April Guild Meeting: Favorites!

Date:  April 10, 2021

Time: 10:00am until 12:00pm

Place: Guild Zoom Room (new room access in the email sent to members)

 

April Program:  FAVORITES

Favorites!  Do you have a favorite pattern or fiber-craft book that you return to again and again? Or a favorite technique or designer? Are you a designer with a pattern you’d like to tell us about?  Our program this month will be a round-robin discussion of favorites (or as round as we can make it on Zoom).

This is a great time to share what we love with our guild!

 

Mailed-To-Your-Door-Prize  A random number generator will be used to choose two members from the membership list. The winner will have the prize mailed to them at the home address on the guild member directory! All members will be included! You do not have to be present to win! 

Farm Day at the Birmingham Zoo April 17,2021 Each year the Birmingham Zoo invites our guild to present our techniques in public on their premises. We volunteer to knit, weave, spin, crochet or tat or any of your fiber crafts demonstrating  outdoors to passersby.

This is not a class setting. We are there for others to observe the process of fiber to yarn, fabric or finished item. Most of our Birmingham area children are not accustomed to seeing this transition so we help their knowledge of their world.

Bring  your chair, sunscreen, umbrella, and PLEASE email gbfiberguild@gmail.com with the subject line Farm Day 2021 to let us know that you will be there!

Don't miss the May program with a rocket scientist who designs for thread!

March Guild Meeting, Birds as inspiration for dyeing

Meet us on the second Saturday of March! 

Date  March13, 2021                          

Time 10:00am until 12:00pm 

Place New Guild Zoom Room (find the Zoom access info in your emailed newsletter)
 

Program Songbird Fibres Presentation by Vicki Ryder
From Vicki, "I found dyeing through a love of fibre and lifelong fascination with birds. I’m self taught and have developed my style through playing with colours of plumage. My little shop is in Stratford, Ontario (about 1.5 hours west of Toronto), home of the largest Shakespeare Festival in the world."

 

Mailed-To-Your-Door-Prize A random number generator will be used to choose two members from the membership list. The winner will have the prize mailed to them at the home address on the guild member directory! All members will be included!  
You do not have to be present to win!
This month's prizes will be from the Songbird Fibres shop!!
  
Zoom numbers are emailed to guild members in the meeting notice email. If you did not receive an email (and you have paid your 2021 dues and checked your spam folder), send a message to gbfiberguild@gmail.com to ask for help.
 
Mark your calendars for second Saturday meetings this year. We will have ZoomRoom meetings until further notice.
 
Study Groups Meet Monthly (ZoomRoom meetings will replace most of these until further notice)
• First Thursday Spinning and Weaving Group: Spin & Weave Night, 6:30 to 9:00 p.m. at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Hoover (on Patton Chapel Rd, across from Hoover Church of Christ). Park behind the church, come in the large glass doors, walk toward the happy, loud voices. Everyone is welcome! Please see Ravelry for details.  
• Spinning Study Group: 4th Wednesday of the month, 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. at St. Peter’s Church in Hoover. Please check out the GBFG Blog for cancellations or schedule changes.  
 
Membership Dues and Renewal  
The Guild’s membership year runs January through December. Annual dues are $25. Dues can be paid using PayPal. Mark it “friends/family” and NOT “goods/services”. Use this link: paypal.me/GBFiberGuild or use our gmail account gbfiberguild@gmail.com. To send a check via USPS, send a note to gbfiberguild@gmail.com to receive the postal address.
 
The Guild on the Web

Find all of our links at https://linktr.ee/GreaterBirminghamFiberGuild 

The blog is at www.greaterbirminghamfiberguild.blogspot.com,blog@greaterbirminghamfiberguild.com  
Facebook group is  at www.facebook.com/groups/1734104776811872/permalink/2816851785203827/

Our Ravelry group
Ravelry www.ravelry.com/groups/birmingham-fiber-guild

 
 

Dues are due!

From an email sent this afternoon from our membership/treasurer:

The 2021 dues for the GBFG were due yesterday!! In the next week, I'll be creating our new mailing list of paid members and we will be creating new log-in info for our zoom room which will only be sent to current members for the March meeting!

If you've decided not to renew your membership, we're so sorry to see you go! We have lots of really amazing guest speakers lined up, including a former NASA engineer who will be talking tatting with us and, we hope, at least one internationally known fiber artist/teacher!! Of course, we know that this past year has been really challenging in so many ways and zoom certainly isn't for everyone. We hope that you'll consider rejoining in the future, hopefully when things are better and we can be together in person again.

If you DO want to rejoin, it is NOT too late!! You can send a payment through PayPal to gbfiberguild@gmail.com (please mark it "Sending to a Friend" under the payment amount on the confirmation page!!).

If you have questions about PayPal or would like to send a check through the mail, send a note to gbfiberguild@gmail.com.

February Guild Meeting, Saturday, February 13

Meet us on the second Saturday of February, 2021
Date:  2-13-2021                           
Time: 10:00am until 12:00pm
Place: Guild Zoom Room
Program: Show and Tell
 

Triumphs and Tragedies
Be Proud! Share up to 3 of your finished projects or WIPs. When everyone has shared that wants to, a second round may be started. We all want to see what you have been up to with fiber!
 
!Mailed-To-Your-Door-Prize!
A random number generator will be used to choose two members from the membership list. The winner will have the prize mailed to them at the home address on the guild member directory! All members will be included!
You do not have to be present to win! But starting in March, you DO have to be on the PAID Member list for 2021! So get those dues in to Jen quick!

NOTICE: March meeting notice will go out only to PAID 2021 MEMBERS.

We have some exciting plans in the works for the rest of the year! Possibilities include:
an internationally known knitting teacher, lecturer, and wit;  
a fiber artist who takes inspiration from nature;   
and a rocket scientist who designs for fiber!

For this February meeting ONLY, you may share the Zoom access with an interested individual since all access will change at month’s end.

Membership Dues and Renewal
The Guild’s membership year runs January through December. Annual dues are $25. Please pay your dues yearly before February 28. Thank you!
You may pay by cash/check at any meeting or mail your check to Jennifer Lackey.
Dues also can be paid using PayPal. Mark it “friends/family” and NOT “goods/services”.
Use this link: paypal.me/GBFiberGuild
or use our gmail account (gbfiberguild at gmail .com).

January guild meeting, Melvenea Hodges and Handspun Cotton

January Guild Program, Melvenea Hodges and Handspun Cotton. Saturday, January 9, 10:00am (CST), in the guild's Zoom room (zoom contact information was sent in the January email to all guild members).

Melvenea Hodges is a Fiber Artist residing in South Bend, Indiana. She creates clothing and accessories using traditional techniques such as block printing, sewing, weaving, spinning, knitting, crocheting, and embroidery.

Melvenea's presentation this Saturday will focus on creating with handspun cotton with practical information about sourcing fiber, spinning the right yarn for different applications, and woven, crochet, and knitted projects that inspire. 

While Melvenea works with an array of fibers, cotton is the fiber that has sent her on a journey of self-discovery as a fiber artist. She was inspired to begin growing, spinning, and weaving cotton as a way to reclaim an undocumented heritage of fiber arts as a Black American maker. Aside from its cultural significance cotton is a remarkable fiber that is a joy to create with. Melvenea finds tremendous joy in helping others learn new skills. In addition to teaching at a primary school, she connects and shares with other textile enthusiasts through social media and at her local weaving guild.

Melvenea’s mission is to honor and preserve our fiber arts heritage through practice.
She intermittently blogs about her work and traditional textile techniques on her website www.traditionsincloth.com where she also offers handcrafted accessories and spinning supplies. She has also published articles with SpinOff magazine on techniques in working with cotton.

Happy New Year, 2021!

 

The Crochet and Tatting study group has had a New Year’s gathering in the past and since they can’t have their usual meeting IRL, the guild is taking a cue from the tatters and crocheters and having an “Open House” or “Open Zoom Room” on New Year’s Day from 11:30 to 1:30. Come and go as you like, chat, show off the new tools or materials that Santa brought, or start a new project.

Hope to see you there!

December 2020 guild meeting this Saturday, December 12

Meet us on the second Saturday of  December, 2020.

Date:   December 12, 2020                           

Time: 10:00am until 12:00pm

Place: Guild Zoom Room (access information was emailed to members)

Program: Quilts of Alabama, Beth Hunter will be our presenter. Be prepared for lots of color and history!

The Yarn Ball has been bounced to next year and in its place is the opportunity to DECORATE YOUR HEAD !!!

To make our meeting a bit more FESTIVE, to entertain, brag, play dress-up or just be clever, Decorate your head!  the part of you we see in the Zoom meeting!

A tiara, crown, hat, head sculpture etc. made, recycled, repurposed, created for the occasion, or whatever.

Guidelines: 1) Fit for public viewing (and possible recording), 2) totally optional, 3)BYO Eggnog and Snickerdoodles

 

! Mailed-To-Your-Door-Prize!: A random number generator will be used to choose one members from the membership list. The winner will have the prize mailed to them at the home address on the guild member directory! All members will be included!

You do not have to be present to win!