London Guild Exhibition

I  see I have not written anything for several days. Friday, I did not go to my Creative Textiles class because there was a lot to do at home. The most important thing was tracking some urgent drugs for Michael which had got lost between the surgery and the pharmacist. I got them after five that afternoon.

I was at Kennet Valley Guild on Saturday where a gallant team wound two warps and 12 bobbins for  the start of our Colour Gamp project which has 12 colours. Rosie Price bought two Colour Gamp kits from Lunatic Fringe at Convergence and 12 of us are going to weave these up. It has meant a headache with the calculations because the warps need to go on portable looms and we did not have enough that were right width. So it is on four looms with six colours on each. I am warping up two looms and am supposed to have my sections on these looms woven by next Sunday so that I  can take the looms to a dyeing class on that day so that they can be passed on.  I decided that I did not want to waste any yarn so would put on a ghost warp and tie the colour gamp on to that. I have got that done and am halfway through winding the warp on. I hope to finish the tying on and the weaving today and will start on the second loom tomorrow.

Yesterday (Monday) I went to London to see the Diamond Jubilee Exhibition of the London Guild. Passing over the fact that there was an underground strike and my train gets into Paddington and the Exhibition was at Waterloo, it was a good day, although short on food and drink. The photo above shows a selection of scarves, all very high class. The venue was well-lit, it had a high glass roof although a bit of an odd shape, it was basically a stairwell. What was interesting compared with Kennet Valley Guild's show last October was that about 50% of the exhibits yesterday were weaving and London had nothing like the major spinning/dyeing exhibits that KV had. The weaving was high class but then London Guild seems to have all the high class weavers in the country as members!! I was there to deal with the Complex Weavers Award and it was quite difficult. Some of the best scarves were not well finished around the fringe area which was a real pity. And two of the best pieces were tabby and didn't qualify! After all it was an Award for Complex Weaving. 

In preparation for this day, I have bought a good book on judging and jurying from Ontario Crafts Council. 'The Trials of Jurying' by Susan Eckenwalder. I read it from cover to cover twice. A very useful and helpful book.