Welcome!
The Silverado Handweavers and Spinners Guild is located in the beautiful Napa Valley. The purpose of the guild is to promote the fiber arts, provide educational opportunities, and create a friendly place to nurture your creative spirit among our membership. While we have handweaving and spinning in our name, we explore many more aspects of the fiber arts, including dyeing with both natural and synthetic dyes, tapestry, felting, and basketry.
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Weaving
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Spinning
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Tapestry
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Dyeing
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At Our Next Meeting
April 20, 2024 Kira K Designs: Use Your Handspun Yarn!
May 18, 2024 Trapeze Warping Demonstration
June 15, 2024 Guild Picnic
We always welcome guests. If you would like to attend, please RSVP at
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Upcoming Events
April 25 - 28, 2024 CNCH 2024 Annual conference. Registration now open.
April 26-27 2024 CNCH 2024 Public Day Events
Join us at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel, Sonoma Wine Country , for a weekend of fiber fun.
Friday, April 26, meet the makers! See how the magic is created as demonstrators spin, weave, and much more. Ask questions and try your hand at spinning and weaving. Hours: 10 am - 4pm
Saturday, April 27. 14 Vendors will be set up in the Ballroom Lobby selling hand woven items, fleece, yarn, and equipment. Hours 9 am - 5pm
Cost is $10 per day or $15 for a 2 day pass.
CNCH 2024
The Silverado Handweavers and Spinners Guild is a member of the Conference of Northern California Handweavers (CNCH). CNCH is divided into 5 areas, and every year the guilds in an area, host an annual conference. Our guild is in Area 5, and we are excited to host CNCH 2024 in beautiful Sonoma County, April 25 – 28, 2024. The conference will be held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Sonoma Wine Country in Rohnert Park. We have 10, 2 ½ day workshops in a variety of fiber art topics. Most are filled but we still have a few spaces left in some weaving classes. Full registration includes access to our vendor hall, gallery, a Friday night banquet dinner with keynote speaker Susan Iverson, and Saturday night reception and classroom walkabout. Please see our CNCH 2024 brochure for more information.
We will also have activities during the day on both Friday and Saturday for the public. On Friday, April 26, from 10 am – 4pm, fiber artists will be demonstrating their crafts of weaving, spinning and more. They will be very happy to answer your questions and explain the process. On Saturday, April 27 from 9am – 5pm, we are hosting a Local Talent Market. 14 vendors will be selling their handwoven items, fiber, equipment, and yarn. You won’t want to miss it! Admission is $10 per day or $15 for a 2-day pass. Day event Flyer
Please join us for some fiber fun at the DoubleTree hotel, April 26-27, 2024.
Follow CNCH 2024 on FB and Instagram
January 20, 2024 Roc Day
We had a great turnout for our Roc Day celebration at our guild meeting. The legend has it that after the feast of Epiphany, women, who had put up their wheels and looms for the holiday baking and chores, returned to weaving and spinning, We celebrated a little bit late, but still had a lot of fun. Most people brought their spinning wheels and engaged in lively conversation at this 1st meeting of 2024. Those who didn’t bring wheels brought their handwork to stay busy along with the spinners. We had guild members knitting, crocheting, and even weaving on a pin loom.
October 21, 2023 Napa County Library
Our guild had our October meeting at the Napa County Library this month. We brought lots of our work as well as spinning wheels and looms of all kinds to show the community what we do. We had a floor loom, a table top loom, plus a rigid heddle in the room, as well as 3 Structo looms for people to try some weaving. 3 members were spinning and 2 were working on their tapestries. We really enjoy these outreach events. We met a lot of interesting people, and hopefully attracted a few new members to our guild.
October 8, 2023 Dixon Lambtown Festival Sheep to Shawl
It was another fun day at the Dixon Lambtown Festival. Our guilds Sheep to Shawl team, the Silverado Spinsters, competed along with 3 other onsite teams. The hot weather had us sweating bullets but we managed to finish on time. Our warp this year was hand spun and hand dyed, with a 1/3 twill weave structure. The fiber was a mixed Merino, Cormo, Wensleydale cross. We came in 3rd place but had a lot of fun. Thank you to all who came out to cheer us on!
May 20, 2023 Guild Program
Our meeting this month featured a program given by Stephenie Gaustad, Yarn Architecture. Stephenie is very active in the Bay Area spinning community and literally wrote the book on spinning bast fibers such as cotton, linen, and hemp. Stephenie talked about the decisions, or design considerations, that we need to make when we begin any project, be it weaving, spinning, or knitting. These include source fiber, size, twist, singles or plied, and color. Choices made when the fibers are spun are the first step to a successful handmade item.
Good design work keeps a close focus on your needs with a keen eye on “materials” at the same time. The ultimate use of the textile is crucial.
Stephenie brought several examples of hand spun and woven textiles. She brought a beautiful Pendleton style shirt that she had made for her husband. She is not only an expert at spinning and weaving, but also an accomplished seamstress.
The shirt was a beautifully matched plaid, and had even been through a major tear at one point. The repair job was invisible and as professional as the rest of the garment. The other examples of fit for purposeful spinning were a pleated dance skirt woven in cotton singles and linen stripes, a hand spun cotton scarf, and an indigo dyed fine linen scarf and bag. We all appreciated the skill and knowledge that Stephenie shared with us.
April 23, 2023 Earth Day
You could not ask for nicer weather on Sunday, April 23rd at the Earth Day festivities at the Oxbow Commons in Napa. Our guild set up a booth on the lawn and demonstrated weaving and spinning. We had several hands-on activities for the kids (and even some adults!), spinning yarn bracelets, weaving mug rugs, and trying out weaving on our indestructible Structo looms. We also had some woven and knitted items for viewing and best of all, touching. Thank you to our guild members Christy, Caroline, Kate, Karen, and Mary Ann for spending a day with the community and sharing our craft.
March 2023 St. Helena Library Exhibit
Every year our guild takes on a “challenge.” We pick a source of inspiration and use our imaginations to create a work of our own. In years past we have played “poker”, drawn 5 cards from a fiber deck and used those colors or techniques or embellishments in a work of our own. One year we used William Morris wallpaper samples as inspiration. Another year we randomly chose paint chips in warm and cool colors. It’s a fun way to push ourselves to use colors or techniques we normally don’t use and weave or knit a beautiful piece.
This year we decided to use paintings by Georgia O’Keefe. Her diverse subject matter, from her flower paintings in the 1920’s, to her southwest themes in the 1930’s inspired us all. Some explored the shapes, other people honed in on the colors, and still others embraced the same subject matter. I hope you enjoy our creations as much as we enjoyed making them.
We also showcased other work by our guild members, including our Sheep to Shawl team.
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