Weft Kasuri Explorations with Gail Blackmarr

The speaker for the April meeting is our own Gail Blackmarr. Last year, Gail attended CNCH2025 and was honored to be the recipient of one of the five Conference Grants. As such, Gail agreed to offer a presentation of her experience to her guild. A longtime admirer of Japanese design, Gail was enchanted with her class, “Weft Kasuri: Pattern at the Fell of the Cloth” with Beth Ross Johnson. Gail will share a slideshow that recreates some of the dyeing and weaving techniques explored in the class, along with pictures of her endeavors, as well as those of her classmates. Additionally, she will outline a brief history of Kasuri with photos and samples of vintage Japanese textiles. In the months since conference, Gail has continued to study and experiment with this fascinating weaving approach. She will also bring some recently created sewn and woven pieces to share.  

Gail began weaving in 2018 and joined the guild not long after. A preschool teacher by day, Gail became acquainted with colleague Barbie Paulsen and the student weaving program at Peninsula School in Menlo Park. Gail credits Barbie, as well as Jodi Payley, John Horigan, Jaya Griscom, and the students of the Peninsula community with inspiring her to take up the craft. Gail is also grateful to the Black Sheep community for sustaining her focus and for expanding her knowledge during her eight-year weaving journey. Gail has served on the Black Sheep Board in a variety of capacities, including as President during 2023/24 and 2024/25. She is currently a part of the Programs Committee.

This month there are no plans for a pre-meeting dinner. Should that change, however, we will let you know the details via an email announcement. We do need help with refreshment offerings, sweet or savory. Please label your food item. Tea and serving items will be available. 

We look forward to seeing you in person. (NOTE: The Senior Center is in the final stages of completing its new building at 1333 Madison Avenue. However, the new facility will not be ready until our May Meeting. Please join us at our usual spot!)  

This is a ZOOM meeting.

Our speaker via Zoom for Thursday, March 19th, is Kelly Marshall, Weaving by Design – A broad spectrum talk on design, rep weave, and the development of a weaving business. Kelly is a renowned weaver of fabrics for interior design. Since 1992 her company, Custom Woven Interiors, has been designing and handweaving functional textiles for individual homeowners and corporate clients. Check out her website at https://kellymarshall.com/. The Zoom link is on the guild calendar and will be sent out a few days before the meeting.

This is a ZOOM meeting.

Join us on February 19th at 7-9 pm to learn about Deflected Doubleweave from the expert Natalie Drummond, an educator and fiber artisan living in Fremont, Indiana.

Born and raised in Virginia, she developed a love of science, teaching, and fiber. Her earlier work focused on sewing and needlefelting. She later learned to weave from a Fort Wayne Weaver’s Guild instructor. She went on to do Fine Arts instruction in Craftmanship and Design coursework at Purdue University in 2015. Natalie has pursued weaving, color, and ice dyeing with a passion. Natalie was awarded a MAFA Fellowship in 2019 and has been studying Deflected Doubleweave intensively, including how to use in Woven Shibori. She has been featured several times in Handwoven and Weft magazines. Natalie offers courses in her studio and on zoom. Her website is: https://www.nataliewoven.com/

If you have Show and Tell and would like to share it with the group, please send photos and description to Barbara O’Connor-barbara234@me.com

This is a ZOOM meeting.

Our speaker is Steve Brown, a scientist at Auburn University in Alabama, and an expert in cotton. His talk is titled: “Cotton – A Storied Crop Touching Southern Lives, Farms, Mills and Economies”. Since many of us weave with cotton, it will be fun to learn more about it as a fiber, and its impact on the world.

For the program, we are asking guild members to help create a Weaving Travelogue. Tell us about interesting weaving sites you’ve visited in your travels!  You can feature fiber schools, museums, artists, co-ops, or any other weaving-related visit.  Locations can be both U.S. and international.  This program should give us all lots of great future travel ideas.

I will bring the consolidated presentation on my computer, so you do not need to bring anything to the meeting (unless you want to bring samples from the visit you are describing).  At the meeting, each person submitting a slide will be asked to speak to their slide(s), trying to keep to one minute per slide.  Feel free to write Donna Dubinsky with any questions.

For show-and-tell, bring anything that you’ve worked on since our last meeting.

More instructions on refreshments will be coming from hospitality … we hope to have some nice pot-luck items to share.

We are delighted to welcome renowned tapestry artist Alex Friedman for our in-person October meeting. Alex is calling her presentation “A Journey Along the Warp.” She will share with us about how she fell into tapestry and the journey it has taken her on.

Alex Friedman has been weaving tapestries for over 50 years. She began her career by working in a NYC workshop on a set of shaped tapestries for a fleet of Pan Am 747 jumbo jets. Since then, she has created numerous tapestries including commissions for corporate, liturgical, and private clients. Her award-winning art, known for the dynamic colors and dimensional surface design, has been exhibited internationally.

Alex is active in many Bay Area fiber organizations, and she continues to promote tapestry through lectures and workshops. She has served as the President and Co-Director of the American Tapestry Alliance, and currently she serves on the Advisory Board of the Textile Arts Council at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

She maintains a studio at the ICB in the Sausalito, California and welcomes inquiries and visitors.  https://www.alexfriedmantapestry.com

If you would like to join some guild members for dinner before the program, Gail Blackmarr will let you know the details. We also need help with refreshments, sweet or savory. Tea will be available. Please label your food item.   

We look forward to seeing you in person at the Redwood City Senior Center, 1455 Madison Ave., Redwood City, CA 94061 

World in Tatters, 2023 and Blue Meditation, 2024