The Ashford Day with Richard Ashford from New Zealand

Another brilliant Ashford Day, lots to see and lots to say.
Richard Ashford with his wheels, Janet Phillips with her deals.
He said how the company started with toys,
And wooden things all made by the boys.
He told of the spinning wheels, described with clarity,
That they couldn't sell, so they all went to charity.

He talked about fliers, ratios and things,
That went over our heads, flew away with wings.
Then Kate Sherratt got up from a back row chair,
Showed us how to spin fancy yarns with a flair.
If we had problems David Herring was there,
To give us advice on the wear and the care

And then we all stopped and had lots to eat,
The food was plentiful, a really good treat.
Then Kate went up to one end of the room,
And showed us a new way to warp up a loom.
Some of us got some more spinning done,
Yes, another good time of Ashford Day FUN!

Poem by Catherine Housley.

The Derbyshire Guild would like to thank the Staffordshire Moorlands Guild for inviting us to a great Ashford Day. Their hospitality and food was fantastic, we all had a real good time!
Our thanks also go to Richard Ashford, Kate Sherratt and David Herring for making the day most interesting and informative. Thanks to, for the free samples of fibres and 'The Wheel' magazine. It was great to see the new products that will be for sale at this years Woolfest. We would like to wish Richard and staff a safe journey back to New Zealand.

AGM and Guild Competition

Friday 26th March 2010 annual general meeting started with business from the chairman, the secretary and treasurers report, which shows the guild in a healthy position with rising membership. The committee was elected for another year and votes of thanks where given to the committee for all their hard work on behalf of the guild members. Thanks were extended to Stuart Groom for all his help and support throughout the year and for auditing the books.
After the AGM we had the annual guild competition where members submitt work in five catagories: Spinning, Weaving, Dyeing, Felt making and Creativity.
This years winners:
SPINNING
1st. - Anne Urquhart for handspun pure Silk
2nd - Anne Urquhart for handspun Blue Face Leicester
3rd - Frances Cooper for handspun Cashmere
WEAVING
1st - Anne Warwick for three hand woven yarn holder bags
2nd - Doreen Woodham for hand woven container
3rd - Stuart Groom for a trio of hand woven braids
DYEING
1st - Anne Warwick for Navajo ply hand dyed yarn
2nd - Anne Warwick for hand dyed Cotswold fleece waistcoat
3rd - Catherine Housley for natural dyed handspun yarns
FELTING
1st - Catherine Housley for felted flowers
2nd - Margareta Dawson for a felted cushion
3rd - Chris Sault for her Thermofleece felted box
CREATIVITY
1st - Doreen Woodham for her Woven container.

Textured Weaving Workshop with Stacey Harvey Brown

Saturday 13th March 2010 workshop began with an introduction to weaving texture by Stacey Harvey Brown a weaver of some renowned. She brought along some of her stunning work and textured weaving samples, seen here, to share with us. She inspired us with her jaquard fabrics and creative ideas. She gave us an insight into her creative process as she goes about designing and accomplishing some of her beautiful fabrics. After the talk came the practical bit of the workshop. People had a variety of looms and tapestry frames to work on and we were encouraged to work from a design source for colour and texture inspiration. With stacey looking on to help and give advice, we were all pushed out of our comfort zone, to achieve some very interesting work. A productive day where seeds of creativity were sown and the results of which we may see later on.

Hazel and Jean looking at some of the beautiful books Stacey brought along with her that she uses for inspirational guide.

Show and Tell plus The Thermo Fleece Challenge

On Friday 26th February 2010 the guild meeting theme was show and tell plus the guild fleece challenge. Someone had the bright idea of collecting thermal acustic insulation block samples. These sample blocks are A6 in size and made from Herdwick fleece. They are called Thermafleece and they were given out at Woolfest last year. So, we were set a challenge to see what we could make with a block!
The challenge was to see just how creative our guild members could be. Well, it was not the best of stuff to deal with, it seemed to shred and shed bits of stuff everywhere, it was rough and tough so you would not want to wear it. But our guild members were not deterred by any of this and true to form, like the creative bunch they are, they presented an interesting array of things from felted animals, bags, ear mufflers, a hot pan holder, pictures, bookcovers and felted boxes. So well done to you all!
If anyone has photographs of these items for this post please send them to me.

Felt Landscape using resist technique led by Janet Phillips

On Saturday 13th February, at our Hazelwood workshop, the hall was packed with people and wool tops! Janet Phillips from the Threshing Barn came along to give us a workshop in resist felt making. The theme was the Derbyshire Countryside. Janet started off by demonstrating how to create an effective landscape background using a drum carder and coloured wool tops. She worked the foreground into 3D by inserting layers of plastic between layers of felting. This created pockets in your work that looked like hills and peaks and gave extra depth to the picture. When the plastic is removed you have layers of 3D felt that can be embellished with embroidery or needle felting. By the end of the day all the guild members had work hard to produce an amazing array of pictures in felt.......good enough for any exhibition says Bibi!

Naldinding with Tanya Patmore

Back in January 2010 we had a very interesting Friday evening workshop on Nalbinding led by Tanya Patmore. This technique can be traced back to 4200B.C. in Denmark. It was used for netmaking, baskets, bags, clothing etc. and precedes continuous spinning. You use short lengths of yarn, working a link stitch that won't unravel, with a short flat wooden or bone needle. The technique of Nalbinding can also be found in the Maya region of South America, Iran, Peru and Taiwan.
We all had a go - some of us were better than others......me, I was not so good at it, being hampered by my not so dexterous arthritic fingers. Tanya brought along some of her nalbinding work to show us, mittens, boots and bags. I don't have any photographs to post of these item yet but will add them at a later date. So if any guild members out there has photographs of this workshop, I would be pleased if you could share them with us.