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  • Guild Meeting

Guild Meeting

  • March 10, 2022
  • 7:15 PM - 9:30 PM
  • via Zoom
  • Business meeting
    • Show and Tell
    • Program: Silk: The Basics - Annamarie Hatcher
      Presentation for ASH March 10, 2022

      Annamarie will spend some time exploring the history, biology and character of silk, the luxury fibre. Silk fibre is legendary. It is shiny, smooth, soft, insulating and often quite expensive. It has played an important role in world commerce, trade and the spread of civilization for at least the last 5000 years. Stripped down to the basics, silk is just a protein thread expelled from a caterpillar with its sputum. The caterpillar intended its use as a building material for a cocoon to shelter it during its transition into a moth. Don’t let that put you off. Once that protein fibre hardens in the air, the flexible thread is stronger than steel, providing many options for the fibre crafter. Although silk is produced by many species of insects, there are only a few that provide commercial fibre.
      Annamarie Hatcher has had a chequered past. She trained and worked as an Oceanographer in Australia and Canada. She taught Environmental Management in Australia, elementary science in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as well as Oceanography and Integrative Science in Canada. She bought her first spinning wheel in the early 1970’s and taught herself to spin without the benefits of YouTube. Spinning was her stress-buster. After retirement she became a free-lance writer with a monthly nature column in five newspapers and regular articles in SpinOff and Piecework. She also began the journey to Master Spinner, completing the first two levels before the pandemic disrupted the program. 

    Atlantic Spinners and Handweavers

    c/o 1747 Summer Street, Halifax, NS B3H 3A6

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