Mercer Spinners and Weavers Guild, August 14,2014

Munnell Run Farm is the location of the August 14 meeting of the Mercer County Spinners and Weavers Guild,  here is the latest email from Bonnie with the meeting information.

This is an early “heads up” for the August meeting so you can be making plans to come.  It’s August 14th, a Thursday, at Munnell Run Farm near Mercer at 10:00.

 

Kathy Grossman has been growing flax for some time and has accumulated the equipment needed to process it, but has never gotten “a round-tuit”.  She will bring flax and the equipment to the August meeting and we can help and learn how to process flax.  I for one am very excited to learn about this important historic fiber.

 

Remember your lunch and a cup for your beverage.  Kathy says it’s a dusty job so don’t wear your best duds.

 

Bonnie

Silk Fusion Workshop. mercer Spinners and Weavers Guild

Roz Macken from the Meadville Guild,  who will be leading our Thursday, June 12thmeeting on making silk paper, has sent this list of supplies.  This will happen at Munnell Run Farm at 10:00.  Remember your lunch and a cup for your beverage.  Bonnie

Subject: bring for silk paper program

 

Hi, Judy, thought I should send this along (it took a while to find it again). roz

Materials for the program on silk fusion will be provided and I will have extra of these items, but if you have, please bring:

            fine-fiber carders;

            1-2” sponge brush;

            spray bottle with a fine mist;

            cake pan, dish pan, cookie sheet or something similar to lay out and wet fiber (not buckets, fiber

    must lie flat);

     plastic or rubber gloves (optional).

Need more information call Judy or Bonnie

Mercer County Spinners and Weavers Guild May meeting

Here is the latest email from Bonnie about our next guild meeting.  I May stop by after my DWMC meeting in Sharon.  I am recording secretary so I have to be there the meeting is 9:00 - 11:00, but by the time we get out of there and I get back to mercer it is after 1:00,  Judy said folks are sometimes at the Farm till 3:00 so I may see you all.  Happy. Spinning!    Nancy

The next meeting will be on Saturday, May 10 at Munnell Run Farm at 10:00.   Judy Hanninen will be teaching us how to do core and ply spinning or novelty spinning.  This  is the technique that Judy uses to do her wonderful scarves and hats and bags.  The paragraph below is Judy’s direction to us on what to bring (along with your wheel).  Don’t forget something for lunch and a cup for your preferred beverage.  Bonnie

 

Still Knitting Socks

A  friend asked why I knit socks?  I suppose it has more to do with why I like to wear hand knit socks than why I like to knit them.  I love wearing my handknit socks and i like to carry a small knitting project with me and the socks are perfect portable project.  I am usinf up small balls of three different yarns in this project.  The socks do not match exactly and I like that.  They are more interresting to look at and create.  They are a pair but not identical twins. 

Mercer County Spinners and Weavers Guild April 8 2014

Hi All,  To remind you that this Thursday is our monthly meeting at 10:00 at Munnell Run Farm.  Bring your current project to work on or your wheel or questions or your “Help Wanted” sign caused by your latest project.  Remember your lunch and cup for the beverage of you choice.  Bonnie

Nizza

Nizza Mangus, one of the founding members of the Mercer County Spinners and Weavers Guild passed away last Wednesday, Feb.5 in her sleep.  She was 93.

Nizza was a talented weaver and a member of our group for 40 years. In 1974 a group of talented ladies got together to learn to spin yarn from local sheep fleece in honor of the 1976 Bicentennial Celebrations.  They began meeting monthly in each others homes to share skills and knowledge of the fiber arts. For the next 40 years Nizza and the spinners and weavers continued to appear at local craft events and meet monthly to keep the art of spinning and weaving alive; passing on their skills to a new generation of Fiber Artists.

For many years Nizza would invite The Mercer County Spinners and Weavers to her Farm for a pot luck lunch, I remember being there for a or a natural dye workshop and a batik demo and more lunches than I can count. We always loved our yearly meetings at Sheepside Farm.  We loved exploring her beautiful studio and seeing what wonderful weaving she had on her huge Cranbrook Loom. We will miss Nizza and always remember her and the knowledge she shared with us.  Thank you Nizza for sharing your life with us.

Below is a beautiful email that her neighbor, Judy Hines received from one of Nizza's former students.  I hope Dennis does not  mind me sharing this with you. 

Nancy Griffin 

From: "Bateman, Dennis" <BatemanD@CarnegieScienceCenter.Org>
Date: February 12, 2014 at 9:27:36 AM EST
To: Judy Hines <judygym35@gmail.com>
Subject: RE: Words of honor

Nizza was, to use a word that is used too often, unique. Much of what I am, whatever that is, is due to her. Due to her acceptance, encouragement, example, spirit, care and love. She was the quintessential teacher - of art, and of life. She was encouraging, cajoling, and critical as a teacher. She was not afraid to shrug, tilt her head and arch those curiously-green eyebrows at you, as you hoped for a good word on what you knew in your heart was a substandard piece, conveying that she knew that you knew that she knew you could do better. Many students thought she was a 'funny old lady,' but that never stopped her from expanding our horizons, pushing our boundaries, and exposing most of us to a range of art and artists we would never see in our little valley. I treasure many lunch periods in high school, when she'd let me skip the cafeteria, and sit with her in her office, talking. As the Exhibits Director for, currently, two of the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh - the science center and the natural history museum - there is literally not a time that goes by when I walk the halls of the Oakland museum complex that I don't recall her talking us there as students, showing us our first real Monet, Van Gogh and Giacometti. 

She never stopped teaching me about things, even long after she retired. A visit to her farm, Sheepside, was a lesson in weaving, or gardening, or pottery, or of course, sheep. Our increasingly-infrequent visits (moves to and from Los Angeles and New Zealand got in the way) went like clockwork - tea as brewed, muffins produced from nowhere, and the dining tabled was gathered around. News was shared as the years and miles melted away. She could be judgmental about your art, but never about you. When my wife, Heidi, and I struck out to seek our fortunes in Hollywood, and then returned to Pittsburgh 4 years later, she had a similar story about 'getting New York City' out of her system when she was our age. When we left for New Zealand, certain we would never see her again, she stood in the doorway of the mudroom, smiling through the screen door at us, encouraging us to seek out a new adventure in life. And that's where she was when we moved back from halfway around the world, too, beaming to see us again.  

And that's where I see her now. And always will.

Dennis Bateman
Director of Exhibits & Theaters, Carnegie Science Center
Interim Director of Exhibits, Carnegie Museum of Natural History

Below Judy and Nizza at Munnell Run Farm in June 15, 2007 ,                                        Nizza looking good at 86

Hand knit Trellis Tam

Trellis slouchie tam,

 Knit on #9 circular needles, 

Yarn is single ply, Cascade Pastaza, one 100gm skein, 50% Llama / 50% wool

Cast on 64 stitches (cast on over#9+#4, holding two needles together) this gives the edge a little more ease,

K2,P2 for 5 rows

6th row cable the k2 sts and increase by adding a purl stitch (P1,m1P, P) see photo below

7th row    k2, P3 around. You now have 80 sts.

8th row.    Knit a row around knitting what you see. ( K2, P3). 

9th row.      Cable row  (see photo). Move purl stitches between the knits (16 cables)

10th row.    Knit. Around/. K1, P2, K1, P1, K1