November Meeting - Back to Back with Julie Turner - and a Textile Tea-Party

On the Friday of our meeting, the Branch were lucky enough to be invited to the magnificent surroundings of Halifax Town Hall, along with other local groups connected with textiles, for the Mayor's "Textile Tea Party". This provided an opportunity for the groups to have a look at each other's work / what they offer, and to network with each other to see how they could work together to provide the best service to the residents of Calderdale. 

We were welcomed by the Deputy Mayor of Calderdale on behalf of the Mayor, who had unexpectedly had to attend another event in London. 

Here are the members' items we took along to give the other groups a taste of what we do. The atmosphere was lovely, we all enjoyed seeing each others' work, and as an added bonus, there was tea and scones!

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Friday's meeting was a talk by our own member Julie Turner, who has recently given up "proper work" and is now concentrating on her textile business. 

Julie's family keep Ryland Sheep and she told us how they arrived at this lovely breed (the pigs weren't a big success and were decidedly less useful to a textile artist...). 

Julie took us on the fascinating journey of how she learned to use the fleece from her own flock of sheep, all the way from the shearing to the wearing of garments knitted from wool that she has spun herself. With her lovely friendly manner and sense of humour, we had a hugely enjoyable time listening to her talking us through several improbably named pieces of equipment along the way. 

Here is Julie demonstrating one of the afore-mentioned thingamajigs with the assistance of the lovely Margaret. 

This piece of work has a background woven from coloured Ryland rovings and the tree is formed from white Ryland wool woven by Julie. 

This little lamb was made by a friend of Julie and was the first thing made from wool that Julie had spun on her traditional spinning wheel. Julie explained that she had learned from this first attempt at spinning that the yarn was too coarse because she had been spinning it too tightly, and that she had left too much lanolin in the wool. 

Some of Julie's home-spun white Ryland yarn

Buttons made from coloured Ryland felt

Not a proper sheep

If any other groups would like to contact Julie, she is available for talks and workshops and you can e-mail her at julie.turner@live.co.uk