For anyone interested

Ontario Handweavers and Spinners
The Spin at Warp Speed Electronic Newsletter
September 2013
Notices and Events

Resource Directory Online
The OHS is updating the Instructors Resource Directory. This will be now be located on our web site rather than in print. This way we can update it more frequently and distribute it further. Please let us know the details of the educational opportunities that you offer, ie. workshops, lectures or programs, how far you are willing to travel, and any other special requirements that you might have. To be included you must be a member of the OHS.
Please complete the attached form or online form available under the Workshop Leaders tab on the Web site, and return it to list coordinator Bridget Lewis at (cblewis@bell.net).

Found
A quantity of wool fibre for spinning was found at the NAV Centre after the conference. Please contact sandi.nemenyi@gmail.com if you think this may be yours.

Nominations
There are still a some positions available on our board, as well as opportunities to volunteer on various committees. You can make a contribution by offering your time and talents, Find out how you can help by contacting Jo Mills, Nominations Chair.

Memberships
Memberships and renewals are now available online! http://www.ohs.on.ca/members-section/memberships

5 Counties (Midwest Region) Seminar, One Thread, Many Ways, takes place on Saturday, September 21. Hosted by the Burlington Handweavers & Spinners Guild, the event takes place at the Burlington Arts Centre. $45. Please see Fibre Focus, spring issue 2013 for more information, or click here.

October 5, 2013 Central Region Seminar: Paddle Your Own Canoe, hosted by the Peterborough Handweavers and Spinners Guild. Held at The Canadian Canoe Museum, Peterborough, ON. Keynote Speaker Andrea Graham will take you on a visual paddle through her artistic journey as a feltmaker and innovative artist. Enter your own decorative pillow into the Pillow Challenge for People’s Choice awards. For more information and seminar registration see the Spring 2013 issue of Fibre Focus or visit www.ohs.on.ca

Woodstock Fleece Festival
October 19, Woodstock, ON. Visit the Fleece Festival website for more information.

Creativ Festival
October 25-27, Convention Centre South Building, Toronto. Please contact Sarah Craig if you would like to volunteer at this event.

Learning Opportunities

Weaving Certificate Unit 15 – Eight Shaft Double Weave
Learn to design, draft and weave multishaft double cloth and gain an understanding of Backed Cloth and Pique
Instructor - Pat Zannier
Date – October 26 & 27
Location - To Be Determined
Contact – Bridget Lewis (cblewis@bell.net) for more details.

Haliburton School of the Arts

OHS Spinning Certificate Program
Please let us know if you are interested in beginning the 6-level program in 2014,
at the beautiful Haliburton Campus of Fleming College. Courses are scheduled to take place in the month of August. Participants must be familiar with a spinning wheel and able to spin a simple thread.
createit@hsta.ca 1-866-353-6464 www.hsta.ca

If you know of upcoming weaving and/or spinning classes for the fall, please let us know about them:
info@ohs.on.ca

From our Partners
Textile Museum of Canada latest news. The show, Ancestry and Artistry:
Maya Textiles from Guatemala runs May 29 - October 13, 2013. Please see the following for more information about this and other events at the Textile Museum of Canada. http://www.textilemuseum.ca/dispatch/version2_0/June.html

Fall Sales

Simcoe County Quilt, Rug and Craft Fair, Sept. 20-22, Simcoe County Museum, 1151 Hwy 26, MInesing, Ontario. Featuring Huronia Handweavers and Huronia Spinners Guilds.

Huron Tract Spinners & Weavers Annual Sale - Sat., Nov. 2 10:00 am – 5pm and Sun. Nov. 3 12:00 am – 4 pm at the Huron County Museum, 110 North St., Goderich ON. Unique traditional and modern weaving, basketry, beading, spinning, knitting and felting. For more information go to:
www.huronspinandweave.webs.com
or contact Kerry Price519-238-6452 or price@hay.net

Seasonal Wrapsody - Nottawasaga Handweavers and Spinners and friends. Fri, Nov. 1, 6pm - 9pm and Sat., Nov. 2, 10am - 4:30pm. Gibson Centre, 63 Tupper St. W., Alliston. http://www.nottguild.ca/

To Enter

Carnegie Craft 2013, Nov. 1-24, 2013. (Dundas, Ontario) Please see call for entry:
http://www.carnegiegallery.org/call-for-entry-carnegie-craft-2013/
Innovations in Fibre Art VI, International Juried Fiber Art Exhibition (Sebastopol, California)
http://www.entrythingy.com/www.sebarts.org

Stitches Across Time
Dufferin County Museum & Archives presents Stitches across Time, a unique juried show of contemporary fibre art pieces together with an exhibit of rarely seen textile pieces from the Museum’s collection Deadline for entry, April, 2014 http://www.stitchesacrosstime.com/

Looking for fabric on the cheap to construct your work of art?

http://networkedblogs.com/OYfaA

If you are looking for some nice fabric but don't want to pay wholesale prices, here is a sale for you.
Enjoy a leisurely drive to the Brockville area to look at the wares for sale
Have fun!

Support your local Fair

http://www.carpfair.ca/150th-celebration



The Carp Fair is in our backyard. It is celebrating it's 150 year with a Mural unveiling ( pictured above). From Farmers Market, musical enlightenment, judging of livestock, culinary delights,and crafts.The Carp Fair is sure to entertain you. Check out their website before you head out....and don't forget to purchase your raffle tickets. You could be that lucky ducky winner!

http://artottawa.ca/galleries/orleans-gallery


The Ottawa School of Art has several gallery sites. I have chosen one link above to display what the Orleans Campus has in their collection. Tour the website to find other galleries, locations and what is up and coming at the School of Art

What is on in your area?

http://www.artistsincanada.com/artist/browse/textiles-ontario-ottawa/?cat=65536&prov=10&city=Ottawa


Check out the link and familiarize yourself with local artists. On the left sidebar of the linked webpage is a rolling list of exhibits in Ontario

Spin in Public welcome.......................

Spin-in Public Day, Sept 21, 2013 on Bate Island from 10:00 to 3:00. This is another free-wheeling opportunity to meet other wool-heads to discuss our shared affection for spinning straw into gold. We might pick up a new skill but most important of all we can get to know one another. Some of you did not participate last time because of the weather. Bate Island has a very nice sheltered picnic area that works if the rain comes, so I'll be there rain or shine.

This is not a guild sponsored event. Bring along or tell anyone else who might be interested. It is also not exclusive to spinners. If you have a project on the go that needs a little "sit down" time, time to weave in those dangling threads, finish the fringe, stitch it together, this is the perfect opportunity.
You’ll need to bring a Wheel, fiber, project, lunch, beverage, chair, conversation, or just chair and conversation – the rest we can work out.

Fibrefest 2013

18th Annual Fibrefest

The Mississippi Valley Textile Museum’s highly anticipated Fibrefest is returning for its 18th annual event on September 7th and 8th, 2013, and it will be bigger and better than ever. At three locations—the MVTM, the Almonte Arena and the Almonte Curling Club—visitors will find more than seventy vendors, coupled with demonstrations, exhibits and much, much more—a full two-day festival of textiles and fibre arts!

Throughout Fibrefest, local guilds will be on hand to demonstrate the arts of knitting, lacemaking, smocking, weaving, spinning, quilting, penny rugs, and more. The Friends of the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum will again be providing tea room services, featuring homemade goodies, beverages and sandwiches all available at a reasonable price.

The Ottawa Valley Button Club is again hosting Button Mania. As well as having vendors selling a huge variety of buttons and button-related items, the club will mount displays of beautiful glass buttons and historic uniform buttons. Bring your old buttons to the button ID clinic to find out the history of your special items!

New this Year: Vintage Clothing Show and Sale!

We are very excited about this new addition to Fibrefest. The Almonte Curling Club will be the site of a vintage clothing event, which will include a museum-quality display—The History of Fashion—designed to raise appreciation of the beauty, workmanship and creative potential of vintage and collectible clothing. Thirty juried vintage clothing dealers will also be offering quality fashions for viewing and purchase. This is a unique opportunity to enjoy a huge variety of vintage fashions all in one location.

Featured Artist: Noelle Hamlyn – Textile Artist

Noelle is intrigued by the possibilities of textiles—of using textures and fibres to evoke emotion. She believes that our sense of touch is one of our most powerful, and is therefore drawn to things with strong tactile qualities. Using a wide range of unusual materials, she creates works that explore concepts such as memory and attachments, as well as cultural, family and personal narratives.

“Sweetness of the Work” is a collection of pieces created in homage to hand work—usually completed by women—that seeks to showcase the accumulated stitches, labour and hours invested in traditional women’s hand work. Many pieces have been washed and treated to encourage the formation of salt crystals that are like the sweat and salt tears of the seamstress—a gentle meditation on the loss of these traditional skills, the repetitive nature of hand work, and the social role of women.

The “tools of the trade,” from sewing machines, spinning wheels, and scissors, to buttons, bobbins and pins are cast with Japanese gampi paper to create ghost-like references to the hands that used and abandoned these “old fashioned” methods.

Graduating from Sheridan Institute’s Crafts and Design Program (Textiles), and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Noelle has represented Canada at the International Craft Biennale in Cheongju, South Korea and the Love Lace International Lace Competition at the Power House Museum in Sydney, Australia. She showed at the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad and has work in the permanent collections of the Cambridge Art Gallery, the Peel Board of Education and the Cleveland University Hospitals. In March she mounted a small show at the Art Gallery of Mississauga and participated in the Biennale Internationale Du Lin de Portneuf in June.

At the Museum: Two World-Class Exhibitions

While Fibrefest is in full swing, the gallery at the Textile Museum will be featuring “Inner Vision,” a display of vibrant modern tapestries by prize-winning Peruvian artist/weaver Maximo Laura, along with “Naked Coptic Dancers” a collection of Christian Egyptian tapestries from the 3rd to 12th century. You won’t want to miss a chance to see these outstanding collections.

I Say, Don’t Miss the Tweed Ride

Local cycling enthusiasts will again be donning their poshest period biking duds (plus fours encouraged) to create the spirit of a bygone era in Almonte’s Tweed Ride. Riders will meet at the Fairgrounds on Saturday September 7 at 11 a.m. and will take a merry jaunt around town to the various Fibrefest locations. While any bike is acceptable, classic models are naturally encouraged.

Tweed Rides are a worldwide phenomenon that began in London in 2009 to celebrate the bike and raise money for a good cause. Proceeds from the Almonte Tweed Ride are directed towards education in Haiti.

Whether you are interested in art, history, clothing, textile crafts, or just a great day out and about, Fibrefest will have something of interest for everyone.



Admission to Fibrefest is $5.00 per day, which includes access to all sites. Fibrefest runs on Saturday September 7 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday September 8 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Almonte, just 45 minutes west of downtown Ottawa. Venues are the Mississippi Valley Textile Museum, located at 3 Rosamond Street East in Almonte; and the Almonte Arena and Almonte Curling Club, located at 182 Bridge St. For more information contact the Museum at 613-256-3754 ext. 7 or info@mvtm.ca