Gallery

Summer School

In August 2023 a group of six guild members were lucky enough to travel up to Harper Adams University near Telford for the AGWSD biennial summer school. The school which lasts for a week is a chance to learn new skills, meet lots of new people and have fun.

In August 2025 a group of six members (plus a member who has moved away) are making the trip to Edinburgh. Again Tawe Guild is brilliantly represented. We are all very excited! We will be following courses on tablet weaving, felt making, lace spinning and tapestry.

The grounds were beautifully kept, probably helped by the horticultural courses on site. The accommodation was clean and comfortable and the food was lovely. Certain unnamed members had a big cooked breakfast every day!

All of the members were on different courses. Split ply braiding, nuno felting, an evolution of felting, words in tapestry, designing yarns and soft basketry.

Liz – Designing Yarns

Liz used images as an inspiration to produce some stunning yarns.

Anna – Words in Tapestry

Anna had a slight panic when she realised that the rest of the group had preplanned more than her. She told herself not to panic and remain calm. There was the word for her! This work is beautiful as tapestry is very dense and requires a lot of work. In addition having curves needs a great deal of concentration.

Christine – An Evolution of Felting

The course taught how to make 3D felt sculptures using a wire armature.  We started with the bone, learning basic techniques, and then ‘evolved’ during the week!  The caveman came next.  I decided on a wise professor whose first attempt at inventing the wheel, Plan A, was a failure.  

Next came a dog and then finally a person to interact with the dog.  I chose to base my pieces on the Medieval tapestry series: The Lady and the Unicorn.  Unfortunately, inflation has struck even here with vet’s bills and grooming costs going through the roof.  As a result, the Lady has had to use her own dog as a substitute tying a horn on his head and giving him a mane!

Christine’s work was amazing and even better, in the flesh. As a guild we can be partisan and say it was the best piece of work in the group.

Sal – Nuno Felting

Felting is always a hard physical task so imagine producing an entire garment in a week! Lots of late nights went into the design and creation of this reversible dress. There are always compromises to be made on accommodation for the courses and when the weather broke midway through the week the whole group had to move inside. It was a bit tight!

Clare – Split Ply Braiding

We had to make our own 4ply braids which were manipulated into various shapes using a gripped to assist the process. It is a time consuming and fiddly craft but one I intend to carry on struggling with.

The work was small and detailed. The entire groups week’s efforts filled a very small table!

Hopefully Clare will do a workshop for guild members in the future.

Sandra – Soft Basketry

Many gardens were stripped of suitable leaves in the pursuit of this course. What was even better was that the university grounds were a great source of everything from pine needles to hazel wood. We wove using hemerocallis, rushes and crocosmia to name a few. The Monday morning started by stripping the bark off willow! On the subject of unusual venues for courses no-one really believed I was in a tractor shed until they saw the actual tractors! Baskets, coasters and flowers were just some of the things made that week on on return some of the guild members made their own flowers. Here is Sam with his lovely make.

Tapestry Challenge

A long, long time ago in a land free from Covid the guild had a regular tapestry challenge! Anyway the final subject before the first lockdown was Stained Glass and one or two members produced a piece and so a year on here we are…..

Anna used a lily pond as her inspiration for the stained glass challenge. Wven in linen using a inlay technique and details have been hand stitched with embroidery silks. She tried to suggest the water ripples by using a deliberately loose beat and warp sett.

A Weaving Challenge

Christine decided to challenge herself practising overshot on her table loom. The two red table mats are woven in a honeysuckle motif. The first is “treadled” star fashion and the second rose fashion. The next is a piece of sampling with different wefts and treadlings. The final piece is a piece of her own design. Brilliant and the result of a lot of hard work and patience.

Magic Ball Workshop

The guild is trying to keep things fresh by running some zoom workshops for the members. The first held recently was to use a special knot to create a Magic Ball of yarn from all the myriad of odds and ends we all have in our stash.

Hilary has used her magic ball to knit this tea cosy. So cool and retro! There will be more photos as the projects are completed.

…and Lindsey has knitted a dog blanket from her magic ball, one lucky dog, those colours are great!