#284 Winter 2022

One of the roles of the Journal is to provide technical information to help build skills in weaving, spinning and dyeing. In this issue we include a number of articles which will help novices and the more experienced. The first part of Amanda Hannaford’s workshop on preparing longwools for worsted spinning is a great introduction to woolcombing, with advice on easily accessible tools to get started. For weavers, Mark Cullen provides practical advice on Peter Collingwood’s shaft switching technique for rugs. Mark had the advantage of discussions with Jason Collingwood and has first-hand experience of modifying looms. The Online Guild Dyeing Challenge led Elisabeth Viguié-Culshaw to experiment with dyeing with foraged plants and using an iron solution to modify colours. For tapestry weavers, Heather Seddon shows how she developed a technique to create twists in tapestry.
Using handspun for a stitched project involves a great many decisions, and Pene Blogg and her daughter embarked on a particularly complicated task – it’s finally finished, having spanned the difficult years of 2020 and 2021. Pene leads us through the decision-making process necessary for a successful outcome and shows us the impressive completed Bargello stitching.
Over the 70 years that the Journal has been published it has built up a fantastic resource of information. We take one article from 1980 about the journey made by Bette Hochberg, author of Handspindles, and her husband into deepest rural Mexico in search of natural brown cotton. Unlike the original, we are able to illustrate the article with wonderful images from Marilyn Murphy, Cloth Roads. Another journey took Angela Thompson to the Czech Republic to visit the Gobelin Tapestry workshops, founded in the nineteenth century and still creating new textiles and restoring old ones.
Lastly, Sue Willis shows how landscapes inspire her small weavings using beautiful short lengths of yarn.

Hilary Miller, Chair, Journal Editorial Committee