Sam Houston Weavers and Spinners Guild.

Who We Are and What We Do

The Sam Houston Weavers and Spinners Guild was founded in January of 1990 to give novice and experienced weavers and spinners an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of their interest and to share their knowledge and skills with others; preserving and maintaining the skills of our forefathers and educating people to understand and appreciate the accomplishments of their ancestors, as well as exploring contemporary weaving skills.

Membership in the Guild is open to anyone interested in the Arts/Crafts of weaving and spinning, even if they are not yet skilled in these areas. Annual dues are $10, due in January of each year, which entitles members to vote, receive the monthly Newsletter and participate in Guild workshops, shows and other activities.

Monthly meetings are held on the fourth Saturday of each month at the Katy and E. Don Walker, Sr. Education Center, at 10:00 a.m., or other locations as announced.

For more information, contact President Jeanne Crippen, 713-592-1657, email jjjjcrip@swbell.net.

CALENDAR

April 16-18 Sam Houston Folk Festival

May 1 Herb Festival

May 21-23 CHT Biennial Conference

web hosting • domain names • video sharing
free online games • photo sharing
free blog • short URLs

For our latest Newsletter go here: February Newsletter

Left: Our Web Page Creator, Lemoine Beers

Right: President Jeanne demonstrates spinning to Guest at Fleect to Fabric

Children's Fiber Art at Fleece to Fabric ************************Some examples from Marbling Workshop

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Bette and Rebecca, left, and Carol, right, at Fleece to Fabric

Tamara at Folk Festival******************************************Holly shows off her "Llama Shirts"

TIDBITS!

Breaking Yarns

When overlapping weft ends, it's better to break the yarn than cut it, because cut ends are more visible in the finished fabric. However, some yarn is so strong that it doesn't break easily. One of these tips may help.

Grasp a longer piece of yarn than usual between your hands and try to break it with a quick snap.
Fray the yarn by stretching it and passing it gently back and forth across the open blade of your scissors.
Pass the scissors blade gently sideways across a stretched section of yarn.
Grasp the yarn with scissors or a wire cutter (not hard enough to cut it), and pull the yarn until it breaks.

Storing Heddles Store heddles on large safety pins put through the top and bottom holes of the heddles. Slide the pins through the heddles while they are still on the rods, then remove the heddles and close the pins. Keep them in groups or 10 or 20 for easy counting.

A New Twist
Use wire twist-ties to hold the cross in your warp and fasten your lease sticks together. Be careful not to snag your yarn on the ends of the wire.

New Reeds
Be sure to remove residual grease from a new reed before you use it. Wipe the surface with a tissue and then clean between each dent with a dry cotton swab or a heavy strand of yarn. Soft, unmercerized cotton yarn absorbs grease especially well. Use your reed hook to pull loops of yarn through several adjacent dents, then move the series of loops up and down to clean the whole group of dents at one time.

Warping Tip
If you use a raddle, consider tying your least sticks to the raddle with twist ties. It's a lot faster and more convenient than suspending them between the castle and back beam.

Threading Check
When doing a pattern weave with yarns of little or no color contrast, start by weaving several rows with contrasting yarns. These first rows will help you spot threading errors more easily while they space the warps evenly.

Bean Dye
The next time you cook black beans, save the water you've soaked and simmered them in. A quart of the cloudy purple liquid will give a nice gray color to an ounce of white wool. Transfer the liquid to your dyepot, add a half-teaspoon of alum, and simmer the wool for at least 30 minutes, then let it sit in the dyebath overnight or longer before rinsing. With luck, you'll see a hint of lavender or even blue.

For the lazy among us
Keep a pair of inexpensive, lightweight, 24" long barbeque tongs hanging from the breast beam within easy reach to retrieve dropped objects without having to move from the weaving bench.

Hint
To cover the bumps and knots of the tie-on and make a smooth base for even the finest fabric as it rolls onto the cloth beam, use bubble wrap, available in office supply stores in rolls 12" x 60". Two layers of "double bubble" laid crosswise over the knots seem to work best. Or solve the same problem with foam carpet padding.

Another Hint
When using floating selvedges, put the threads through the reed but skip a dent between them and the rest of the warp. This makes it much easier to find and pull them up with your fingers.

Warping Help
There is an office product called "Tacky Fingers" which is used when handling a lot of papers, such as collating. It is very helpful to use when straightening and tightening yarns during the warping process. It is odorless, stainless, but just give a little extra grip.

Extra Heddles(/P> To remove extra flat-steel heddles and keep them in the proper order, slide a popsicle stick through the heddle eyes. Catch each end of the stick with a rubber band or tie a cord around it to keep heddles from slipping off. When you want to add heddles to your loom, just slide the number you want onto the heddle bar before removing the popsicle stick.