The WOW! Group - Weaving on Wednesdays

Two years ago three or four of our weaving & spinning guild members started getting together a couple of Wednesday mornings a month. At first we met at my house but last year we started meeting at Wooly Wonders, a knitting and weaving shop on the east side of Las Vegas, and we decided to start meeting every week. We call ourselves the WOW! Group - Weaving on Wednesdays Group.

We’ve grown to eight to ten members, some arriving early, some late--that’s always me (have to check my e-mail first). We talk a lot, drink our coffee & tea, knit, crochet, spin and even do some weaving. We often bring in rigid heddle looms or tapestry looms, like Kathy who is working on a sort of fantasy landscape in Noro yarns shown in the photo.

I brought in my 8H Leclerc Voyageur table loom, but didn’t do much weaving. I work at the store tomorrow and Friday and probably will get some weaving time in then. I’m trying to weave off the bookmarks as I’m going to need the loom for a workshop in lace weaving in Salt Lake City in late October. The bookmarks have a black rayon thread warp and a variety of pattern wefts. They are a variation of bookmarks from the March/April 2007 Handwoven article, “Elegant Bookmarks” by Syne Mitchell. Last year our guild challenge was to weave with warp smaller than we usually weave with. Boy, this warp sure fit the bill. I could have gotten by just by using 20/2 as a warp, but I was fascinated by the beautiful pattern of the bookmarks.

I’m not sorry I did the project, once the correct sett was worked out for my rayon warp and the warps stopped breaking. But I’m sure not going to use this tiny a warp thread any time soon. I’m ready for something a bit bigger. When the warp comes off I’ll be able to take some photos of the different pattern wefts, some of the bookmarks actually turned out nicely, and the broken warps were easily hidden.


In the photo, Nancy is spinning with a drop spindle, but often brings her wheel to spin with. She is one of the founding members of our guild, and is an excellent weaver too.

How do your guild members get together between meetings? We find we enjoy the weekly get together to exchange ideas and show what we’ve been doing, and look forward to the next week's gathering.