This question was asked at the last General Meeting. The simple explanation is that it is a week of workshops by tutors employed by the Guild, to cover any field of the textile arts, generally live-in and at a site where day students can attend. In recent years we have endeavoured to hold these every two years, alternating with an exhibition.

The first Loomcraft School was held in 1959 at Allambie House, Audley on the Port Hacking River and further schools were held there annually until l970 when the guest house was deliberately burned down rather than face the substantial costs of repairs. Most out-buildings and non-indigenous garden plants were removed as it was in the Royal National Park.

After 1970 Loomcraft moved to University of NSW for a couple of years, then various other places such as Sturt Workshops at Mittagong, School of Textiles at Strathfield TAFE and Burwood Girl's High School some of which were for day students only with accommodation or billeting arranged for country members. More recently we have had some very successful and enjoyable Loomcrafts at Hurlstone Agricultural High School at Glenfield which has live-in accommodation and is near the train line - however it must be kept in mind that educational facilities are only available during term holidays.

At the first school in 1959 looms were set up with various weaves and students wove a sample on each. Two spinning wheels were also available for use. Later schools catered for spinners as well as weavers, and by 1967 the Guild had acquired a number of looms and wheels for this purpose and a decision was made to allow these to be hired out to new members at times when they were not required for Loomcraft, seminars and workshops.

In recent times we have included such diverse topics as basket making, raffia hats, clothing, paper making, dyeing, braiding , tapestry, rug weaving, felting etc - some classes run for a day, others for 5 days. Evening discussions or entertainment are organised and suppliers of books, equipment, fibres and yarns also attend.

The traditional name of the Guild's first school in 1959 carries on, however the content has changed considerably. Part of the first Loomcraft report in the Journal reads Mr Lance Crane took on himself the unenviable task of keeping the school to time-table and the students to attention when Miss Jessica Booth was ready. Without his bell and whistle it would have been impossible to complete the ambitious program arranged for the school.

Posted by Prue Hill at 9:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Only seven weeks to go until the closing date for your entries in the exhibition.

For those of you who would like to send your work on to the Bendigo Show, if you let me know in advance I can plan for those items to be available for collection on Sunday.

Thank you to those members who have already offered to assist. We will need more people, especially those who are able to be there during the week to talk to people and keep an eye on the exhibits.

At this stage all we can do is plan what we would like to do and then scale it up or down to suit the size of the space we are given. Past history suggests that we may have to wait until the last minute before we know. If possible we will have
demonstrations of most aspects of our craft so if that appeals to you, fill in the form.

I have a group booking form from Expertise Events and can send a copy to any group planning to purchase ten or more tickets. You don't have to all attend on the same day and once purchased, a bulk buy ticket can be used on any day. It could save you a lot of time if you don't have to queue for tickets. Contact me or ask at the guild rooms for a copy of the form.

You need to have your name and your place of residence eg Sydney somewhere inside a garment that is for sale. Only a garment that fits the body needs a care label and this personal label attached.

We are calling this year's display an exhibition and it is to celebrate a special anniversary. The Craft and Quilt Fair is part of a big event and we want to show the best and most exciting aspect of our craft.

Think about what might excite you if you went to an exhibition. Articles which are interesting, innovative and technically sound are what we would like show.

Lucille Ryan

Posted by Prue Hill at 9:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Kumihimo devotees can become members of the Complex Weavers Japanese Textiles Study Group. This group has an extremely diverse range of interests from social, historic, symbolic, to weaving, dyeing, and braiding techniques, to sewing and embroidery, and translation of designs to contemporary western weaving. It was founded in 2004. To become a member go to their web site: www.complex-weavers.org.

Rod Byatt now runs its listserve while an American coordinates members' dues and mailing out of the 6-monthly Newsletter. It's been great fun for him - the website has a bibliography of nearly 200 books, photos, links to lots of things and over 500 emails on all sorts of topics. The Newsletter reflects the specialisations of the 25 or so members: weaving drafts, spinning and weaving paper, woven shibori, etc.

The Complex Weavers Marudai Study Group has an Artwork as its Swap Exchange theme currently and the participants will have photos of their work uploaded to the braiding photo gallery at www.weavershand.com. The Marudai Study Group is 10 years' old this year.

Rod hopes to bring a piece of kimono rag weaving (sakiori) and weaving with remaindered silk threads (zanshi) to the next Guild meeting, also the latest swaps of the Complex Weavers Takadai Study Group (also 10 years old.)

The Kumihimo Conference in Kyoto is shaping up well too, with an updated website, www.kumihimoconf.org.

Also this year's theme for meetings of the Asian Arts Society (Sydney) Textile Study Group (second Wednesday of the month at the Powerhouse Museum) is "Symbolism", following on from last year's theme of Animism/Spirit World.

A blog, www.narablog.com is devoted to sarasa and other rather esoteric Japanese textiles.

Posted by Prue Hill at 8:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The March guest speaker was Barbara Schey.

You would think that after all the tours that Barbara has led to south-east Asia and South America that there wouldn't be much left for her to learn about the pitfalls. Travelling in India taught her several. And, I think, she learned something about herself and her ability to get what she had organised.

Her tour was attached to the UNESCO Natural Dyeing Symposium held in Hyderabad in early November last year. Barbara was surprised that many industrialists are adopting natural dyes as a marketing strategy to avoid the adverse image of man-made dyes. There were 860 attendees from all over the world. The attendee list read like the catalogue of authors of modern dyeing books. Their results re-inspired Barbara to try vegetable dyes. She is currently trying to find a local mud (with added ferrous sulphate) that will dye as well and as quickly as the sample she made there one afternoon.

Many of the papers were challenging for those inexperienced in chemistry despite the instantaneous translation. The list of papers may be downloaded from the UNESCO site, portal.unesco.org/culture

The tour started in the south of India in the rainy season. They had 24 inches of rain each day for three days running to demonstrate how inadequate the local drains were... but which country would be able to cope with that much water especially if they have one billion citizens? Compared to travelling in Japan, India was dirty, crowded and corrupt. Being in a group of 20 women (and one man) put them at a disadvantage when trying to negotiate even with the tour company that had made their arrangements. Barbara learned to demand an acceptable level of service. The Hotel Perfect in Delhi did not live up to its name.

Despite this there were wonderful textiles available. Barbara's buying was limited by weight limits on internal flights but she still managed to bring a table full of cloth to share with us... partly by wearing a goodly number of them plus 15 necklaces on to the plane!

Bargains were everywhere. She bought a wonderful piece with shisha glass and gold thread for a fraction of the cost of the threads. And a fine cotton dohti for her husband, which is too transparent even for a sarong here. They visited several villages which specialized in weaving where weavers use pit looms and take 6 days to weave a sari at 60 epi with draw loom edges, 7-8m long, which is sold for $3.50.

Barbara enjoyed buying shibori cloths that are traditional in India and ludicrously cheap considering the work involved.

On long bus trips she kept her tourists busy weaving pouches on cardboard frames using cheap saris ripped into strips. After seeing a stunning exhibition of a sultan's jewels in Hyderabad she was disappointed by the Taj Mahal which she had thought was studded with precious gems but it only has semi-precious stones inlaid in white marble. The most enjoyable museum was J Singh's observatory in Jaipur.

Barbara was asked if she got sick while in India: she loved the food. Being a vegetarian it was a pleasure to eat in a country where restaurants were separated into vegetarian and non-vegetarian. It was only on the last day or two that she felt a little unwell.

Posted by Red Wolf at 3:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)