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Making Pins for Convergence 2004
In February of 2003, our guild began discussing what we could do for Convergence 2004 to be held in Denver, July 2004. After some discussion, we decided to make woven pins for the goodie bag. It was a daunting task as we would need over 2000 woven pins. We wondered if we could do it. Colorado means mountains, so we wanted mountains on our pin. Since it would be woven by many of the guild members, we were limited to 8 shafts and we felt that most members could handle 10/2 cotton but not much finer. With that in mind we began designing... and designing.. and sampling. It also had to be easy to weave on an 8 shaft treadle loom. |
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We finally selected a design, picked our colors, ordered the yarn and were ready to put the warps on the looms. We chose a summer & winter draft using 10/2 blue cotton for the background and 5/2 white cotton for the mountains. The ground was a variegated desert 5/2 cotton. | |
| Multiple looms were setup in Montrose, Grand Junction and Delta with about 36 yards of warp. All summer of 2003 we wove. Many members came to the houses with the looms to help with the process. .. And we wove and wove. It was pretty exciting to take the warps off the looms. The fabric was then washed and folded and sent to the Gunnison gang for cutting into pins. |  |
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With the winter snows falling, we finally gathered to start assembling the pins. We had many "pin parties" where we glued, added pin backs, pasted on the label and finally fringed the edges. And we talked and talked while we worked. This phase allowed everyone including non-weavers to participate in the project. | |
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Finally, we had 2500 pins ready for Convergence 2004. We all felt that it was a very uniting project and it was a lot of fun. We were pleased to give weavers from all over the world a rememberance of Colorado and its weavers. |
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Copyright © 2007 San Juan Weavers Guild |
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