Thursday, April 24 - guest speaker and/or guild project
May 18 - Spinning At The Winery, Retzlaff Vineyards. Work on your raffle donation and make sure to sign up for volunteer set up, take down, selling raffle tickets or other responsibilities that make this event so successful. All guild members attending the event should plan to sign up for at least one volunteer activity. Contact Joan for the signup sheet and schedule.
Extra Workshop & Gathering Dates
Celebrating
The Most Colorful Places in the World
When: April 13, 2019 10 am – 3 pm
Where: Carol C’s house, Walnut Creek
We will each be dyeing our divided skein in many gorgeous colors to make a striped cowl.
Natural color fingering weight yarn is available for purchase ($16 for a skein of 480 yds), contact Wendy L. ASAP if you wish join in on the fun but don't have your yarn yet. Your pre-work includes separating the skein into mini-skeins (24 skeins at 20 yards each). We'd prefer the yarn be purchased from us so it will be a uniform ratio of dye to yarn. You will take your yarn home for rinsing.
Meeting Minutes (Linda B.)
TREADLES TO THREADS GUILD
THURMAN
CASEY LIBRARY, WALNUT CREEK, CA
February
26, 2019
President Wendy opened the
meeting at 7:00 p.m. We had 24 members and one visitor present to hear our
speaker, Stephany Wilkes, read from her recently published book.
The business meeting involved
letting us know that our April speaker is having trouble with the April 24
date, so we are still in negotiation.
May 18 will be the Spinning at
the Winery. Will reported that Kate has sent out the blurbs to the usual
vendors. They are waiting for answers from Black Diamond Alpacas, Carolina
Homespun and Morro Fibers. Will handed out the book mark sized notifications of
the winery to each of us to take for advertising. Will thanked all for the
positive thoughts for Kate. She still has a low resistance, so she is not here
tonight. Joan A. will pass around the
sign up sheet of jobs needing to be done the day of the winery spin. Please
take at least one job to make the day a success and pleasant for all. Joan will
have the list at Monday spinning as well. Please work on the items for the
raffle as this is the primary fund raiser for our guild to use to provide our
members with dye days and other benefits.
UC Botanical garden will feature
natural dyes, plants and processes, from March 9-31, 2019.
Forest Homes Farms will host
their annual shearing day on April 27, from 11-3 p.m. in San Ramon. Doris will
be the point person on this. Volunteers must arrive before 10 a.m. to unload.
The committee would love to have the volunteers stay for the afternoon BBQ, so
let Doris know if you can stay and partake.
Wendy discussed the possibility
of making a knit striped cowl out of 24 different colors for the April meeting.
Aiko Gray and her daughter,
Mari, will take two guided tours to Guatemala August 1-9, 8-14, 2019. They work
with the South American people who are dyers and weavers.
CNCH: Joan mentioned that CNCH
needs an editor for the web site. There is a remuneration of $500 per
newsletter. The silent auction to raise scholarship funds needs items to be
donated.
There are still some classes
open for the conference at Sonoma State campus, please check the web site.
Since the only item allowed in the cafeteria are purses 6 inches by 9 inches,
Diablo Weavers will have a complete how-to program on inserting a zipper in
your purse/pouch. Our treasurer, Pam, will give this presentation.
Wendy showed a variety of items
we might present as “souvenir” of this year’s winery spinning day. She will
have a more comprehensive presentation next time as the turnaround time for
delivery is very fast. We can make a decision then.
Carol C. had her arm twisted to
host the yearly dye day. Now we just need to decide when and what.
Tonight was the deadline for our
project from stash fiber mixing earlier in the guild year. There were wonderful
items, some with just the stash; others with other beautiful fibers and colors
added. The projects ranged from cowls to shawls to sweaters to blankets. The work was done by knitting, rigid heddle
and multi-shaft looms.
Sheila had her tapestry project
featured on Rebecca Metzloff’s web site.
Our speaker, Stephany Wilkes, read a portion of her book, “Raw Material, Working Wool in the West”. She spoke of her personal experiences in both the software design field and the building of her shearing clientele. She shared the problems that social media and PETA and others have brought to her personal safety. Stephany has been our guest speaker before . It is always amazing to hear of her journey. We are fortunate to have Stephany and Fibershed members here in Northern California. She stayed and signed her books for us and had three examples of recent sheared fleeces to share bits with us. Her book was reviewed in Vogue Knitting magazine.
Our speaker, Stephany Wilkes, read a portion of her book, “Raw Material, Working Wool in the West”. She spoke of her personal experiences in both the software design field and the building of her shearing clientele. She shared the problems that social media and PETA and others have brought to her personal safety. Stephany has been our guest speaker before . It is always amazing to hear of her journey. We are fortunate to have Stephany and Fibershed members here in Northern California. She stayed and signed her books for us and had three examples of recent sheared fleeces to share bits with us. Her book was reviewed in Vogue Knitting magazine.
Linda B.
Free Patterns on Ravelry
Guild member Rosemary B. reminds everybody that there are a lot of free knit and crochet patterns available on Ravelry. Here are some lace patterns that were recently made available (you may need to log into a Ravelry account to access the patterns, Ravelry accounts are free). There is also a group that is devoted to free patterns.
Textile Trip in August: Guatemala
--
Some Upcoming Fiber Events
Guild member Rosemary B. reminds everybody that there are a lot of free knit and crochet patterns available on Ravelry. Here are some lace patterns that were recently made available (you may need to log into a Ravelry account to access the patterns, Ravelry accounts are free). There is also a group that is devoted to free patterns.
Textile Trip in August: Guatemala
Dear Treadles to Threads:
My
name is Mari Gray and I am reaching out to you to spread the word about
our upcoming Textile Travel itineraries in Guatemala, as I think this
could be of interest to the community at Treadles to Threads. Last year,
we were fortunate to have a diverse group of participants with varying
textile backgrounds, and this made for great creative times during our
textile workshops.
After 5+ years of working with rural artisan groups in Guatemala as a small business (Kakaw Designs, pronounced like "cacao"), I've come to realize how challenging it can be for regional artisan groups to be innovative in both textile and product design. In a country where copying is the norm and the artisanmade sector represents a major income source for rural and especially indigenous communities, we believe that creative idea exchange can have more lasting and meaningful impact than the traditional support only through economic means (which is also important, but not the only solution). More than just learning "from" the artisans, our goal is to create a space for mutually-beneficial idea sharing among textile-loving creatives, where we all learn from each other.
I am attaching here our one-page info sheet of the two itineraries we have for August (NOTE from editor - please access the web site or e-mail Lisa W. for the info sheet). More information can also be found on our website.
Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions.
After 5+ years of working with rural artisan groups in Guatemala as a small business (Kakaw Designs, pronounced like "cacao"), I've come to realize how challenging it can be for regional artisan groups to be innovative in both textile and product design. In a country where copying is the norm and the artisanmade sector represents a major income source for rural and especially indigenous communities, we believe that creative idea exchange can have more lasting and meaningful impact than the traditional support only through economic means (which is also important, but not the only solution). More than just learning "from" the artisans, our goal is to create a space for mutually-beneficial idea sharing among textile-loving creatives, where we all learn from each other.
I am attaching here our one-page info sheet of the two itineraries we have for August (NOTE from editor - please access the web site or e-mail Lisa W. for the info sheet). More information can also be found on our website.
Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions.
Mari
 |
Mari Gray
Founder, Kakaw Designs |
Some Upcoming Fiber Events
UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Fiber & Dye Exhibit and Programs, Berkeley, March 9-31, 2019
Weaving & Woodwork: A Scandinavian Design Partnership, UC Davis Design Museum, January 21-April 21, 2019
Meet The Sheep at Meridian Jacobs, reservations required, Vacaville, April 6 - 7
Forest Home Farm Sheep Shearing, San Ramon, April 27, 2019
Fiber Dyeing with Plants, Sunol Regional Wilderness, April 27, 2019
Spring Color with California Dye Plants at East Bay Regional Parks Botanical Garden, Tilden Park, Berkeley, May 11
Kimono Refashioned and associated events, Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, through May 5, 2019
Spinning at the Winery, Retzlaff Vineyards, Livermore, May 18, 2019
A Tradition of Making: California Native Basketry, curated in partnership with Julia Parker. Randall Museum of Science, Nature & the Arts, San Francisco, through September 2019
CNCH Conference 2019, Sonoma, June 20-23, 2019
Yosemite Miwok-Paiute Basketry Workshop with Julia Parker and family, Yosemite National Park, September 27-29, 2019
FiberEvents - a calendar of wool festivals, fiber festivals, knitting, crocheting & craft gatherings/events in the U.S. and the world!
Ongoing Fiber-Related Classes
Crockett Fiber Arts Studio (Crockett)
Fibershed (various locations)
Fiber Circle Studio (Cotati)
Meridian Jacobs (Vacaville)
West County Fiber Arts (Sebastopol)
Windrush Farm (Petaluma)