Comminity Threads Week 28

It's been a while since I've been back to visit the Nottawasaga Handweavers and Spinners at the Gibson Centre in Alliston and it was nice to see some familiar faces as well as some new ones. Above, a newcomer to the guild: Jackie Teunissen. She's lived the last many years in Geneva, and moved to Caledon a couple of years ago. She's enjoying the tapestry weaving process and looking forward to continuing in participating with the guild's activities. The tapestries are progressing wonderfully. Some of the people that have been weaving on them regularly include Valerie and Elizabeth, who have really dedicated their time and efforts to producing their tapestry banners. They are feeling confident to make changes to the tapestries, both editing out the composition, and changing colours, as they think is appropriate. I applaud that they are taking artistic license. They have even decided that they will make some new paintings, of historic properties in the municipality to include in the tapestry banners, and therefore eliminating images that are duplicated in the some of the tapestries. Excellent and all the while, expanding their knowledge of the history of the muncipality. Sandi had some good stories about the churches in the area and we'll have to post this to the blog because it's intriguing. Their pride of place is coming through as they all work on this project, which they in turn put into the project.

Another new face at the guild is Deb Chandler. She's giving tapestry weaving a try on the 'learners' tapestry loom before moving onto the the large gobelin loom.

Jean and Valerie were back this week working on the finishing of the first completely woven tapestry banner. We'll have to start giving some thought as to what title we want to give each tapestry. Linda and Sandi discussed what new pictures needed to be taken, and then transformed into paintings. Linda felt so confident in their newly acquired artistic skills that she didn't feel she needed me to help them do the paintings! Linda reports that visitors to the weaving studio are frequent, which also means that this encourages traffic at the Gibson Centre. Linda and Sandi also talked about bringing some of the portable tapestry looms to the community libraries, and to the mall in Tottenham to promote the project, the Gibson Centre, and the Nottawasaga Handweavers and Spinners in the months to come. They will be giving a special presentation the Alliston Historical Society March 14.

I'll be visiting the project about once a month for the next year to help out, see what developments there are, and give advice when needed. The group are doing a great job! Don't hesitate to stop by and weave on the Community tapestries...everyone's contribution is welcome.