2023 Guild Programs

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The Programs Committee is happy to announce our 2021-2022 programs. At this time, all guild meetings will be conducted via Zoom until it is safe to meet in person again. Meetings are on 3rd Thursdays of each month, beginning at 7PM. Zoom links are available in the Member’s Calendar.

  • January 19 – Daryl Lancaster: Doup Leno
  • February 16 – Denise Kovnat: Tactile Art: Collapse Fabrics from 4 to 32 shafts
  • March 16 – Mary Zicafoose: My work in Ikat
  • April – 20 – Weaving Wizards
  • May 18 – A Revue in Review of Guild Study Groups
  • June 15 – Let’s Get Together and Share the Weaving Love (In Person)
  • July 20 – Informal Summer Program – In Person Craft Night
  • August 17 – Informal Summer Program (tbd)

Black Sheep 2023 Towel Exchange!

Towel Exchange

Black Sheep 2023 Towel Exchange!

We are excited to announce the guidelines for our 2023 towel exchange and look forward to seeing all your beautiful contributions at our June Guild Meeting or alternatively at CNCH in August!

Guidelines for the Black Sheep towel exchange 2023:

Participation: Any member of the Black Sheep Guild can participate in the towel exchange

Due dates: we will collect all participating towels before our June 2023 meeting on June 15

Submission: You can bring your towels to the June 2023 meeting (if we are holding the meeting in person) , drop it off in South San Jose or or send it via mail

Distribution: We are planning to showcase and distribute your towels at the 2023 CNCH in San Luis Obispo. If you cannot participate, we would be happy to send your towels home with a friend or colleague. 

Specifications: Towels must be woven from cotton, linen, hemp, or any combination of these fibers. Finished size is to be between 18” and 22″ inches wide, and 25” to 28″ long. 

Please plan ahead to address shrinkage and pull-in. Please finish with a hem, either hand-sewn or machine-sewn.

Closer to the due date, we’ll provide you a form to fill out for each towel asking for information on you and your towels, including loom, draft, yarn info, inspiration, etc.

Hang onto your finished towels until the June 2023 meeting; we’ll collect them at the meeting, or if we’re unable to meet, we’ll tell you where to mail your towels. 

When you turn in your towels, we’ll be asking you to tell us your color preference: warm colors, cool colors, neutrals or potluck.  We’ll do our best to honor your preferences.

You’ll get three towels from three different Black Sheep weavers at the 2023 CNCH meeting in early August. If you are unable to attend CNCH this year,, we’ll arrange another way to get your towels to you.

Want to get back more than 3 towels? Go ahead and turn in more! Please make them in multiples of 3.

You turn in 3 towels, you get 3 towels back. We are only accepting multiples of 3 towels

Questions? Contact 2023 Towel Exchange coordinators: 

Stefanie Selck (sselck [at] gmail [dot] com)

Barbie Paulsen (weaverbarbie [at] gmail [dot] com)

 

Events & Exhibitions

Upcoming events

Hidden Villa Sheep Shearing and Fiber Arts Festival

The 2025 Hidden Villa Sheep Shearing and Fiber Arts Festival takes place on Saturday, April
19th. See more information & Eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sheep-shearingfiber-arts-festival-2025-tickets-1225571921609

They are also looking for fiber folks to participate in the event. You can show your work in the Maker Gallery and/or demonstrate a fiber technique (spinning, weaving, etc.). You get free admission to the event!                                                                                                                                — Allie Kraus, Education Committee

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Women’s View 2025!

The San Mateo County’s Office of Arts and Culture and the Commission
on the Status of Women is sponsoring the 19th annual exhibition, in
celebration of Women’s History Month.

The exhibition will be on view from March 5 – March 30, 2025, at Twin
Pines Art Center in Belmont.

Show and Tell February 2023

Show and Tell

Barbara Shapiro – Troubled Waters

My work Troubled Waters 2019, 14 x 14 x 14″, has been chosen for The Color of Water at
the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, February 11 to March 26, 2023.

The Reception is on February 11, 2 to 4 PM. The hexagonally plaited sedori cane globe supports a swirl of soiled papers and cloth with a pool of debris inside the globe as well.

Featured Textiles – Sheep-to-Shawl Benefit

Featured textiles

In response to the mass shooting in Half Moon Bay, involving some of the area’s farmworkers, one of our members – Kitty Thorsen – offered to donate a shawl produced by one of the Guild’s sheep-to-shawl teams, to the farmworkers. After consulting the board, we decided that auctioning off the shawl and donating the proceeds to ALAS, a non-profit working with the local farmworkers, would be a better idea.

So . . . we held an auction on January 28th by email. Member Barbara O’Connor had the high bid and won the shawl. We are still waiting for funds to come in to know what the auction netted. Regardless, Black Sheep members are pleased that we could contribute in a small way toward bettering conditions for the local farmworkers.

 

   

Denise Kovnat: Tactile Art: Collapse Fabrics from 4 to 32 Shafts

Past Programs

Note: Meeting starts at 6:30 PM on Feb 16, 2023

This lecture explores the many techniques and possibilities for creating dimensional fabrics. The three basic elements for these fabrics are structure, active and inactive yarns, and finishing techniques. The results make the most of an often-overlooked aspect of weaving: that of texture and depth. Add color and form, and weavers can maximize the potential of our craft to create imaginative fabrics with great visual and tactile appeal.

Denise is a hand weaver and teacher who lives in Rochester, NY.  Her weaving interesting include extended parallel threadings, fine yarns, hand-painted warps, Deflected Double Weave and collapse techniques.  She says she loves yarn and chocolate, not necessarily in that order.

Note: Meeting starts at 6:30 PM on Feb 16, 2023

Barbara Shapiro Introduces the New World Shibori Network Foundation

Announcements

Barbara Shapiro Introduces the New World Shibori Network Foundation

Artist, author, scholar, and friend Yoshiko Wada has presented several times at Black Sheep
meetings. In1975, she taught the first Shibori class in the US. In the 1990s Wada and Japanese colleagues held the First International Shibori Symposium (ISS) in Nagoya, Japan, seeking to promote shibori textiles in Japan and beyond by preserving this century-old technique from disappearing. The World Shibori Network (WSN) aims to share information and inspiration and to preserve Japanese shibori and similar heritage techniques across the globe by creating a bridge between the ancient and the contemporary in textile technologies with an emphasis on sustainability. In 2022, WSN became a non-profit foundation.
Slow Fiber Studios (SFS) https://shibori.org/slow-fiber-studios/ is now the official
educational arm of WSN and will continue to offer in-person and online lectures and workshops on a variety of textile subjects. The Shop https://shop.slowfiberstudios.com/ offers excellent sustainable indigo and other dyes, Shibori tools and products, and a range of pertinent books and videos, etc. Newly developed Slow Fiber TV https://shibori.org/slow-fiber-tv/ offers subscription-based access to uncut versions of the various SFS workshops and other content.
Trips and tours https://shibori.org/international-tours/ are in the planning stages. Join our
mailing list for updates on our programs and consider become a member of WSN
https://shibori.org/membership/. Full disclosure, I am a founding board member of the new WSN Foundation.

— Barbara Shapiro

It’s Doup Leno with Daryl Lancaster!

Past Programs, Programs

January, 19, 2023 19:00 – 21:00 PST BSHG Guild Meeting

Let the loom do all the work!  Beautiful lace effects can be achieved by creating half heddles or doups and with the press of a treadle, or lift of a lever, threads magically cross themselves in the warp.  This technique is possible on four shafts and with eight shafts the possibilities are even better!  Learn how to create doups, thread for doup leno, and how to treadle some wonderful lace fabrics.  Based on the lengthy article featured in the January/February 2019 issue of Heddlecraft Magazine.

Daryl Lancaster, a hand-weaver and fiber artist known for her award-winning hand-woven fabric and garments, has been constructing garments for more than half a century. She has given lectures and workshops to guilds, conferences, and craft centers all over the United States. The former Features Editor for Handwoven Magazine, she has written more than 100 articles and published digital content, still frequently contributing to various weaving and sewing publications. She now has a YouTube channel, The Weaver Sews where she shares her extensive experience sewing handwoven garments. Daryl offers a complete line of digital sewing patterns for handweavers. https://www.weaversew.com/shop/sewing-patterns.html She maintains a blog at www.weaversew.com/wordblog Find her at www.Daryllancaster.com

 

Show and Tell January 2023

Show and Tell

Barbara Shapiro – Featured Friday Artist for the National Basketry Organization

Jan 6, 2023

 As I explored Japanese Flower Knot plaiting on a jellyfish for Bay Area Basket Makers‘ participation in the CNCH Tableau event, it occurred to me that the surface resembled that of a pineapple. And off I went seeking to capture the shape of that once exotic fruit.   By the time I finish the fourth and fifth ones, I had figured out that I could use spacers between knots to create a nice plump form. The crown is made with two rows of twining on some extra elements and rolling them up to insert into the top. 

    

Stefanie S – Tencel Scarf

I wanted to feature both colors on this scarf, so I chose Blue as warp and Green as weft and wove in a cross-twill. I added a few rows of herringbone twill every few inches to mix it up a little. The scarf is very soft and has great drape and I really like the color combination. 

 

Barbara O. –  Samples from Rep Workshop with Kelly Marshall

December 15, 2022 Holiday Party via Zoom, 7:00 p.m.

Past Events

We will be holding our holiday party on December 15th on Zoom this year,
Meeting time 7 pm (usual time since we aren’t having a meal)
Our holiday party brings us together for social time, good cheer and reminders of our
common love of textiles.
We will be meeting on zoom for the health and safety of all. So put on something festive,
wear a holiday hat if you’d like, and join for a special session of Show and Tell.
Weaving and textiles are handmade and heartfelt. We welcome one and all to share a textile item that has a special meaning for them. Show us the piece and tell us about it. It could be Black Sheep Handweavers Guild December 2 2022 Newsletter
something you made, or something that a friend made, or something you acquired in a special place or at a special time.
When we share our textiles, we share of ourselves. We’re looking forward to getting to
know our weavings and the weavers through this holiday meeting.
There will also be some time after show and tell to do some catching up and sharing news.
Look for the link on the member calendar on our website: https://BlackSheepGuild.org Set
yourself a festive place-setting and raise a cup of cheer.

                                                                               

                                                                               ***

Invitation for (Extra) Holiday Cheer!
Betsy Blosser and Diana Herr will be meeting in person on Monday evening, December 19th, for some holiday cheer at BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse, 2206 Bridgepoint Parkway, San Mateo.
We would love to have you join us. We will show up around 6:30 PM and depart around 9:00 PM. If you would like to share a drink or some food, or just some good company, please stop by.
The restaurant has a selection of main dishes and sandwiches, as well as alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks. The main attraction, however, is a chance to be together. Hope to see you there!
(Let one of us know in advance of your plan to join us, and we will reserve a table.)