The Basket Group

The Basket Group started in 1970 and meets at 12 Noon on the first Thursday of the month
at member’s homes. Members showed their projects:

• Anne Marie Buchanan showed her breadbaskets and two original bowls she learned how
  to do at a workshop in York.
• Noelle Lamb – cedar and sedge basket.
• Marie Seabrook – twisted willow basket and another made out of dyed, waxed linen.
• Irene Weisner – random ball decoration, a large Appalachian egg basket made of different
  materials.
• Marie Slessor – Cherokee picnic basket, carrying and travel baskets, a seaweed basket, a
  basket made of cedar bark and other plants, a cracker basket, an egg basket and a basket
  made of cedar and sea shells.

Design Group

Joanne Ryeburn leads the design group where they discuss design issues. They used paper craft to do mock ups of designs. Kate Barber brought her mock up of a wall hanging: a four layer weaver with crossing layers.

Into Weave Group

The Into Weave Group meets on Saturdays 4 or 5 times a year at 10:30 at
member’s homes.

• Terry Villeneuve brought her overshot squares from the friendship coverlet project
  that the group worked on last year. She is embroidering the name of the overshot pattern on each square.
• Janice Griffiths showed one scarf she wove for the Into Weave scarf exchange. It was woven out of 20/2 mercerized cotton in an 8 shaft huck pattern. She also
  showed the scarf that she received- a woven shibori cotton scarf woven and dyed
  by Susan Milliken. Janice also showed the draw loom weaving she made for
  another Intoweave project – all the members had the same calendar picture and
  used colours from the picture for any weaving project.
• Ruth Griffiths also showed a scarf woven in red 20/2 mercerized cotton with
  beaded embellishment. The red weft on the blue warp produced an iridescent effect.
• Barb Mitchell wove green scarves in wool and bamboo.
• Solveig Gagnon showed her pink scarf that she wove and the red scarf she received from Linda Kunster in the scarf exchange.
• Many of the IntoWeave group attended the Fenn Lodge Spinning Retreat where they knit fabric on a knitting machine and painted the fabric with dyes. The fabric was to be unraveled to produce self patterning yarn for knitting or weaving.
• Ruth Griffiths knit socks out of her green, red and orange handspun yarn.
• Janice Griffiths knit a lace mobius scarf out of handspun wine and black yarn.
• Anita Jamieson knit socks out of her multicoloured yarn.

Spectrum

Spectrum meets at member’s houses on the first Thursday of the month. They did a lot of felted projects this year.

• Joanne Ryeburn, Louisa Chadwick, Masami Yesaki, onna Campbell and Kirsten Friz showed necklaces that they made out of felted
  balls and beads.
• Kirsten Friz made a mosaic felted purse which was woven loosely out of pink and black wool.
• Sandra Crompton constructed a felted sewing kit using folded paper to hold the thread and needles.

The Spinning Group

The Spinning Group meets every 4th Wednesday night at Jo Anne Ryburn’s house. Jo Anne Ryeburn showed some of her handspun.

Tapestry Weaving Group

This is a group that formed after Convergence. Although it is not a group of the Vancouver Guild, many members belong
to both. It is also affiliated with a tapestry group on Vancouver Island. The group has had three exhibitions in its short
history: at Place des Arts, the Ferry Building and Fibre Essence. They are now weaving small tapestries based on recipes.
They hope to do this for a cook book and exhibit the pieces at the Seymour gallery entilted “ Edible Art”.

Warp Painting Study Group

Joanne Ryeburn led a study group on warp painting. Five students met 3 times and painted the warps at Joanne’s house.

• Kay Hansen wove a reversing twill 2/20 silk scarf with painted warp in yellow, peach and orange.
• Anita Jamieson knit with her painted yarn which she wound all over her house. The yarn is yellow, blue, orange andgreen.
• Jo Skinner painted a silk warp in 5 separate groups and dyed different coloured skeins for the weft of her scarves. One
  scarf was orange, brown and raspberry. The other scarf was purple/red and yellow/orange.
• Joanne Ryeburn painted a warp and then used it to weave blocks of twill for a vest.

Shadow Weave Study Group

Beryl Hickenbottom led the shadow weave study group. They are still working on their projects.

Collapse Weave Workshop – Instructor Jane Stafford

Diana Herbst and Donna Campbell showed their samples from the workshop. Some samples involved a mix of yarns
that shrink and yarns that do not shrink when washed.

Tapestry Workshop – Instructor James Koehler

• Rob Kolen’s tapestry is still on his loom.
• Jay Rudolph brought the samples that she wove: a purple pear on an orange background and another one that
  demonstrates luminosity with triangles in different colours.

submitted by Janice Griffiths

May 15th, Meeting Program: Gretchen Hoff, who raises alpacas and llamas on her farm in Maple Ridge, covered the process from harvesting to spinning their hair. Susan Forsyth (www.woolcombs.com) demonstrated how to comb the hair to separate out the coarse hair from the more desirable soft fine hairs and showed several lovely garments made from the spun and dyed yarn. There were lots of samples for spinning demonstration and for sale.

Our guest was Gretchen Hoff, social worker and knitter as well as llama and alpaca farmer and the designer/seamstress known as the Scattered Gardener. She was ably assisted by her friend Susan Forsyth who, along with her husband Andrew, makes woolcombs and other spinners’ tools. Gretchen very kindly handed out samples of her dehaired llama, huacaya alpaca and suri alpaca for us to feel and perhaps spin up. You could tell by her enthusiasm that she is very fond of her animals and is interested in getting the best fibre for herself and to sell to other spinners. She showed a way to remove the guard hair from a llama fleece by pulling on the end of the locks and Susan demonstrated another method using woolcombs. Much of Gretchen’s llama goes to the mill though since she has so much of it to process. Susan gave her formula for a spritz to hold down the static while combing: 30% hair conditioner and 70% water.

The alpacas consist of two very different and distinct types: huacaya and suri. The huacaya are the smaller fuzzy animals and are in the vast majority of the alpaca population. Their fibre is somewhat coarser and much more crimpy. Suri are larger and their fleece is more like droopy ringlets. It is very fine and slick with a sheen. They are only about 10% of alpacas and are very desirable for their special fibre. It is soft and has a lovely drape when knitted or woven.

All of these animals have the best fibre in the first 5 years. There is virtually no grease so much less is lost in processing compared to sheep’s wool. Susan brought along some wonderful examples of items that she had made using Gretchen’s fibres including a lace camisole, shawls with added beads, a fulled knitted purse from the waste llama hair, and laminated felt scarves. Gretchen had her Louet S-45 spinning wheel for anyone to try spinning her fibres but nobody took her up on it. (Perhaps it was the odd wheel?) Jeff from Fibres Plus also was spinning some of Gretchen’s alpaca on his Turkish spindle.

It was a very informative program and it was nice to have something specifically directed to the spinners among us. Please note that Gretchen’s website will not be available until the Fall. Meanwhile you can contact her by phone or email, info on her card included in the fibre samples. I was given an extra set of samples and spun them up on my Louet Victoria wheel. From top to bottom: white dehaired llama, tan huacaya alpaca, white suri alpaca. The llama and suri were spun with a short forward draw, the suri much finer for a laceweight. The huacaya was spun with a supported long draw. All were plied and finished with washing, alternate hot and cold rinses, and a smacking on my hard bathroom counter. This heavy finishing settled the twist, slightly fulled and brought out a halo. Perfect if you plan to knit with these yarns but not recommended for weaving or if you plan to full the finished article. They were all very pleasant fibres to spin up with nice soft results.

Submitted by Louisa Chadwick

Bettina’s textile artwork has a strong focus on narrative. She showed digital photos of her work over the years and discussed how she portrayed her and her family’s life experiences using mainly embroidery and fabric collage. This has led to an interest in cartography. Cartographic designs are now being incorporated into her art as a means for telling stories and navigating through life.

http://www.cabc.net/mem_sect/CrafthousePortfolios/matzkuhn/matzkuhn.htm

Maria shared her appreciation and knowledge of Indonesian Weaving in a fascinating slide lecture based on her ethnographic fieldwork for her master’s thesis. She was able to spend time with the people in the villages of South Sulawesi and learn from them directly. Maria also showed us many textiles and garments that she collected during her experience and some woven pieces that she made inspired by the Indonesian textiles and techniques that she encountered.

Our presenter, Felicia Lo, discussed photography for textiles. There are plenty of practical and artistic reasons why we take photos of our textiles. The photos may be for personal record-keeping purposes or for professional use. Felicia emphasized that we first need to understand our focus — what aspects of the fabric or fiber do we want to portray in the photo? Then she discussed the variables that make up a good photograph, including shutter speeds, aperture, film, and especially lighting. A diffused natural light is best and can be achieved with several different set-ups. Composition of the photo must also be considered. An object off-center may make a more interesting photo. Felicia then presented a number of examples of good and bad photos as well as references for further study. She summarized with a quick list that will help us improve our photos:

• Use natural light.
• Modify your light source.
• Use a tripod.
• Bracket your exposures.
• Consider your composition.
• Have fun!

A copy of the lecture handout is available in PDF format at the sweetgeorgia yarns blog here »

Due to unfortunate circumstances our scheduled speaker, Bettina Matzkuhn, was unable to join us. She is rescheduled to present at our April meeting.

In her stead we viewed the latest DVD documentary from Maiwa Productions entitled: In Search of Lost Colour — the story of natural dyes. This lovely documentary described the main sources of natural dyes from both plants and animals, the use of mordants and the importance of dyes in the history of exploration, trade routes, farming and development. Given current the competition with chemical dyes, the challenge of maintaining the recipes and expertise of natural dyeing throughout the world was also discussed.

This DVD is in our library so members may check it out for a more in depth review.

Our annual Christmas Party with potluck goodies and a gift exchange. Much laughter ensued as some members really got into the spirit of the exchange where you could snatch a gift from another rather than choose a new one from the table! The hottest item appeared to be a lovely pair of hand-knit fingerless mitts which changed owners several times. It’s always enjoyable to have a chance to mingle and chat with our fellow fibre enthusiasts.

Jo Anne Ryeburn and Dorothy Cross showed slides and textiles that they collected on their individual trips to India. Jo Anne also had the opportunity to attend the UNESCO Symposium on Natural Dyeing.

Debra Sparrow is an acclaimed weaver who has been weaving for twenty years and is deeply involved with the revival of Musqueam weaving. Her Musqueam blankets are displayed at the Vancouver Airport, and at UBC. She is active in a program at the Museum of Anthropology designed to teach grade four children about Musqueam culture and history. She helped with the design of the Queen of the Night costume in the Vancouver Opera production of The Magic Flute.

Debra and her sister, Wendy, felt a need to find their roots; they wanted to know what their place was in the world. Their grandfather had told them that they had to know who they were and where they come from; otherwise they were nothing. They decided that their path to this knowledge was through traditional crafts. Wendy revived traditional Musqueam blanket weaving, a craft which had been neglected for eighty five years. Debra chose to pursue jewellery making, but later found herself involved more and more with weaving.

Wendy and Debra organized a local group of Musqueam weavers who wove traditional blankets. They were inspired by an old blanket passed down in their family, by blankets owned by museums in Washington, DC and New York City and by a book on Salish weaving by Paula Gustafson. Now Debra is involved with the commercial production of blanket designs in clothing as well as blankets.

The program finished with a brief slide show showing some of Debra’s blankets as well as some traditional spindle whorls and combs.

Submitted by Jo Anne Ryeburn