Dora Care, the founder of Crickhowell's classes:

"I went to Hornsey School of Art before the war and had been interested in textiles. I didn't get back involved with textiles until I retired in the 1980s.

I took the Bradford course [previously the HNC Handwoven Textile Design and now the wider HNC Textile design] and then moved to Wales.

I started up courses in Crickhowell in 1982 and now, 25 years later, the group is still meeting weekly. We have gone up and down in numbers over the years but there is consistent interest in weaving which was once so important to the area."

Jill Debyshire, from Battle near Brecon.

"I joined the Guild five years ago after seeing the Brecon Guild at the Brecnockshire show. I joined the Brecon Guild but couldn't make the Saturday meetings so joined the Crickhowell group instead.

As it turned out this group has more weaving interests so I got more involved. It's a really nice group here. We meet every Thursday and spin and weave and chat together. We share new ideas and techniques too.

I recently went on a summer school on the shibori technique and will probably run a workshop to share what I've learned with the others. Weaving, dyeing and spinning aren't difficult activities but I suppose they are time consuming.

There are varying degrees of difficulty though so people can find their own level and people come from as far a field as Hereford and Shrewsbury to join us on a Thursday."

David Jenkins is one of the two men in the group and is from Brecon.

"I have been with the group a year now. I'd been interested in textiles for a long time and was teaching myself weaving on a small table loom when I saw the sign for the Guild of Weavers outside Arts Alive Centre.

They have a great space here and, importantly, a lot of equipment. Some groups don't have the space to store the looms and spinning wheels we have here so just meet to chat but here we can be hands on.

We can order materials together through our subscriptions but a lot of the time we get given wools, one of my rugs here was made from old curtains. Some of the members spin the wool from their own animals, then knit or weave it. Gill Jones even sells her work with the name and a photo of the alpaca the wool came from!"

Interviews with Dora Care, Jill Derbyshire and David Jenkins

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