The Peace Country Spinners and Weavers began their club in 1984. Sue Miller recounted how the group originated in their first newsletter:
Last May (1984), Jean James of Grande Prairie, Marlene Noseda of Valleyview and I drove together to Red Deer for the yearly provincial conference of the Hand Weavers Spinners and Dyers of Alberta… On Sunday morning Marlene said, “I don’t want to lose this fantastic feeling and have to wait a whole year for it again”
By the end of May 1984, a meeting was organized to form the Peace Country Spinners and Weavers. Representatives from Dawson Creek, Beaverlodge, Fairview, Valleyview, McLennan, Wanham, and Grande Prairie all attended the meeting. Their foundational objectives included holding workshops and lectures, holding a one-day program and meeting three times a year, and printing a regular newsletter.
The club typically published three newsletters each year. The newsletters contained a variety of content. According to their history booklet titled “The First Twenty Years 1984-2004,” the newsletters included:
reports from members that have taken courses, reviews of the various guilds and/or members, some computer looming, recipes for dyes, and also recipes for cookies (not to be mixed up!), cute cartoons, poetry, maps of the area, some fantastic samples, minutes of meetings, information for conferences, reports of conferences and workshops, letters from members who have run-away to better climes, area rep reports, valuable info on weaving techniques, membership lists, words of wisdom, and the occasional portrait of a pertinent person!
At the South Peace Regional Archives, we have several newsletters published by the group from 1984 to 2018 in both the Peace Country Spinners and Weavers fonds and the R. Kay and Mae Trelle fonds. Many of the newsletters in Peace Country Spinners and Weavers fonds have the original material samples that were scanned and included with a pattern.
The newsletter was not the only objective that the group met. Their first official event was held in October 1984. The event included lunch and coffee. The cost was $15 per person or $10 for club members. A guest speaker, Katherine Dickerson from the Alberta College of Art in Calgary, lectured on colour theory and weaving. The next fall, in 1985, the group held a two-day “Hands-on” conference in Fort St. John attended by 75 people. 30 looms were set up for attendees to try out weaving samples. Businesses often attended these conferences to market their weaving, spinning, and dying tools or materials. Over the following years, the Peace Country Spinners and Weavers held conferences in various locations across the Peace Region including Hines Creek, Hudson’s Hope, Tumbler Ridge, Fairview, and Lake Saskatoon.
Weaving, spinning, and dying are still popular hobbies in the Peace Region. Though our records only date to the years 1984 through 2018, the Peace Country Spinners and Weavers are still active today and are listed as part of the Guild of Canadian Weavers!
