We will be hosting the fiber artist Jaya Griscom for an informative talk on her textile art and journey. Join us for a lovely presentation. Jaya Griscom is an abstract figurative textile artist. She learned to weave as a young child and fell in love with the tactile experience of working with fiber, launching a life-long obsession that she’s nurtured through a traditional fine art education and professional practice. Jaya is currently a long-term artist in residence through the City of Palo Alto’s Cubberley Artist Studio Project and a visiting artist at Stanford Art Institute. Her recent work explores the human form and the sense of touch through digital jacquard weaving, using photographic imagery and 3D scans of the figure. Jaya will present on her artwork, process, and how she drafts her pieces for the TC2 loom.

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

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

** New Location ! **

Black Sheep Handweavers Guild Meeting In-Person                                                                    June 19th, 2025, 7-9 pm

Please note the new location for this meeting:                                                                                 Center for Creativity, the former Sequoia Hotel, at the corner of Broadway and Main Street.                                                                                                                                                                         The address is 800 Main Street, Redwood City

CNCH share out will be just one part of our June get together.

Please bring your CNCH projects to share with others and tell us the story about your experience there. If there are others with show and tell please plan to share too.

In addition to our CNCH shares, the Stash Sale, historically  associated with our June meeting, will happen again this year! Please bring your wonderful castaways – yarn, equipment, books, whatever – that’s weaving/spinning/textile related – to
the meeting and place them in the designated spot at the beginning of the evening.

Please mark your items with your NAME and the price. (Blue tape is great for this!). Voluntarily, ten percent of the take will go to the Guild. (We use this money to sponsor conference scholarships and/or to make donations to textile-related organizations.)

Questions? Contact Betsy Blosser (bblosser@sfsu.edu).

NB: Please be prepared to take back home any treasures that don’t sell that evening.
Also included in the June meeting is a vote for our next year’s Board.

We also will need help with treats, either sweet or savory. Please bring something to
share and have it labeled with its ingredients. Thanks.

The program will be at 7pm at Center for Creativity (800 Main Street, Redwood City). Please wear a mask if you have any cold- or flu-like symptoms, even if you’re fairly sure it’s only seasonal allergies.

If you’d like to join us for dinner before the program, please contact Lizzy Ten-Hove
(emtenhove@gmail.com)

Black Sheep Handweavers Guild Meeting In-Person May 15, 2025

Round Robin Demo and Activity Event hosted by guild members 7-9 pm at the Senior Center in Redwood City! Join us for an informal learning and sharing experience where fellow guild members will be offering you the chance to try something new. We have the following members sharing and planning their activity:

• Gail Blackmarr will be doing branch weaving using branches and yarn to create a decorative wall hanging
• John Horigan will be weaving some small pouches                                                                                  • Mark Lentczner will be demonstrating kumihimo braiding using a marudai, the
traditional Japanese tool for kumihimo braiding with his group.
• Lyn Curry will be doing macrame with her group
• Spinners, Sharolene Brunston, Monique Hodgkinson and Carol Lewis will be sharing
their spinning techniques with participants

You can rotate to any of these activities and do just one or a few-you choose
Please plan on joining us on Thursday, May 15th. See you then.
The program will be at 7pm at Veterans Memorial Senior Center (1455 Madison Ave, Redwood City).

Please wear a mask if you have any cold- or flu-like symptoms, even if you’re fairly sure it’s
only seasonal allergies.

If you’d like to join us for dinner before the program, please contact Lizzy Ten-Hove
(emtenhove@gmail.com)

Bahira: Thursday, April 17th at 7 pm in person!

As Spring returns to the Bay Area, we return to in person programming! Our
speaker for April will be Bahira, a local textile artist whose work can often be
seen at FabMo in Sunnyvale. Inspired by an international upbringing—
her parents were American expats moving around the Middle East—and a first
career in ethnic fusion dance, Bahira now crafts one-of-a-kind dolls in
recycled fabrics, drawing on worldwide traditions from Japanese Shinto to Hopi Kachina and everywhere in between.
The program will be at 7pm at Veterans Memorial Senior Center (1455 Madison Ave, Redwood City). Please wear a mask if you have any cold- or flu-like symptoms, even if you’re fairly sure it’s only seasonal allergies.
If you’d like to join the speaker for dinner before the program, please contact Lizzy Ten-Hove (emtenhove@gmail.com)

Natalie Drummond – Thursday, March 20th at 7 pm on Zoom

Natalie Drummond is an instructor, weaver, dyer 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 (Singer Sewing Machine Manager 1992) and needle-felting.                                                                                                                                                                 Natalie has pursued weaving and color with a passion. She has been studying Deflected Double weave intensively, including how to use in Woven Shibori. Her work can be found
in Handwoven Magazine Nov/Dec 2021 and Winter 2024.                  

Program – Natalie’s journey focuses on her love of color and simple design with dyed warps and Deflected Double weave – both 4 and 8 shaft. She has three self-published workshop monographs have evolved from her explorations and teaching.

Her website is https://www.nataliewoven.com/gallery

Kris Bruland speaks about Handweaving.net, Feb 20, 2025 7 PM 

We are excited to hear from Kris Bruland on the creation of the internet siteHandweaving.net, which is now the home of 75,000 weaving drafts for weavers to choose from! He created the site 18 years ago when there were fewer than 200 weaving drafts then and has grown the site to what it is today.

He will explain the site, its tools, the use of the draft editor along with showing us how to
search and browse the collection. Join us at 7pm for this lively show and tell.
Weaving Draft Archive: (76,269 drafts available!)

Judith Shangold, “Inspiration and Design Process for the Rigid Heddle Loom” – 
Thursday, January 16th at 7 pm on Zoom

Judith Shangold was already a weaver when, in 1975, she opened a yarn shop in the Park Slope section in Brooklyn, NY called The Weavers Studio. Though she knew how to knit,
she had to teach herself a lot to stay ahead of the customers who needed help. She has since designed for knitting magazines and yarn companies, was a yarn sales
representative for many years in New England, and was the U.S. importer, distributor and designer for Manos del Uruguay from 1999 – 2007.

She is also the designer behind Designs by Judith and A Bear in Sheep’s Clothing pattern collections.
When she retired in 2007, she started weaving again. Limited in space, she began weaving on a rigid-heddle loom, and became particularly interested in simple, wearable clothing design. Her book, Weave • Knit• Wear, was published by XRX Books in 2014.                               

In September 2017, Judith and her husband, a freelance book designer, became permanent residents of Tucson. Though she is now weaving on an 8-shaft Schacht Baby Wolf, she still uses a rigid heddle loom to teach, demo and travel with. https://www.judithshangold.com/

Program for our Holiday party with the 50th Anniversary Celebration of our Black Sheep Handweavers Guild on 12/12  at 7 PM !

* This time the holiday party is one week earlier than our regular meeting date. *

Black Sheep Guild will be having our December In-Person guild meeting at
Veterans Memorial Senior Center, 1455 Madison Ave, Redwood City, on
December 12th at 7:00 p.m. Come to meet and greet fellow guild members! We
are hoping for good attendance so, if you need a ride, please let us know so we
can hook you up with someone coming from your area.

Our guild is celebrating its 50th year, and to honor it Sarah Aaron and her daughter
have put together a special presentation to celebrate our half century! We will
view the presentation, and marvel at our long history of creating gorgeous fiber.

Following the presentation, we hope others will also chime in with their own
special memories. We encourage you to bring something for Show & Tell that
reflects some aspect of your history with the guild, as well as any recent work. We
will share a celebratory piece of cake, hot teas and sparkling apple juice for the
occasion.

Please join in our evening of merriment, and bring an edible finger food, sweet or
savory. Please label your contribution with name and ingredients for those with
dietary restrictions.
If you would like to help with set up/decorations, please come early around 6:15
to lend a hand.

There will also be our customary give away table for items you would like others
to have, but please plan to take any items not selected home at the end of the
meeting.

We did decide to not have the gift exchange due to the time needed for the 50 th
anniversary celebration.

Hope to see you there!

The program will be at Veterans Memorial Senior Center, 1455 Madison Ave, Redwood City. The program will start at 7pm, but the room will be open at 6:30 for those who want to visit
beforehand.
COVID note: Masking is optional, but please wear a mask if you have any respiratory symptoms, even if it’s probably just allergies from everything that’s blooming.