#290 Summer 2024

Now that the season for Guilds getting out and about to demonstrate their skills to the public has arrived, we’d love to feature how Guilds are making the most of such opportunities. Do please get in touch with us at JEChighlights@wsd.org.uk to share your success stories. There is one example on p.40. Maybe Edinburgh Guild and Central & East Scotland’s Guild’s approach to engaging visitors in hands-on activities and of working with each other might inspire your Guild to approach events with renewed vigour or in a different way?
Besides Guild Highlights, there is plenty more to read and enjoy in what seems to be a particularly varied issue.
Contents in this quarter’s edition of The Journal WSD range from the 3D printing of equipment (p.30) to weaving links between Birmingham Alabama and Coleg Sir Gâr in Wales forged via stained glass windows (p.32); from cutting into yardage at home (p.12) to the life of yak herders in Tajikistan (p.18). Proofreading it has been a joy and I found myself marking up items in the Diary (p.52) that I would like to attend whilst I was supposed to be checking hyperlinks, photo credits and all the details that are so prone to going wrong. I hope you don’t find any missing details, but do find plenty to keep you interested whether you are a novice or experienced in one or more of our crafts.
On which subject, thanks go to an eagle-eyed reader who would like us to point out that on p.8 of the Spring issue’s article Sustainability, there was a reference to viscose as a process when it is conventionally considered a fabric produced by a particular process. We know there are many experts out there, so do please keep us posted of any inaccuracies that have been missed by the entire Journal team.

Lesley Fidler, acting JEC Chair