Doreen Jeffers discusses the Kingston Handloom Weavers Guild in the 1960s.

Doreen Jeffers discusses the Kingston Handloom Weavers Guild in the 1960s.

Shaelagh Cull

Doreen Jeffers

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Then I joined the weavers Guild. I joined it, but I couldn't find out from anybody where to go or how to get in. So I finally got the name and phoned up and signed up. And once I joined and got involved, they let you know each week where the meetings would be. I used to go the week before when I did my shopping to find out where it was because I didn't know where it was, because we met in people's houses then. I came into Kingston, the week before, I got the car once a week, I came into Kingston once a week. And I'd look for the place where they would meet. And then next time I'd go, we'd all turn up and we would listen and learn what we could. The lady would come with the library, which was a suitcase full of books, she had to carry it. Not very nice. But we had a talk and would show things of interest because you couldn't do anything at the house, there wasn't room. They would do a little bit on a loom to show us, or without a loom if they had to. So we learned as much as we could that way. The Guild, when we started, you could borrow books, you could rent a loom. We didn't have wheels. We were just weavers then, no spinning involved. The Guild had looms that they had got off of schools. When the schools had quit teaching weaving, they gave the looms to the Clubs. It was something to do with the OHS [Ontario Handweavers and Spinners] as well. But they went all over the province. Where they taught weaving, they would donate looms to the Guild. It helped them get enough looms to weave. We had all sorts because as people died, they wanted to donate their looms. So we took a few that way. We used to, looms used to go out and people could rent them. I did that for quite a while. I rented the looms to the people. That was my job. So I rented the looms to the people. So they had to be put together because they didn't all know how to put them together. So I did that. It was easier for me to go to their home and put it up then for them to take it home and not know how to use it. So that worked quite well. But now they don't rent them out anymore.