Four Corners (in person)

The December Nutmeg Spinners Guild meeting features four mini-workshops:

• Great Wheel demonstration,

• Winter themed needle felting/ Cross Stitch,

• Round Robin Spinning Wheel Trials,

• Social Table

Have you ever wanted to see a great wheel in action? Try your hand at needle felting or cross stitch? Spin on a brand of wheel you’ve always wanted to try out? You’ll have the opportunity to do all of these at our December Guild meeting. Or, if you’re just feeling like hanging with your peeps, try the Social Table.

This is an in-person meeting. The program will begin at 9:00 AM.

Grow Your Skills Spin-In

This lively spin-in is all about growing your spinning skills, even if you're a beginner!

Please join Donita, Lori, Heavenly, and me. Get your spinning questions answered and hang with your third Thursday friends!

If you looking for new and interesting ways to stretch a braid of fiber, spinning a crepe or cable yarn is a good alternative to a marled yarn. Maybe you’re looking for a different way to combine braids with different colorways.

Crepe yarns are a plied yarn and a single plied together. A cable yarn is a plied yarn plied with another plied yarn. These novelty yarns can also be a way to expand your yarn options in fabric construction.

• Skill Level: Intermediate

• Technique: Spinning

• Prerequisites: None

• Kit Contents: Kit includes fiber and handouts.

• Supplies Students Must Bring: Note taking supplies, a spinning wheel in good working order, extra bobbins, lazy kate, and a niddy noddy.

• Homework: Pre-spin ½ or so ounces of singles (solid color) before the class, yarn should be spun firmly but not overspun.

Are you intrigued by the possibilities that a blending board opens up but don’t know where to start? Would you like to see what you can accomplish before committing to buying your own? Or maybe you have played around with your blending board and would like to explore some new options. In this workshop, we will start with the basics of applying and removing fiber and the care and cleaning of your blending board. We will then move on to some of the more interesting things we can do with blending boards, such as making matching batts, striping, garneting, etc.

• Skill Level: All Levels

• Technique: Spinning

• Prerequisites: None

• Kit Contents: Kit includes fiber, additional blending board supplies, and handouts.

• Supplies Students Must Bring: Note taking supplies. Students should bring a Blending Board (if you have one).

• Homework: None

Grow Your Skills Spin-In

This lively spin-in is all about growing your spinning skills, even if you're a beginner!

Please join Donita, Lori, Heavenly, and me. Get your spinning questions answered and hang with your third Thursday friends!

Grow Your Skills Spin-In

This lively spin-in is all about growing your spinning skills, even if you're a beginner!

Please join Donita, Lori, Heavenly, and me. Get your spinning questions answered and hang with your third Thursday friends!

Grow Your Skills Spin-In

This lively spin-in is all about growing your spinning skills, even if you're a beginner!

Please join Donita, Lori, Heavenly, and me. Get your spinning questions answered and hang with your third Thursday friends!

We will be enjoying the festival!  Hope we see you there!!

Grow Your Skills Spin-In

This lively spin-in is all about growing your spinning skills, even if you're a beginner!

Please join Donita, Lori, Heavenly, and me. Get your spinning questions answered and hang with your third Thursday friends!

We will be enjoying the festival!  Hope we see you there!!

We will be enjoying the festival and demonstrating spinning!  Hope we see you there!!

New Building Skills Spin-in

As you probably know, the PSG hosts two 90-minute spin-ins every month.
On the first Sunday of every month at 5 p.m. Pacific
On the third Sunday of every month at 10 a.m. Pacific
However, those spin-ins can get more technical and in-depth than some spinners are ready for or comfortable with. In response, we're launching a new monthly spin-in! The Building Skills Spin-in will start this month and will take place at 5 p.m. Pacific on the third Thursday of each month. The first will be on March 20. Just like all the PSG spin-ins, guild members will get a spin-in link the week before the spin-in and it's always posted in the PSG forums.

New Building Skills Spin-in

As you probably know, the PSG hosts two 90-minute spin-ins every month.
On the first Sunday of every month at 5 p.m. Pacific
On the third Sunday of every month at 10 a.m. Pacific
However, those spin-ins can get more technical and in-depth than some spinners are ready for or comfortable with. In response, we're launching a new monthly spin-in! The Building Skills Spin-in will start this month and will take place at 5 p.m. Pacific on the third Thursday of each month. The first will be on March 20. Just like all the PSG spin-ins, guild members will get a spin-in link the week before the spin-in and it's always posted in the PSG forums.

There are many ways to blend pre-dyed fibers together to create different colors (optical blends). In this workshop, we will play with different blending methods (including blending boards, combs, drum carders†, hackles, handcards, and blending directly at the wheel) to determine the best way to create just the yarn that you want for your color work projects. We will discuss blending different types of fibers together to create additional color effects and ways to transfer this knowledge to blending larger amounts of fiber for larger projects.

• Skill Level: All Levels

• Supplies Students Must Bring: Any of the following items that you have: Blending board, combs, hackles, and handcards. Note taking supplies.
  A spindle or wheel for spinning samples (optional).

• Materials fee: $35 - Participants will receive fiber and handouts.

• Instructor Will Provide: Instructor will have a limited number of fiber processing tools available for participants to use during the workshop.

• Homework: None

Saturday, September 28, 2024

9 a.m. – 4 p.m.

Birden Field, 1871 Main Street ~ South Windsor

It will be at Birden Field, 1871 Main Street, next to the East Windsor Hill Post Office.

South Windsor History and Family Fun!

Free Admission (But donations are appreciated)

Historic wagon rides up Main Street sponsored by the Wood Memorial Library & Museum

The historic Governor’s Horse Guard will have demonstrations and offer pony rides

Entertainment: The Grass Routes Bluegrass Band, and The Sweetest Keya cappella singers.

Historical displays include Native American skills, the Bissell Ferry, First Congregational Church, Wapping Community Church, the South Windsor Historical Society,

Food trucks, handmade specialty crafters

Teacup Auction and much more!

Special Exhibit: Liberty’s Daughters in Northeastern Connecticut: Women, Textiles, and the Nonimportation Movement in the Revolutionary Era. Sat., June 29 through Sun., Oct. 20, 2024. When in the 1760s and 1770s, American colonists decided to protest laws and taxes enacted in Parliament — indeed, to protest the entire notion of Parliamentary supremacy — they put teeth in their protests by boycotting British manufactured goods. The male leaders of this Nonimportation Movement quickly realized that, in order for it to succeed, it needed the energetic support of American women, for it was women who knew how to spin thread and yarn and weave it into cloth. This exhibit examine the contributions of patriot women — called the Daughters of Liberty at the time — to the success of the Nonimportation Movement. It also explores how women’s vital role in the Movement may have — or may not have — transformed women’s political and economic roles in the New Republic following the Revolution, interweaving conclusions reached by mainstream historians with local examples. The exhibit will be staged in the Mill Museum’s main exhibit room, the Bev York Room. There will be demonstrations of how to use preindustrial textile technology and other’s women’s crafts. And on Saturday, August 17, the Museum and friends will reenact a Revolutionary Era spinning bee on Windham Green. The exhibit is part of the national observation of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

Special Exhibit: Liberty’s Daughters in Northeastern Connecticut: Women, Textiles, and the Nonimportation Movement in the Revolutionary Era. Sat., June 29 through Sun., Oct. 20, 2024. When in the 1760s and 1770s, American colonists decided to protest laws and taxes enacted in Parliament — indeed, to protest the entire notion of Parliamentary supremacy — they put teeth in their protests by boycotting British manufactured goods. The male leaders of this Nonimportation Movement quickly realized that, in order for it to succeed, it needed the energetic support of American women, for it was women who knew how to spin thread and yarn and weave it into cloth. This exhibit examine the contributions of patriot women — called the Daughters of Liberty at the time — to the success of the Nonimportation Movement. It also explores how women’s vital role in the Movement may have — or may not have — transformed women’s political and economic roles in the New Republic following the Revolution, interweaving conclusions reached by mainstream historians with local examples. The exhibit will be staged in the Mill Museum’s main exhibit room, the Bev York Room. There will be demonstrations of how to use preindustrial textile technology and other’s women’s crafts. And on Saturday, August 17, the Museum and friends will reenact a Revolutionary Era spinning bee on Windham Green. The exhibit is part of the national observation of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.

Strong Family Farm is having a homesteading Day on Sunday June 30th. They are having a canning demonstration; going to talk about gardening at home and raising chickens. They are hoping to have sheep or alpaca visitors.

Spinning demonstration

Morning Session - Workshop

Fiber Playground – Come and Play with Silk!

We will explore, compare and contrast various types of Silks. For example: Bombyx, tussah, eri, mugga; etc.

We will also explore different preparations: mawatas/hankies, brick, sliver, reeled

NOTE: This workshop is intended to be a “let’s play with different fibers” experience and NOT a breed study. We will put a bunch of silk fiber in your hands, we’ll discuss the characteristics and best uses for each type, and just generally have fun! We will also discuss how different methods of preparation will affect your final product.

Spinning Level Required: Comfortable with spinning (can spin a stable, continuous yarn) and looking to explore options.

Student Should Bring: Students should bring note-taking supplies, a spinning wheel in good working order, extra bobbins, and lazy kate.

Afternoon Session - Demonstration

Silk Reeling

Terri and Herman Guerette demonstrate how silk fiber is processed into thread for textile use. Terri will cover the various steps in this process, from soaking silkworm cocoons in water to reeling and twisting the filaments into different types of thread.

In addition to the reeled silk thread, Terri always has a variety of different types, species and preparations of silk available for viewing (and touching, of course!!).

Materials Cost: Silk Fiber will be provided to members who participate in the program for a $10 material fee (the full cost will be subsidized by the guild).

Please contact president.nutmegspinnersguild@gmail.com if you are not a guild member and would like to attend as a guest

If you are interested in becoming a member of the guild, please contact membership.nutmegspinnersguild@gmail.com or sign up here.

We will be enjoying the festival!  Hope we see you there!!

We will be enjoying the festival and demonstrating spinning!  Hope we see you there!!

February 3, 2024 Zoom Only

Follow the Fleece: A Fiber Adventure Michelle Boyd

We are surrounded by fibers, but how can we know how to spin them? The fibers are leaving us clues and all we have to do is find them! This workshop takes a playful approach to learning to "read" a fiber and decide how best to spin it. And once we have decoded the fibers, we can follow them to their end uses. We will look at three different projects and use our detective skills to determine the best fibers and spinning techniques to make the perfect yarns. In the end, we will have a notebook full of clues to help us solve even the most difficult wooly mysteries. (Fiber sample kits will be provided prior to the meeting for use during the program).

Topics covered:

~ wool and fiber preparations: rovings and tops and everything in between

~ spinning style for different fibers (and why)

~ determining the right amount of twist for breed specific fibers

~ the concept of “spinning to the twist" simplified

~ spinning fibers beyond wool

~ considerations for the end uses of our spinning