The story began as spring green dressed the hills of Sutter Creek for 120 fiber artisans, representing 26 guilds, who wound their way into this “Jewel of the Mother Lode” for the annual Conference of Northern California Handweavers.  Gathering their goods from Nancy Fisher, our registrar queen, folks settled in for what promised to be a weekend full of surprises, new skills to be honed, and gatherings of friends. Friday evening’s froggies were settled into Lillypad Gallery by the “Keeper of the Frogs, Janice Johnson, and the bidding began. Thirty-four fabulous fiber frogs found new homes and raised funds for the CNCH scholarship. “The Ghost of Mark Twain’ master storyteller of all time, McAvoy Layne, entertained “in the round” with tales of adventure and frogs. The evening continued with the gentle “croaking” of froggy voices outside along the creek as we sent our athletically inclined frogs flying into the air aimed for the frog pond. Frogs flipped, flew, shot straight up, and sometimes sought refuge through auto windows.  Folks reclined for the evening with hotel windows ajar to welcome the “singing” of their new found froggy friends into their slumbering dreams of workshops to come.

The bustle of spinners, weavers, dyers, authors, and basketmakers filled the hotel early Saturday morning as the workshops began.  Under the careful guidance of 10 master teachers assembled by Stephenie Gaustad, participants intent on their projects, worked through the day to accomplish their goals. As the sun set, we popped corks, poured fine wines from the region, nibbled on chocolate frogs, and Alden Amos, gathered us round for an adventure with rope. With a bit of history and technical info, he drafted participants from the audience to “get a rope!” Fibers of all sorts were twisted and plyed and “wild ropes” were born!

Under the darkness of night, rains began to fall on this adventure wetting everyone’s appetite to finish quickly before time ran out Sunday afternoon. With projects tucked neatly away, these artisans packed their bags to return home under the thundering skies of this little hamlet in the Mother Lode. Volunteers, the framework of our story, began to work again. Volunteers whose ideas, craftsmanship, organization, and endless hours allowed this adventure tale to be told. So this story comes to an end, but you can be a part of the sequel. Look for it May 18 – 20 of 2012 in Oakland.

End Of This Tale's Trail

Daily Admissions are $10 and give one access to over 110 booths of vendors, gallery exhibits showing finished yardage, the Fashion Show garments, woven items of all types, a spinners challenge of what people did with some pre-dyed fiber, a spinning wheel testing area, even a visit from live alpacas!

Our fabulous vendors will have all kinds of equipment, tools, fibers from all over the world, yarns (hand-dyed skeins and cone yarns), sewing and felting machines, jewelry, and a great gathering of fiber-related books!

The CNCH Boutique gives you an opportunity to purchase finished items from our fiber artists in the fiber community – some fabulous, one-of-a-kind items will be there!

Hours for the exhibit halls are:

Friday, April 9th from 1:00-6:00 PM
Saturday, April 10th from 10:00-6:00 PM
Sunday, April 11th from 10:00-4:00 PM

Tickets will be available in the lobby. Parking is also free at the Santa Clara Convention Center, 5001 Great America Parkway, Santa Clara, CA.

We look forward to having you come and see what the fiber community in Northern California is doing. See you soon!

We would like to extend the deadlines for the:

Galleries and Fashion Show to March 15
Boutique to March 31

This gives you more time to finish your wonderful items, photograph them if still on your loom, etc., and send to the people in charge of that respective event.

The entries we’ve received so far are great and we’re looking forward to all of the ones that are still to come.

Nancy and Kathy
Co-Chairs, CNCH 2010

The committee expects that the CNCH 2010 Conference will be a wonderful and rewarding experience. Exciting classes, great teachers, over 90 vendor booths, a fashion show, exhibits, a banquet, and a great venue — all the things we hope for in a conference — are still happening. We look forward to seeing you there!

As you are starting to look forward into the new year and planning out your activities, here’s a little reminder. You can SAVE MONEY for the 58th Annual Conference of Northern California Handweavers in April by signing up by the end of January. Early Bird pricing ends January 31, 2010!

While a number of classes are already full; there are many wonderful classes and workshops still available. Take another look at the descriptions and photos of the teachers and their work and decide what you want to learn this year. Then, go online and sign-up!

The Galleries will be a fascinating view of all of the fiber arts that are currently being done by our CNCH members. What are you going to enter?

Get your creative juices flowing as you design and weave some wonderful fabric for the Yardage Exhibit!

Continue with your creativity and design a fabulous clothing item for the Fashion Show. Shy? – don’t be — there are models available if you don’t want to wear it!

Spinner? Send in $9.00 for the beautiful superwash merino/bamboo (80/20) fiber for the “Return to Sender” spinning challenge. Skeins are already being returned and they are incredible! Additional fiber and yarns in conference colors will be available at the Boutique!

The CNCH Boutique – this is an opportunity for you to sell some of your hand-made items that the public can purchase!

CNCH 2010 is going to be a wonderful chance to pause in our busy lives and take a look at all of the creativity that is happening in our area. We look forward to seeing you at conference in April!

Nancy and Kathy
Co-Chairs, CNCH 2010

Area 1:  Tien Chiu, Blacksheep, Loom and Shuttle                                 

Area 2:  Karn Jorstad, Del Oro

Area 3:  Keena Golden, Spindles and Flyers

Area 4:  Valerie Wells, Mt Lassen

There was no applicant from Area 5.

Please consider applying next year.  The Advisory Council decided that no one can receive the scholarship if they have received one in the last five years in order to be able to offer it to as many members as possible.  Each year the Advisory Coucil determines  how many scholarships will be offered as the funds neccesary come from specific fund raisers at Conferences, ie, CNCH 2009 held the bag raffle as their contribution to the fund.  Congratulations to all recipients.

This workshop is already drawing lots of attention. Everyone, it seems, is curious about producing colored fabrics without a dyepot. You will explore transfer printing, disperse dyes, and transfer crayons, along with printing, painting, stenciling, stamping, stitching, resist and collage techniques to produce a myriad of colored fabrics and designs. If more traditional dyeing methods have always intimidated you, this may the answer to your color fantasies. Holly Brackmann is an accomplished and patient teacher. See the workshop description to learn more.

If you have already registered and would like to change your current enrollment to this workshop, please contact our registrar.

8/2 Cotton: Versatile, Beautiful and Inexpensive

8/2 cotton is a fabulous thread — not too fine, not too thick and readily available in so many colors and shades of color. Mary Berent will take you through a huge variety of fabrics that can be woven using just this one specific thread. This “round robin” style workshop will teach you about the history of cotton, setts and weave structures and you’ll go home with a diverse set of samples. What better way to spend your time at CNCH 2010? Read the workshop description to learn more.

If you have already registered and would like to change your current enrollment to this workshop, please contact our registrar.

Anne Field brings her scholarship and attention to detail to the subject of dévoré in this workshop. You will learn the principals of the technique and the properties of the plant and animal and synthetic fibers that are used as you weave and analyze samples and then plan a scarf to finish at home. Anne will provide pre-wound warps and all materials including wefts, dévoré solution and stencils for a materials fee of $60.00. Read the workshop description to find out more.

If you have already registered and would like to change your current enrollment to this workshop, please contact our registrar.

Create a stunning piece of jewelry, a brooch or an amulet, by learning to position a gemstone cabochon in a macramé setting of stems, leaves and leaflets and flowers. The only pre-requisite is that you download the double half-hitch tutorials from Marion Hunziker-Larsen’s webpage and practice the technique before you come to the workshop. Marion’s beautiful jewelry is well-known and her jewels in fiber are collector’s pieces, in addition to being a joy to wear. This is a chance to learn some of her techniques and to take home a very special piece of jewelry. Read the workshop description for more information.

If you have already registered and would like to change your current enrollment to this workshop, please contact our registrar.