Bettina’s textile artwork has a strong focus on narrative. She showed digital photos of her work over the years and discussed how she portrayed her and her family’s life experiences using mainly embroidery and fabric collage. This has led to an interest in cartography. Cartographic designs are now being incorporated into her art as a means for telling stories and navigating through life.

http://www.cabc.net/mem_sect/CrafthousePortfolios/matzkuhn/matzkuhn.htm

The eleventh annual spinning retreat was held at Fenn Lodge April 4 – 6. Fenn Lodge is a beautiful 1908 heritage home on Hemlock Valley between Mission and Harrison Hot Springs. 15 members plus our host Diane Brady, enjoyed the wonderful surroundings, the gourmet food and the fibre activities. Additional people came for the day on Saturday. We had Fibres Plus selling fibres and fibre related equipment, door prizes and a fun gift exchange. The retreaters spun wool and tales as wheels spun and people chatted.

The dyeing activity this year was inspired by an article in the Fall 2006 Spin Off by Nancy Roberts. Janice and Ruth Griffiths brought three knitting machines. Everyone who wanted, took a turn at knitting a 3 or 4 foot long piece of fabric. We then painted the knit fabric strips with acid dyes and steam set them. This produces graduated colour changes over a long length of yarn instead of the mottled effect you get buy spinkle dying or painting skeins of yarn. Janice brought a finished product in this technique to the March meeting show and tell. Donna Campbell showed her yarn dyed in this technique at the same show and tell.

It will be interesting to see what people make out of their yarn done in this technique. A few kept coming back to the knitting machines and knitting more fabric. Diane Brady sprinkle dyed one of her fabrics and felted it in her washing machin.She also made a felted purse that weekend out of more knitted fabric.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Susan Millikan and my sister Ruth who helped me organize the retreat. Susan made name tags for everyone that were made of handspun yarn woven on a “weavette” loom that Susan made herself. Each name tag had a little drop spindle on it, which she also made on her lathe. Additionally, she embroidered everyone’s name on the tags. This year Susan and I organized the retreat, giving Linda Kunster a much deserved rest after leading the retreats for the previous 10 years. I would also like to thank Maria Lunow and her sister who donated spinning and weaving mugs that her sister hand made, to all the participants.

I hope to see everyone at Fenn Lodge again next year.

Janice Griffiths

Joan Taylor showed a multi-directional scarf knit out of 2 skeins of the same multi-coloured yarns. It is called a Math Geek scarf and is all garter stitch.

Marie Slessor showed two baskets that she made at a basket school in York, England. One basket was made of knotted waxed linen in greens, blues and yellows representing earth, water and air. The second basket was made from recycled materials: hemp and telephone wire.

Elizabeth Bell wove a green scarf on parallel advancing twill which she designed on her computer for her 16 shaft loom. The warp was handpainted silk and the weft was silk and wool.

Terry Villeneuve showed her double weave baby blanket. The double weave created pockets which she stuffed with poly- fill as she wove. The finished blanket was mauve and lavender 8/2 cotton but originally one of the colours was gold. After weaving a few inches, she decided that she didn’t like the colours and she removed all the gold threads (half the warp) and replaced them with lavender. She wove the blanket for Irene Weisner’s grand daughter.

Anne Marie Buchanan brought three willow baskets she made at the basket school in York, England including a gather- ing basket and a carrier for a bicycle.

Janice Griffiths showed the loom bench cushions she made out of hand woven and handspun wool curtains that had faded. She dyed the fabric and felted it. She also had a handspun mobius scarf knit with lace technique on a knitting ma- chine – the scarf went from black, to blue, purple and red. The scarf was first machine knit in stocking stitch, painted, heat set and then ripped up and knit into a lace scarf. The edge was crocheted with handspun silk.

Beryl Hickenbottom wove two collapse weave scarves. One was woven of blue and black Shetland wool and tencel and the other was green and pink wool and bamboo. She put these in the washing machine to produce differential shrinkage and thus puckering.

Donna Campbell showed her dyed wool from the spinning retreat at Fenn Lodge. The wool was dyed by knitting it on a knitting machine, painting the knit fabric and then ripping it up to be used for whatever knitting or weaving project you want. She also showed the fine silk she dyed at the Coquitlam Weavers using vat dyes that work like indigo.

Ruth Griffiths brought a tea towel woven on the draw loom in 16/2 cotton with gardening motifs in pastel colours. She also brought a purse made out of knitted hand spun yarn which was put together by needle felting. Needle felting, sprinkle dying and beading were also used to embellish the purse. She made a cushion this way as well: knitting and felting the handspun yarn and then using needle felting to join the sides. She used her own hand made Fimo buttons to embellish the purse and cushion.

Janice and Ruth Griffiths brought cushions that they made. The fronts were woven in the Krokbragd technique at Unni Lorenz’s Trollheimen Weaving Studio. The backs were knitted with the left over yarns from the weaving. They also brought socks knit out of yarn that they dyed in a Linda Shellhammer workshop at ANWG last year – a workshop to learn how to produce self patterning yarn.

Jay Rudolph showed 3 ikat 100% silk scarves that she wove. She did the ikat dying with acid dyes. Some of the yarn was silk boucle.

Shan Melzak wove a yellow, pink and blue medallion out of fine coloured wire.

Maria shared her appreciation and knowledge of Indonesian Weaving in a fascinating slide lecture based on her ethnographic fieldwork for her master’s thesis. She was able to spend time with the people in the villages of South Sulawesi and learn from them directly. Maria also showed us many textiles and garments that she collected during her experience and some woven pieces that she made inspired by the Indonesian textiles and techniques that she encountered.

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