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