Guild does it all from sheep to shawl
CONNOQUENESSING TWP — The Butler Spinners and Weavers Guild can make a shawl from scratch in just a few hours. They've been practicing it for years, competing against other teams at contests in Pennsylvania and Maryland.
Butler Farm Show visitors can see the guild in action with the fleece to shawl demonstration from 2 to 4 p.m. Aug. 9 in the Home Products Building.
Fleece to shawl competitions challenge spinners and weavers to work as a team to create a shawl from unprocessed sheep's wool, said Linda Gross, a guild member.
Similar sheep to shawl contests include the step of having a shearer take the wool off the sheep.
Most contests give a time limit of two-and-a-half to three hours to complete the task. With fleece to shawl contests, the guild starts with a carder who cards the wool. Carding is the process to clean, untangle and straighten fibers so that they can be spun into yarn.
After the carder handles the wool, it goes to the spinners. Gross said they usually have three spinners making the wool into yarn using spinning wheels.
“Then we all sit down and spin as quick as we can to get enough yarn to the weaver to weave into a shawl,” she said.
The weaver uses a loom with a warp to weave the shawl together. The shawls are usually 75- to 80-inches long. Once the shawl is long enough, they cut it off the loom and finish the ends with stitches or ties.
The wool they will be using at the Farm Show demonstration is coming from a Texel sheep owned by Harold Dunn of Mount Chesnut.
Because the contests are timed, Gross said they used demonstrations like the one they are doing at the Farm Show to give newer or inexperienced weavers and spinners practice at doing the task in front of an audience and working under pressure.
“When you're doing a competition, it has to be somebody who can get it done,” she said.The bigger competitions at which they have competed are the Pennsylvania Farm Show and the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, the largest domestic sheep and wool showcase in the country.In addition to competing, the guild meets twice a month at the Penn State Extension office in Butler. The first Wednesday of the month at 10 a.m. is a business meeting with a program. The second Wednesday of the month is when the group works on projects or teaches new members.“You just have to have a love of fibers and fabrics,” Gross said. No prior experience is necessary.The guild host classes on weaving and spinning at various locations, including the Depreciation Lands Museum in Hampton Township, Allegheny County. If a person is willing to learn, they will teach, Gross said.
