The name says "weavers and spinners," but these days you can think of it more as "fans of the fiber arts."
That includes weavers and spinners, but it also includes felters, sewers, knitters - even braiders.
The Green Valley Weavers and Spinners Guild loosely formed about 20 years ago with members focused on socializing to share their love of weaving and spinning and to help each other learn, said group president Marge Lind.
One of the original members, Meg Altstaetter, is still active in the group, making "many beautiful wall hangings in fairly complicated design and detail. She wears a lot of clothing she's made," Lind said.
Lind has been in the guild about three years, after moving to Green Valley from Wisconsin, where she was involved in a similar group.
She thought she would never find anything like that group again, she said.
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By coincidence, the woman giving the presentation at the first meeting Lind attended was from the same town in Wisconsin - Lind had taught her son in school, she said.
She knew she'd found a new circle of friends.
Membership has roughly tripled from when she began and is up to 74 people now, mostly retired women.
Member Kim Keast, a Tubac multimedia artist who is one of the scheduled presenters at the group's monthly meeting Tuesday, said she's looking forward to talking about how her free-form crochet has evolved in the five or six years she's been doing it.
When she brings in samples for the guild's regular show-and-tell sessions, people always seem to love them, she said.
Crochet is her afternoon activity, after she's spent the morning in the studio on her other art. Her personal craze is to crochet wool and put it in the washing machine to turn it to felt, she said.
She started out making felted containers, then moved on to little purses and more recently has been incorporating wire to give the felt projects a different shape, she said.
The group is considering spinning off a study group on the technique, as it has for several other points of interest.
Nancy Crowley, who began raising alpacas about two years ago, has been part of the guild for about 18 months.
She tends the animals and uses their fleece for fiber, with a ranch store on her property in Madera Canyon.
She's been into fiber arts all her life but only began spinning and felting in the last couple years, she said.
Now those are her specialties within the group.
She's never found a group with members as generous with their knowledge as this one, she said.
"It's chock-full of really creative, inventive people when it comes to fiber," she said.
People in the guild are always pushing themselves to find a new technique and try something new, she said.
She's been impressed with the guild's outreach projects, which include special workshop days at the Green Valley and Sahuarita libraries, visits to local schools and demonstrations at assisted-living centers.
It's a way to remind people where their fibers and fabrics come from, she said, much like farmers markets educate people on the origins of their food.
Even if she didn't have alpacas, she'd be in the guild, she said.
"It's an awesome group of people," Crowley said. "It's not just your knitters anymore. It's not Granny sitting in a rocking chair."
IF YOU GO
• What: Green Valley Weavers and Spinners Guild monthly meeting, featuring presentations on marbled fabric and free-form crochet.
• When: 10 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Tuesday.
• Where: Room D at Friends In Deed, 301 W. Camino Casa Verde, Green Valley.
• Cost: Free. Bring a sack lunch to eat during the short break between presentations.
• For more information: Call Dagmar Munn, 777-6929.
Contact reporter Shelley Shelton at sshelton@azstarnet.com or 807-8464.
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