Our presenter, Felicia Lo, discussed photography for textiles. There are plenty of practical and artistic reasons why we take photos of our textiles. The photos may be for personal record-keeping purposes or for professional use. Felicia emphasized that we first need to understand our focus — what aspects of the fabric or fiber do we want to portray in the photo? Then she discussed the variables that make up a good photograph, including shutter speeds, aperture, film, and especially lighting. A diffused natural light is best and can be achieved with several different set-ups. Composition of the photo must also be considered. An object off-center may make a more interesting photo. Felicia then presented a number of examples of good and bad photos as well as references for further study. She summarized with a quick list that will help us improve our photos:

• Use natural light.
• Modify your light source.
• Use a tripod.
• Bracket your exposures.
• Consider your composition.
• Have fun!

A copy of the lecture handout is available in PDF format at the sweetgeorgia yarns blog here »

Due to unfortunate circumstances our scheduled speaker, Bettina Matzkuhn, was unable to join us. She is rescheduled to present at our April meeting.

In her stead we viewed the latest DVD documentary from Maiwa Productions entitled: In Search of Lost Colour — the story of natural dyes. This lovely documentary described the main sources of natural dyes from both plants and animals, the use of mordants and the importance of dyes in the history of exploration, trade routes, farming and development. Given current the competition with chemical dyes, the challenge of maintaining the recipes and expertise of natural dyeing throughout the world was also discussed.

This DVD is in our library so members may check it out for a more in depth review.

Our annual Christmas Party with potluck goodies and a gift exchange. Much laughter ensued as some members really got into the spirit of the exchange where you could snatch a gift from another rather than choose a new one from the table! The hottest item appeared to be a lovely pair of hand-knit fingerless mitts which changed owners several times. It’s always enjoyable to have a chance to mingle and chat with our fellow fibre enthusiasts.

Our October 2007 meeting was canceled due to a conflict with the Maiwa Symposium.

Jo Anne Ryeburn and Dorothy Cross showed slides and textiles that they collected on their individual trips to India. Jo Anne also had the opportunity to attend the UNESCO Symposium on Natural Dyeing.

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.

Barbara is a foster parent through Plan Canada and began her trip with a flight to Lima to visit her 9 year old foster child’s family. Thanks to Barbara’s help, the large family, living in very small quarters, is doing fairly well. What is more, she is engaged in a fund-raising effort to clean up the water in the community and add clean bathrooms to two local schools. According to Barbara, “As to how funds are being raised, I have been to two other guilds, set up a booth at a craft fair, sold lots of photographs and cards and have had some big donations from supporters. So far I have given Plan Canada $35,000.00 and I need another $15,000.00. The building is more than half complete and the children are already using the completed sections of the project. It is very exciting to see.” After this visit to her foster family, Barbara embarked on a three week tour of Peru. She showed us slides of many craft activities, including knitting, spinning, braiding and tapestry weaving. We saw the colourful abstract tapestries designed by Maximo Lora (featured in the Nov.-Dec. 2006 Fiberarts). Lora hires deaf weavers to weave his tapestries. We also saw more traditional tapestries designed by Alejandro Gallardo. These are sold at fair trade prices which benefits the village in which he lives. We saw pictures of a knitter named Rufina who knits garments using bicycle spokes as needles and also pictures of tape being woven using “toe weaving” Finally we saw examples of back strap weaving at the Centre of Traditional Textiles in Cuzco.

Barbara concluded by urging us to invest $30.00 a month in supporting a foster child through Plan Canada. According to Barbara, children who are supported in this way “do not fall through the cracks.”

Submitted by Jo Anne Ryeburn

Cindy Lou Ellis wove a green plaid blanket out of acrylic boucle yarn.

Jo Anne Ryeburn wore a colorful vest and shawl woven using the Silk Studio’s silk-linen blend. The warp for these was painted in bright gold, wine and green and woven with a blue weft. It was threaded to a two block twill and woven “window pane” style. The shawl was sett and beaten at 24/inch while the vest fabric was sett and beat at 36/inch.

submitted by Jo Anne Ryeburn