This is our second year of offering monthly free drop-in sessions for all ages to learn about fibre arts: knitting, crochet, spinning yarn, preparing wool, stitching, and more. We provide materials for free for anyone to use, so there’s no barrier to participating. We are proud to report that the library saw the value of our sessions through consistently good attendance and participant enthusiasm, and has partnered with us to officially host the gatherings. They increase our outreach by advertising the gatherings on their social media and reserving the meeting room for us for the entire year. Attendance has increased due to our partnership, and we have had many new attendees in the past several months. We continue to advertise through our social media and posters.
My favorite part of our story is how we spent our grant, dedicated to purchasing tools for fibre arts, locally, on homegrown talent. We met Ben Mogg (Renderwise Designs) last year when he attended one of our first sessions. Ben was new to fibre arts and dived in with keen interest. Over the past two years, Ben has learned to spin, knit, felt, and more. As an engineer with expertise in 3D printing, Ben learned from other fibre artists that they needed parts of their spinning wheels repaired and were frustrated by the lack of access to Canadian-made fibre tools (carders, spindles, knitty knoddys, and more). The tools were only available through mail order and mostly from other countries, which included long wait times, shipping fees, and duties. Ben saw an opportunity and started 3D printing replacement parts and tools.
The demand grew, and Ben started to produce tools using local salvaged wood. We used our grant funds to order the tools we need for continuing our Fibre Craft nights from Ben, thus closing the circle our program started, growing local talent and skill from beginner to master crafter. I’ve included a photo of a drop spindle Ben made for us. Thank you very much for your support.
