One glance in Cheri Diehl’s studio above her garage, and you can tell what her hobby is.

A large loom sits to one side of the bright and airy room, with yarn ready to be threaded into place to create the backbone of seat cushions. On a smaller loom, black chenille is laid out, half woven into a scarf. A triangular loom shapes the beginnings of a bright yellow and white shawl, two table-top looms sit across the way, and a spinning wheel in the center of the room holds a spool of thin yarn, which alternates between reds and purples and blues and greens.

Diehl is a weaver and a spinner, and along with others in the Clatsop Weavers and Spinners Guild, she is on a

mission to introduce the craft to others in Clatsop and Pacific counties.

“One of our main goals is to educate people that want to lean to weave,” she said. “We’ll teach you how to weave, we’ll teach you how to spin, we’ll hold your hand…”

MORE INFO.The Clatsop Weavers and Spinners Guild meets at 11 a.m. on the third Tuesday of each month at the Ilwaco Heritage Museum, 115 S.E. Lake St., Ilwaco, Wash. The January meeting will include a discussion of tapestry weaving, and the February meeting will include an “Intro to Spinning” program.

Spinners meet informally on the first Tuesday of each month. For more information or directions, call Cheri Diehl at (360) 642-0889.Although it seems that more and more people are knitting, there aren’t many young weavers out there, she said. While knitting is portable and doesn’t cost much to pick up, people could be intimidated by the looms and shuttles and warps of weaving. But Diehl said that simple table-top looms can be bought for as little as $35 dollars, and within the guild there are plenty of folks who are willing to help an aspiring weaver or spinner get started.

Diehl started weaving about 20 years ago, when she worked as a paralegal in California. The local weaving group had looms set up in a building across the street from her office, and one day some of the members showed a fascinated Diehl what they were doing.

“I’ve never been a sewer, and I think it was the idea that I can make something unique” that made weaving appealing, Diehl said. People are always impressed with woven scarves and towels and rugs – especially one rug she wove out of torn-up Fred Meyer plastic shopping bags.

She demonstrated how raising different combinations of levers on a loom creates intricate patterns, which while they look complex and difficult, are simple to create once you get the hang of it.

Diehl, 53, grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area but moved to Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula 12 years ago. She lived in Ocean Park for most of that time, but in November moved to Ilwaco with her husband, Charlie, and their five cats.

She works full time as a real estate agent with Dennis Oman Real Estate in Long Beach, and said that she enjoys the flexible hours that come with the job. In addition to allowing her to make the weaving guild’s daytime meetings, it gives her time to devote to her other hobby – old cars. Diehl and her husband go to rallies with their MGs, and even work in the pit crew for a friend that races an old Lotus Elan race car in competitions in Seattle, Portland and Northern California.

And there are always her fiber works to keep her occupied. She keeps multiple projects going at once, and rotates between them depending on her mood. While some people might take out rows of a weave to correct a tiny mistake, she said she’s not a perfectionist and that most people wouldn’t notice it anyway.

Besides, she said, “As long as you’re having a good time it doesn’t matter.”

– Kate Ramsayer