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

Kay Hansen brought an interesting old blanket woven from hand spun wool, the wool coming from sheep raised on her grandmother’s Lindsay, Ontario farm. The green blanket was embroidered with couched and tufted wool in the shapes of colorful leaves and flowers.

Jane Gfeller wove a baby blanket in huck weave of 2/8 cotton as a gamp in pastel colors. She also wove a red scarf in a huck pattern of bamboo yarn from Jane Stafford. In addition, she had woven a scarf using a warp of hand-painted bamboo from Laura Fry. Using a green weft, she wove the scarf in a shadow weave pattern.

Louisa Chadwick knit a delicate triangular shawl using a “Cherry Leaf” pattern with a vivid green cashmerino yarn, which she dyed herself. Pattern (with altered edging, was from the knitted lace book by Jane Sowerby, published by XRX Press.

Noelle Lamb wove baskets at a workshop she attended on the Kitsap Peninsula. A basket woven with cedar, ash and copper wire was woven in a class taught by Polly Adams while a basket woven of paper in a Maori pattern was taught in a a class by Jackie Abrams.

Cindy-Lou Ellis created some silver jewellery -hanging from and double sided braided chian, a pendant consisting of spectrolite mounted in silver with three sapphires mounted below and a Marquis sapphire above. She also wove a necklace of fine silver.

Sandra Crompton bound copies of letters written from 1856-1858 by her great grandfather, who lived in Mauritius. Sandra created eight hand bound copies with white covers decorated with gold designs and red spines. These were given to family members as Christmas gifts.

Barbara Mitchell showed us the jounal she is keeping which details the progress of our moose, Wilfrid. Courtney Mitchell was delighted to find that a silver and turquoise buckle, which she bought at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody Wyoming, was made by

Lee Yazzi, a well known Navajo jewellery maker. She wove a green and blue belt of wool, silk and ribbon for the buckle.

Jo Anne Ryeburn, determined that the fabric she acquired during a recent trip to India should not remain hidden unused in drawers, made a colorful jacket from a green sari which featured the red and gold stripes which appeared at one end and along one border of the sari.

Submitted by Jo Anne Ryeburn

Kay Hansen brought an interesting old blanket woven from hand spun wool, the wool coming from sheep raised on her grandmother’s Lindsay, Ontario farm. The green blanket was embroidered with couched and tufted wool in the shapes of colorful leaves and flowers.