Each year we participate in a weaving challenge. In November of 2013, inspired by Lois Wyndham and a similar challenge within the Burlington Guild, we embarked on a 16 month exploration of creative inspiration using the Grapevine Challenge.

The 25 participating weavers were organized into six groups of 4 or 5. Jennifer Houlden of Quilts by Jen, acted as co-ordinator and selected a different one of her beautiful photos for each group. The first weaver in the group was the only person who saw that image. The weavers had 3 to 4 months to use their image as inspiration for a woven piece. Then their weaving (but not the image) was passed to the second person in the group and that person wove something inspired by the weaving. This continued through the group and at the end of the challenge we had the original inspiration pieces and 4 or 5 pieces of weaving which followed from each one. The hardest part was not seeing each other's work and not being able to talk about what we were working on!

The big reveal was at our Guild meeting in April 2015 and it was great fun to see the work but especially to hear all the stories that went with each one. All the work was gathered together for a major show at the Simcoe County Museum Gallery, running through July and August. It was great to see what can grow from a little creative seed. Thank you to the Museum and to everyone who participated.