Our Studio

In 2017 the Qualicum Weavers and Spinners moved from our tiny attic space in an old Via Train Station to Qualicum Commons, a repurposed elementary school in the heart of Qualicum Beach.  There we were able to expand our programs and our memberships.  We now have well over 80 members.  Our programs include studio projects, study groups, group learning activities, public demonstrations and a variety of workshops.

fancy socks

The studio has been home for our guild.  It has been place were we can strut our stuff and share experinces.

rovings rug

It has been a learning centre for informal and formal workshops where we welcome both members and non-members who share our interests.  It is where we've learned to spin, knit and weave.  We've felted slippers, knitted hats and made baskets in our studio.  We've also hosted events for seniors and school age children.

market basket class

warping on a square

We come together in our studio to work on projects, whether it is warping one of the studio looms, weaving blankets on the 60 inch Leclerc or preparing samples for the Canadian Guild of Weavers.

hand dyed blanket warp

samples for CGW program

And so it is with some sadness that we learned the school board is considering shutting down Qualicum Commons.  The building needs costly repairs.  The school board does not have the funds to cover the repair costs so they feel they must shut down the site.  They will make their decision in November.  In the meantime we are looking at options for a new home as of June 30th 2025. 

We'd be great tenants!  No pets! We don't hold late night parties or have rowdy overnight guests.  Lots of laughing but no loud music. Many of us are mothers so we clean up after ourselves.   

Where Did May Go To???

 

Bird's nest early May

May arrived with the promise of things to come and some how those eggs hatched and the fledglings learned to fly and in the wink of an eye (or so it seemed) May had turned into June. 

May was a busy month for the Qualicum Weavers and Spinners.  We finished off our spring beginner weaver lessons and moved on to trying something new.  Many of our members live a distance from the guild's studio which means in-person activities are not always possible.  In order to keep members involved and improve access to resources we have been working on a project called "Loom to Zoom". 

Ginny's fancy twill scarf in tencil

Personal interactions and the opportunity to see and touch works are both terribly important in the fibre arts. (Ginny's scarf drapes beautifully,)  It is difficult to capture the spirit of guild interactions when we only had on-line meetings.  So, we decided to work towards "blended" events where we could have simultaneoius in-studio and on-line activities.  As part of that project we piloted a blended workshop called "From 4 to 8 Without Tears".  We plan on more blended workshops in the future.

Kellie spinning ?dog? hair

Mary demonstrating the drop spindle

We have also been out and about at the Qualicum Beach Family Day event as well as a visit to a local school.  We have a great team that love putting on events for the public.  It's never difficult to get volunteers and the kids reward our efforts in so many ways.

CGW samples on loom

Members have been busy with projects.  We are doing the samples for the Canadian Guild of Weavers Bulletin for 2025.  That means weaving 400 rectangles for each of 4 samples in the set.  We have chosen to do a set that illustrates how to blend two drafts into one.

detail M's & O's

Linda has been exploring M's and O's and lace with a series of towels.  At the same time she is working on reducing some of the yarns in her stash.

Evelin is playing with stripes in this tea towel in an unusual application of the structure "Bedford Cord".

Evelin's stripes

We are planning a summer "dye day".  Members are busy putting together their warps to be dyed when the weather cooperates as this is an outdoor activity.  We are also planning a pot luck combined with a stash sale later in the month.  Some how we all plan to downsize our stash at these events but some how we always seem to find something we need (really, for sure need) to buy to add to the stash.  After that we are on holidays for July and most of August.

We've been busy this past month with formal and informal learning activities.  Our workshop committee organized a number of  hands-on activities and in lieu of a business meeting we had a short tutorials to help us brush up on skills.  So what did we learn?

wet felting in progress

Darrel expanded our experience with wet felting by showing us how to "paint with wool".  Participants in this workshop started with some basic wet felting techniques to create a base.  Note the bamboo placemat in the photo is used in the felting process. 

A picture, a garden in this case, is created by the placing of coloured fleece to simulate a sky and ground then more fleece and texture yarns can be felted into the piece to represent individual plants.  Once the "painting" is completed the whole is carefully felted to avoid distrubing the scene.  After drying the picture can be embellished with embroidery.

Finished garden 

Easter Baskets

 Vera taught us how to make reed baskets and encouraged experimentation that resulted in some interesting handles and finishing touches.  The easter eggs just seemed to fit especially with the basket in the foreground that reminds one of a nest.

One workshop participants went a bit further and created a small container with a lid.

reed container with lid

  

Carol gave us an introduction to natural dyes including local plants that can be used and where to find them.  Her collection of samples demonstrates the array of colours you can achieve with the use of mordants.  

sample of natural dye colours

We also tried out hand at some simple braiding using thrums and old cardboard boxes cut into Kumihimo discs.  This is a great way to use up small amounts of left over yarns to make braids that can be turned into ties for fasteners, friendship bracelets, drawstring cords or trim.  It's also a great way to keep the kids entertained using repurposed materials.

Simple Cardboard Kumihimo Disk

How to Make Cloth

As manufacturing becomes more sophisticated we lose that link between everyday items and how they were made.  There is barely a trace of the farm in food that is precooked, prepared, preportioned and packaged.  Clothing is not just manufactured for fashion.  It can be engineered to have special properties, whether that is heat retention, moisture control or even anti-bacterial effects.  The materials that went into the cloth and its structure are unrecognizable to a lot of us

How sad it would be to loose touch with the basic crafts that underly so much for what we have today.  So, plant a garden and harvest your own tomatoes or spin some yarn and make cloth.

      

plain weave rag rug

Making cloth is not just a utilitarian occupation.  It is also a form of expression whether that is making your mark on the cloth you weave or using weaving to tell a story.   

Basic weaving is simply interlacing horizontal and vertical threads to form a sheet that holds together.  The magic is in what you choose to use as threads and how you choose to interlace them.

plain weave mug rugs

The beginner's plain weave mug rugs all started with the same plain warp but they differ depending on what the weaver chose to use as weft and how they chose to weave each piece.

The fundamental principles of weaving on a loom are the same no matter how sophisticated the loom may be.  So the first step in understanding how cloth is made is to learning how dress and operate a simple loom.

students busy at their looms

Once you are the master (or mistress) of the loom then the sky is the limit.  You can play with colour, texture, and pattern.  You can make a piece of art or an artful tea towel.

Artful tea towels

If you think you would like to try your hand at weaving then we give beginner lessons in our studio in Qualicum Beach.  The next set of lessons takes place May 3 to 5th.  Class size is limited and classes book up quickly.  

For more information check Workshops on our web site  https://qwsg.ca/workshops/

Felted Pictures

 

Wendy's Monarch

If you think the season for felting slippers is past and you have a basket full of coloured fleece maybe you would like to try your hand at painting with wool.

You can blend coloured fibres as you might blend paints to create subtle colour variations, as in the background of Wendy's Monarch.  The background is a wet felted base.  But you can also create detail like the lines on the butterflies wings with a bit of needle felting.

Maggie's landscape

Maggie has used a similar technique to produce this lovely landscape with some embellished poppies in the foreground.

prefelts

The child's blanket shown below began with a lightly wet felted base layer.  Then images were created as "prefelts", very lightly felted pieces that just hold together.  Then the prefelts are laid onto the partly felted base and the combination is carefully felted as one.  The trick is not to over process either the base or the prefelts.

 You can apply this same technique to nuno felting.  Nuno felting introduces a thin open weave material to stabilize the wool felt so that you can create a thin but stable cloth for making garments.  The wool fibres penetrate the silk so it is completely covered by the felted wool.

Pauline's vest

Darrell's embellished garden

In the photo above Darrell has added another element with embellishment to create the flowers in the foreground.  She has also made use of the raw wool fibres that tend to be curly and whispy to create clouds in the background.

Felting Workshop

If any of this interests you, Darrell is giving a workshop that will teach you the basics of wet felting and set you on your way to painting with wool.  You will come home with your own version of a flower garden. Darrell is doing two sessions, Friday April 19th or Saturday April 20th so you have two choices.  For more details go to our web site Qualicum Weavers and Spinners

Workshops and Websites

learning together

 Our workshop committee has organized an exciting series of workshops for 2024.  We started off the year with our popular beginner series, beginner spinning and beginner weaving.  These classes book up ahead but if you missed the January sessions, we keep a waiting list.  

Beginning Spinning is being offered a second time February 5th and 7th.  This course will get you started.  Later in February 23 Linda Raven will take members deeper into the world of worsted and woolen.

Our Beginner Weaving Level 1, starting Feb 16, is unfortunately full but if you are interested and would like to be on our waiting list for the next time then contact workshops@gwsg.ca  For those of you who have taken a beginner course and want to explore more we have Introduction to Weaving, Level 3.  In this course you will expand your skills and learn how to design and execute your own pieces.  Participants will create a boucle tea towel of their own design.  The course takes place March 1 to 3.

For more advanced weavers we have two interesting and very different courses.  

An Introduction to Bound Weave takes place March 9th.  This workshop will have you making figured pieces using a weft dominant technique similar to Krokbragd.  Participants will create a figured design on their own table loom.  If you need a table loom for this course we may be able to help with that.  Contact Gillian Best for more information at gbest@shaw.ca  

 
Woven Shibori with Linda Wilson is a 4 day workshop that starts on March 12th.  Linda will take participants through the process of creating a unique textured cloth with pleats and ruffles.

  For more information about these courses please go to our website at https://qwsg.ca/workshops/

There you can click on the course title to find out the costs and more details about the instructor and the course content.  If you decide this is the course for you then you can go on to register and pay to secure your spot on-line.  

If you have any issues or concerns about the system or need some assistance then contact Gillian Best, gbest@shaw.ca

QWSG Web Site

 

home page 

The Qualicum Weavers and Spinners have launched a new web site.  We invite you to check it out at qwsg.ca

There you will find information about the guild, events, workshops, resources and membership.  Some areas are still "under construction" but here are some of the features

upcoming events

If you are interested in what we are up to or would like to attend a meeting check out the studio calendar.  There you can find our meeting schedule, events, special interest groups and what is going on in the studio

studio projects?

Books and periodicals

Under resources you can check out our library listing.  We have complete collections of Handwoven and Spin-Off including the very first issues and a host of books on fiber arts topics.

basket workshop in progress

If you are interested in fibre arts workshops then you can check out what we have planned.  If you find a course that you would like to take, you can secure your spot in the workshop by registering and paying on line.

market baskets

If you think this is a group that you would like to join you can pay the membership fee on line and set up your member profile.  Registered members have access to guild documents, discounted pricing for workshops and receive notifications via the web site

Postscript

Below is an updated photo of the free-form "tapestry" that was started during our Elegant Threads Show.  Many hands, a lot of them new to weaving, contributed and it is still a work in progress however it appears to be turning into a landscape.

our "sale" tapestry is turning into a landscape