugby Repair Cafe. Its the 3rd Saturday of the month so usually clashes with guild meeting, but in September the 3rd Saturday is also Worldwide Spin in Public day. Here is Chris posing with some of her wheels inside St Andrew's Church. Met three local spinners (Sylvia, Vicky and Peter) and hope to see them spinning alongside us at future events. In fact Peter came along to join Abby, Ruth and Chris spinning at the St Andrew's Sustainable Market day on the 28th Sept. (Look at our events page for future apperances there and locally). Several of us are also taking part in Britspin as members of Team Over the Rainbow. We will be spinning later today in the foyer of Rugby Art Gallery and Museum. Here is a picture of the sisters there last year (we spun red in the foyer in 2018 and in 2019 we are spinning FIRE). Should be fun. Remember

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