Thank you for your interest in the Tennessee Valley Handspinners guild.

We generally meet the first Saturday of the month at the Fellowship Church on Middlebrook Pike in West Knoxville unless otherwise announced. Our goal is to provide a community for local hand spinners, coordinate opportunities for demonstrations in the area and offer a venue to members for socializing and learning.

We currently have over ninety dues paid members and are growing with every meeting. Our membership spans a wide range of ages, experience and interests. Monthly meetings are normally structured to allow time to sit and spin and chat initially, then we conduct our business meeting and a program or event generally follows.

Membership is $20 per calendar year.  Dues are payable each January or at the time a new member joins. We agree it’s quite the bargain considering the wealth of combined experience in our membership and the resources available to established members. Established dues-paid members can check out equipment and library resources at no cost from the guild such as one of our guild spinning wheels and DVDs. They can also participate in hands on programs and demonstrations on topics such as drum carding, dyeing, rigid heddle weaving and more.

While the guild does not offer formal beginner classes there are opportunities to learn. We organize regular programs and demonstrations that feature techniques and instruction that may be helpful as you further your spinning journey. We also have a regular beginner spinning group that meets each month at the Fountain City library branch. They are a great support group that may be able to offer friendly advice and feedback as you sit and spin with them. We may also be able to connect students with a member teacher for one on one instruction if interested.

We have a number of members who are also fiber producers along with several independent dyers and fiber artists. Some bring raw fleece or fiber, processed rovings and tops, batts, rolags and yarns to sell at meetings. Becoming a guild member opens the opportunity for producers and dyers to network within our community as well as opens access to promote their fiber-related businesses within the membership.

We hope you will consider visiting with us during a future meeting.