#273 Spring 2020

This issue includes the second part of Lesley Willcock’s article on making garments from handwoven fabric. She has plenty of practical advice to reassure and inspire weavers to use their handwoven fabric imaginatively. Chrissie Freeth documents her journey into the world of medieval tapestries courtesy of a Churchill Fellowship. The medieval dyers relied on plants for dyes and Pat Denne has spent many years experimenting with dyes derived from woody plants. Today we have a wide range of textile equipment suppliers, but when Tim Willcocks set up a business making drum carders in the UK the situation was rather different. His story of developing the business is a window onto the spinning community in the 1970s.

With spring approaching thoughts turn to the garden. Carolyn Griffiths provides advice on growing woad and dyeing with it.

We also look back on last year’s Summer School, with reports from each of the courses, profiles of two graduates who exhibited their work there, and a report on the work submitted for the Certificate of Achievement in 2019.