Our speaker for the guild program on January 16th will be Kathy Hattori, longtime Black Sheep member. She has maintained her membership even though she’s lived in Seattle for many years.
Kathy will give us an update on her business, Botanical Colors, and some of her other ventures. In particular, she will talk about the work she does in the natural dye “sector” with brands and commercializing natural dyes.
An example is that Kathy has worked with the Eileen Fisher clothing line to re-dye clothing that the merchant buys back from customers. After Kathy re-dyes these pieces, they are repaired or re-styled by seamstresses and then sold at a discounted price. This reduces the pollution that results from working with chemical dyes and produces a desirable product that might have otherwise ended up in the waste stream.
We look forward to hearing Kathy’s presentation. Please visit her website for more information about Kathy’s work, helpful insights to mordanting, and using natural dyes: https://botanicalcolors.com/our-story/
Warp: 10/2 ringspun cotton hand painted as three pre-wound bouts.
Weft: dark forest green 20/2 cotton.
Pattern: advancing twill with doubleweave edges.
We will meet at our usual location (Gold Star Room, Redwood City’s Veterans Senior Center). We’ll begin setting up at 5:30 PM, with dinner at 6:30 PM.
After dinner, we’ll have a gift exchange. Gifts should be items that another “fiber person” would enjoy, priced at no more than $15. If you have the time, a handmade gift or a small gift purchased from another fiber artist is especially appreciated. We will use a lighthearted poem to guide the gift exchange. Betsy Blosser has agreed to be our leader again.
Our October speaker will be Marlie de Swart, a longtime spinner, knitter, and weaver. She lives in Bolinas and has a fiber arts store in Point Reyes where many west Marin artists display and sell their textile wares. She is a member of Fibershed and teaches classes in spinning and plying. She is committed to working with local farmers and uses fleeces from the west Marin area.
Marlie has designed many sweaters and vests, some which are showcased in her book, Knitting Woolscapes: Designs Inspired by Coastal Marin Wool. Here’s her website if you’d like to take a look: http://www.borageyarns.com/knitting-woolscapes
Come to the October meeting and see samples of her beautiful work. I’ve attached a couple of photos.
When we were younger, going back to school in the fall often included a time for sharing “what you did on your summer vacation” as a way of getting to know one another better, and what better way to start off our Guild Season? Please join us for our first meeting of the year! Bring your recent work, or in-progress study, that thing you started at CNCH or made at another conference and have now finished; and let us share with one another what we have been up to, whether in study groups, or away at workshops and fiber arts gatherings, or on our own in our homes and studios. What’s new? What favorite old thing have you been studying on? What would you like to be working on? Bring it all, and let’s set up a big long table in the middle of the room, and gather around it to see and hear what our fellow guild members are up to. If you’d like, wear something handmade.
Marilyn fell in love with paper when living in Japan many years ago. When she retired from teaching, she began experimenting with making paper in the studio she sets up in her back yard each summer. Several years ago she discovered botanical printing and has added that to interests she pursues in her outside studio. She has taught paper making to her calligraphy guild, Pacific Scribes, The Nature Printing Society, and the Sonoma Mycological Association where the paper fiber is mainly fungi. She also enjoys sharing paper making with friends and small groups while working in her back yard.
Several years ago she was fortunate to be able to tour Japanese paper making villages with Hakoni Paper, a paper importer based in Southern California. She was delighted to find the traditional Japanese life still existing in the small rural villages.
The Black Sheep Handweavers Guild is pleased to announce that we will be providing a $250 grant to one of our members for the Conference of Northern California 2020 Burlingame Conference.
All members of Black Sheep Handweavers Guild are encouraged to apply for the grant.
For more details, please review the Grant Application.
Please send your completed grant application to grant@blacksheepguild.org by September 30, 2019.
If you have any questions about the grant, please do not hesitate to ask any of the board members or email grant@blacksheepguild.org.
Please join us for a viewing of the 1997 prize winning film, “Textile Magicians of Japan”, featuring the creations of five Japanese contemporary fiber artists in the cedar forests near Kyoto, Japan.
With: Masakazu Kobayashi, Chiyoko Tanaka, Jun Tomita, Naomi Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Shindo
Mark the date! The Black Sheep Handweavers Guild is meeting the second Thursday of June for the annual raffle, auction and sale. Your yesterday’s yarn might someone’s dream-come-true!