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- June 2025 PHG Newsletter
Send news items and fiber events to Tim Prins by the 25th of the month for inclusion in the next month’s newsletter.
Guild Calendar
Thursday, June 12, 2025 – June Annual Meeting + Strawberry Social
Multnomah Arts Center + Zoom, 7688 SW Capitol Hwy. (503) 823-2787
All meetings are free and open to the public7:00 pm Evening Meeting – Auditorium
6:30 pm – 7:00 pm: set up, social and library browsing time
7:00 pm – 9:00 pm: MeetingThursday, June 26, 2025 – Board Meeting
7:00pm – Zoom
See the website for full calendar including study group meetings.
President’s Message
Wow, what a crazy way for our year to end. As everyone knows, we received a message from MAC on a Tuesday announcing that Portland City Council was voting on Wednesday (the next day) to close MAC. What a shock! The message was forwarded to the Board by several members; we sent a message to our distribution list and to anyone else that needed to know. The request was to call, email and / or attend the City Council meeting. And did we show up! I attended virtually for over 2 hours and heard many of you testify as well as others who utilized MAC for classes and other services. I heard the meeting went until midnight. Our members sent letters, some directly to Councilman Novik who sponsored the bill. The effort paid off! He pulled the bill after hearing from so many. So, thank you to all who attended or sent letters at such short notice. We can all breath a little easier now.
On a lighter note, our Annual Meeting / Strawberry Social is June 12th at 7pm. This is when we vote in Board members, review by-law changes, get a status on our budget, and hear about programs, study groups and all sorts of other fun things happening in our Guild. And of course, there is strawberry shortcake. My dad was the founding member of Over Cookers Anonymous, his motto was “Too Much Is Not Enough.” As a charter member, I am already obsessing about how many quarts, trays, barrels, of strawberries I should cut up. We will have plenty of sugared and non-sugared berries. Biscuits with and without gluten and whipped cream dairy and non-dairy. I thought about ice cream, but without a freezer, it’s just cream. Plan to come and hear what is going on in the Guild and enjoy the evening with friends. There will not be a morning meeting on June 12th.
Upcoming Programs
June 12, 2025 Meeting – Annual Meeting & Strawberry Social
The evening meeting features approval of the 2024-25 spending plan, and election of 2024-25 officers and board of directors. Come socialize, and show what you’ve been weaving!
Can’t make it in person? You can still take part in the discussion and voting by joining us via Zoom.
Upcoming Workshops
If you’d like some weaving inspiration, to learn new skills, and connect with the PHG weaving community, please join one of our future workshops. Here’s what we have coming up:
September 12-14, 2025: Indigo and Shibori, an Exploration of Resist Techniques with Judilee Fitzhugh
PHG’s own Judilee Fitzhugh will be leading this workshop exploring indigo with multiple techniques that highlight this dye’s natural beauty. This 3-day workshop will be held at Ruthie’s Weaving Studio and is open to dyers of all levels. Judilee is a fantastic instructor, come join us! For information and registration, visit: Indigo and Shibori, an Exploration of Resist Techniques
November 14 & 15, 2025: Color and Design in Huck Lace Towels with Rosalie Neilson
This workshop is led by another PHG member, Rosalie Neilson! Explore Huck Lace while weaving a multi-colored towel in three sections. Discussions and design sessions will focus on converting a profile draft into a threading and treadling plan, and how literally thousands of designs can be created with a single threading by changing the tie-up. This 2-day workshop will be held at the MAC and is appropriate for advanced beginning to advanced multi-shaft weavers. Rosalie is well known as an excellent teacher. Please join us, just in time for some holiday and winter weaving! For information and registration, visit: Color and Design in Huck Lace Towels
May 15-17, 2026: Doubleweave Discoveries with Jennifer Moore
Learn all about the magic of doubleweave! In this workshop, participants will weave a sampler that explores weaving two independent layers of cloth, double-width cloth, tubular weaving, color-and-weave effects, pique, quilting, and doubleweave pick-up. Students with 8-shaft looms will also be able to weave samples of 2-block doubleweave techniques in log cabin, checkerboard, windows, and double-blocks. Graphing designs and working with multiple colors will be introduced. These techniques can then be taken home to create clothing, sculptural pieces, decorative hangings, and whatever else the imagination can dream of. Registration is not yet open, but you can find out more information at: Doubleweave Discoveries workshop with Jennifer Moore – Portland Handweavers Guild
March 12-14, 2027: Rug Weaving Basics with Mary Zicafoose
Looking forward to 2027, we are excited to bring renowned artist Mary Zicafoose to PHG. Mary joins us for a program and workshop in March 2027. Learn, add to, or refresh your knowledge of a well constructed rug in Rug Weaving Basics. Registration is not yet open. Learn more about Mary at: Mary Zicafoose Tapestries and Prints | Home Page
Happy weaving and learning!
Any question should be directed to workshops@portlandhandweaversguild.org.
Guild News
Membership Renewal Time
It’s that time of year again. PHG is now accepting membership renewals for the 2025-26 membership year. To renew go to https://portlandhandweaversguild.org/renew-my-membership/. Beat the rush. Renew today!!
Summer Demonstrating Opportunities
PHG will be demonstrating weaving at a few farmers markets this summer. (One of them is sneaking right up on us June 1st!)
Please come demo and answer folks’ questions about weaving and the Guild. Small looms will be available for people to try out, but bring your own loom and project if you want. Spinning wheels are welcome also! Table, chairs and a canopy will be there, but bring your own comfortable chair if you prefer. Please review the available slots. Thank you for promoting weaving in the community!
Check the volunteer section of the website often as other volunteer chances get posted! Watch for Oregon State Fair and Art in the Pearl towards the end of summer.
Woodstock Farmers Market
Date: Sunday, June 1 or Sunday July 27
Time: 10 am to 2 pm
Location: Key Bank Parking Lot, 4600 SE Woodstock Blvd
Sign up: https://portlandhandweaversguild.org/sheet/woodstock-farmers-market/Cedar Mill Farmers Market
Date of Event: Saturday, August 16, 2025
Time: 9 am to 2 pm
Location: Safeway Lot, 1027 NW Murray, corner of NW Murray and NW Cornell RD
Sign up: https://portlandhandweaversguild.org/sheet/cedar-mill-farmers-market/If you have questions contact Cooki Messmer at cookimessmer@comcast.net
If you want to phone, look at the Guild member directory for my number.
Member Services Director Needed
Seriously, have you ever thought ‘Hmm, I could do that?”
Well, we need to fill the role of Member Services Director. As with any role, it is whatever you want to make of it. Minimally, it is tracking membership numbers and answering questions about membership. Additional duties include overseeing the library and closet, all of which will continue to be managed by Robin and her team.
It is a Board position, and we do meet monthly for about an hour. I try to keep things moving and try to ensure that attending is not too onerous. We just rewrote all of the job descriptions as many were outdated. If you are even slightly interested in talking about the role, feel free to give me a call or send me an email noragessert@yahoo.com 734-395-1693.
Bylaws Update
The board has approved updates to the bylaws that will be voted on at the annual meeting in June. The main change is to remove term limits that would have required the treasurer to step down after three years. Details can be found on the website at https://portlandhandweaversguild.org/proposed-bylaws-june-2025/
Ruth Dabritz Legacy Project Teaching Assistant Orientation
Our next class for the Ruth Dabritz Legacy Weaving Project is July 25-27. If you’re interested in being a teaching assistant for this or any future classes please plan to attend a Teaching Assistant Orientation session. There will be 2 held in July before this next class – July 19 and July 24.
The Legacy Project classes are a fun way to help new folks discover weaving. We hope you’ll consider joining us. If you have questions please contact Legacy Chair Sue Walsh at legacy-chair@portlandhandweaversguild.org.
Come to the Meeting! You might win something!
Hey all, as part of the Membership Meeting on June 12 at 7pm, we added a raffle! Everyone that comes to the meeting will get a ticket for a chance to win items that folks have donated or were created as part of classes or demonstrations. I am sure it is all cool stuff! So come for the meeting, stay for the strawberry social and find out if you are a winner. No purchase necessary, but if you feel like tossing a buck or two into the kitty, any funds will be used for Guild events. It will be great fun!
Gathering of the Guilds Update
Hopefully, everyone made the show in April; there were amazing artists from our Guild and 8 others. The attendance was up but it sounds like sales were lower for many of our artists. As noted in previous newsletters, the GOTG sale is in flux. The PHG Board voted not to participate in 2026 as the cost continues to increase year over year. Our goal is to break even, and the concern is we start to lose money, which is not being good stewards of our funds.
We are anticipating a proposal from the Oregon Potters Association where they will manage the entire show and sell booths. Each guild would have to commit to a certain number of booths for it to be viable. At a minimum, we will let members and vendors from previous years know what the plan is and how we may support OPA and future GOTG events. We are looking for other ways we can support our artists beyond our Fall Sale. Any ideas are welcome.
Latest ANWG Newsletter
The Association of Northwest Weavers Guilds has posted their April 2025 newsletter. Check out the creative ways other Northwest weaving guilds are getting their members together for fiber activities. All ANWG newsletters are available here.
Bulletin Board
Inspiration from the Master Weavers Among Us
Rosalie Nielson, Linda Hendrickson, and Nancy Hoskins. How fortunate we are in the Portland Handweavers Guild to have such talented lifelong weavers among our members who willingly share their creative journeys and learnings with us! That’s what I was thinking when I attended the PHG May morning meeting where Linda Hendrickson presented on her years long journey with ply split braiding. And then I realized that there were two other very accomplished weavers who had come to see their friend’s presentation: Rosalie Nielson and Nancy Hoskins.
All three of these women have woven for years following their particular passions, creating new techniques, explaining them through articles, books, videos, and workshops and always willingly sharing their knowledge and inspiration. Recognized nationally for their expertise, they are continually evolving in their creative paths.
After mastering floor loom weaving, Linda went on to focus extensively on tablet weaving and ply splitting. Her books and videos on her website have helped countless weavers to learn her helpful techniques and patterns.
Rosalie Nielson worked on warp faced rep weave and block designing. Then she tackled writing and teaching about kumihimo from simple beginning patterns to endless complex variations.
Nancy’s earlier weavings featured weft faced designs. Then she explored the Oregon flax and linen industry. Later she made trips to Egypt to research early woven textiles of the pharaohs and Coptic designs.
Perhaps you aspire to be an expert one day in some aspect of weaving; maybe you do production weaving and focus on sales; or possibly you just enjoy weaving as a hobby working on whatever pattern catches your interest. Whatever draws you to the world of weaving, come to the PHG programs and prepare to be inspired by the talent, experience and expertise of some master weavers!
Cooki Messmer
Looking to Buy or Sell Weaving Equipment or Materials?
Check out the Items for Sale page.
Library Update
Summer is almost here, which means it’s the end of another guild calendar year. Time to plan for the long summer break. As you know, PHG doesn’t meet over the summer. Library items and rental equipment checked/rented in June are not due until the September meeting (the Wolf Pup being an exception as it has a date at Art in the Pearl). So this is a great time to check out that book that you know was going to take you more than a month to work through. If you are wanting to rent a piece of equipment, please get your request in soon. Many pieces of equipment have already been claimed for the summer. Jacque may need time to work with you to find an alternative if your first choice isn’t available. The June meeting is particularly hectic for the library and rental crew. We’re hoping to get to the strawberries this year before they’re gone.
We’ve had a good year. There were no major equipment failures. And we don’t have to find a new home for the all of the stuff in the guild closet over the summer. We added 45 new titles to the guild library through the allotted budget and donations. The Small Equipment Library cart made its debut this year. The equipment rentals are growing every year.
I’d like to thank my library crew – Nora, who started with the library when I did back in 2011; Cindy, who is finishing her second year; and, new this year, Vianne. We don’t get the whole summer off. We will be doing inventory over the summer. That process also gives us the opportunity to make sure that everything is in its proper place. I would also like to give a big hand to Jacque who has the monumental job of overseeing the equipment rentals. I don’t know what I would do without her.
Pat Z. is returning as our guest book reviewer. This is her third review for the PHG newsletter. Pat is taking a look at one of the books published by Complex Weavers. Sounds like Pat found plenty of inspiration for her new Megado loom!
–Robin K.
Complex Weavers Greatest Hits
Judie Eatough and Wanda Shelp editors
Complex Weavers, Provo, Utah publisherThe Complex Weavers organization is an international membership group that welcomes all weavers interested in exploring more complex structures. In 1999 the group wanted to celebrate their 21st anniversary. This book and its accompanying CD were the result.
There are about 250 designs in the book, in chapters initially organized by structure: four twills chapters (Simple and Fancy; Point Twills; M’s and W’s, Advancing and Networked); Overshot and Crackle; Tied Weaves. Then a chapter labeled Profile Designs which I will deal with below. Then follows one labeled Color with a few color and weave designs but several double weave and shibori ones. It seems the chaotic classifications today’s weavers suffer under were just as bad then.
A charming Lace chapter has interesting huck designs along with spot and atwater-bronson. There are three multi-shaft designs labeled swedish lace. Our study group is currently investigating lace weaves and I recently spent around 20 hours trying to find a definitive description of swedish lace. I believe I did but the swedish lace in this chapter does not fit that description! It’s been a frustrating journey.
Two further chapters are titled Elegant Weaves and 21st Challenge. At this point the titles are fairly meaningless – twills show up here, along with satins, damasks, lampas and huck. Madelyn van der Hoogt contributed a marvelous dragon that requires a drawloom. A short chapter – Narrow Weaves – has tablet and kumihimo designs.
The 26 page chapter labeled Profile Designs has one good characteristic – the title is accurate. In contrast, the designs are nothing but frustrating because neither on the page nor the CD are weavable instructions given. There are lots of pretty pictures with comments like “The design has neat op-art effects and would be fun for color play…interesting in Ms and Os but many structures would work”. The designs are all complex. As a particularly sadistic professor of mine once said about a theorem: “the proof is left to the student”. In this chapter, the threading, tieup and treadling are left to the weaver.
There are approximately 250 designs, most of which are on the included CD with .wif and .dtx files. The files help tremendously, since some of the designs in the book are very hard to follow.
Our very own Barbara Walker and Ladella Williams contributed designs – Turned Overshot in Walker’s case. Ladella had three entries – an interesting six-shaft huck design, a color-and-weave eight shaft study and finally, a 16-bobbin kumihimo design. She also included a .wif file showing the kumihimo design as it would appear loom-woven.
In sum, this book is a rich source of multi-harness designs from a collection of outstanding weavers. Its disorganization is almost charming and actually made me feel better about my perpetual confusion over weave classifications.
–Pat Zimmerman
Browse the PHG library online from the comfort of your home anytime. The first tag for each item tells you in which section the item can be found. Newer acquisitions may be on the “new” shelf. Also explore tools you can check out from the Small Equipment Library. Both are available for browsing during our regular meetings.
Would you like to see a review of a rigid heddle, dyeing, tapestry, band weaving or spinning book in the newsletter? Write one! We would be thrilled to publish a review of any item we have in the PHG library. Old or new. Text or DVD. Good, bad or indifferent. Email your review to Robin K. for publication in a future newsletter.
Fiber News and Events
First Friday
June 6
Vancouver, WashingtonFiber arts at theARTScentered. PHG will have a booth. More info: https://theartscentered.org/classes-%26-events
Reception for Wearable Art: https://artatthecave.com/calendar-1/2024/9/6/first-friday-reception-for-absolutely-abstract-rgrcg-mbjeg-4lkjs
Fiber Fusion Northwest
June 7-8, 2025
Monroe, WashingtonMore info: https://www.fiberfusion.net/
ANWG 2025 Conference
June 16-21, 2025
Yakima, WashingtonMore info: https://anwgconference.org/
Alberta Street Gallery Fiber Arts Invitational
Through June 22, 2025
Portland, OregonMore info: https://www.albertastreetgallery.com/events.html
Black Sheep Gathering
June 27-29, 2025
Albany, OregonMore info: http://blacksheepgathering.org/
Damascus Fiber Arts School Tapestry Talk
June 28, 2025
Damascus, OregonTapestry Talks guest will be Fiona Hutchison. Born in Edinburgh, Fiona Hutchison is an artist and teacher working in tapestry and mixed media. A graduate of Edinburgh College of Art, her work is based on her love of the sea. Inspired by all things maritime, her own experiences of the sea are enhanced by studying poetry and literature. She works primarily in tapestry but also in paper and recycled plastics, exploring a wide variety of media in two and three dimensions. See Tapestry Talks Archives – Damascus Fiber Arts School for more information.
Prairie City Fiber Fest
July 26-27
Prairie City, OregonMore info: https://www.prairiecityfiberfest.com
Oregon State Fair
August 22- September 1
Salem, OregonMore info: https://oregonstatefair.org/
Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival
October 18-19, 2025
Albany, OregonMore info: https://www.oregonflockandfiberfestival.com/
HGA Convergence
August 12-16, 2026
New Orleans, LouisianaMore info: https://weavespindye.org/convergence/
Handweavers Guild of America
Textiles & Tea
TuesdaysThe Handweavers Guild of America, Inc.’s (HGA) exciting new program, Textiles & Tea, takes place every Tuesday at 4 PM (ET). We’ve invited some of the most respected fiber artists in the field today to join us for an hour long conversation where we will discuss their artwork and their creative journey. Make a cup of your favorite tea and join us as we talk about fiber, creativity, inspiration, process and so much more.
Rental Equipment
PHG has equipment available for rent to current PHG Members. Click here for more info.
PHG Board and Chairs
Please click here for a list of PHG Board Members and Committee Chairs.
Past Newsletters
For older newsletters see our Newsletter Archive