East Grinstead Spinners

Over the past two months Madeline has taught us to weave Baltic band weaving. Day One was taken up with warping the looms, and starting to weave: Day two progressed to the weaving of the patterns: A couple of people had done some homework: The last image is of an inkle loom band where the weft was passed through from the same side at each pass:

Carol Carey gave us a demonstration of how she has used plants from her garden to make mats and baskets. The plant material has been dried. It is then re-wetted and kept moist in a towel to make it soft enough to weave.

Carol T started our 2026 workshops with a workshop exploring heat transfer printing. Everyone enjoyed themselves hugely. These are some of the results:

The Japanese art of Boro is 'on trend', We had fun playing with this decorative art at one of our 2023 workshops Repairing a rip Disguising a hole                              Covering a stain Making a feature of the mend Extending the life of a sock Choosing the yarn          Using any odds and ends you have to hand. Perfect up-cycling solutions   

Many people had brought their spindles - some of us had experience, others were learning. Good fun was had by all. Top whorl spindle Madeline presented the workshop with a few tips and tricks, which were much appreciated. She also showed us a couple of possibilities of setting up for plying - to easily remove the singles cob from the spindle, it was suggested that a quill of card was wrapped around the spindle shaft. Shoe boxes and knitting needles come in very handy A very advanced lazy kate Many different types of spindle were in use - mainly suspended spindles, which included a couple of Turkish spindles. Towards the end Laura demonstrated supported spindling. A display of spindles. The displayed spindles are as follows: A takli spindle for short fibre spinning - a very fast supported spindle, which needs to be supported in a container which doesn't get damaged by the sharp metal shaft. 3 further supported spindles, the middle one being a Russian type spindle, these are all made...