Earlier events (2020-2023)

The mission of Local Cloth’s Blue Ridge Blanket project is to help revitalize the fiber economy in western North Carolina, by connecting fiber farmers, processors, dyers and weavers together, to produce locally sourced and crafted blankets. 

The Women’s Woven Voices project is an international, collaborative art project that supports women in claiming their empowered voices through writing, weaving, and sharing their stories.   The collaborative tapestry currently has over 1,000 woven story cloths from participants from 10 different countries representing university students, Veteran women, refugee moms, art groups, schools, girl scouts, community members, church members, grandmothers, mothers, aunts, sisters, daughters, friends, neighbors, and men who are allies.

Since ancient days, textile terms have offered a way to talk about storytelling: The storyteller weaves a story together. The reader follows the thread of a narrative. The story unspools and unfolds. In this online event, a weaver, a novelist, and a scholar talk about how textiles inspire and renew human connection.

During this program, Edwina Bringle, April Carter Price, and Danielle Lasker presented the past, present, and future of Textiles at Penland School of Craft. Edwina spoke from lived and oral histories of her 50 year relationship with Penland as student, instructor, studio coordinator, and more. April shared her experiences as a lifelong student of Penland, and Danielle shared the current happenings within the studio, and what the future looks like at Penland.

For more than 700 years, the legacy cloth, lubugo (barkcloth), made from the mutuba tree (ficus natalensis) has been used to clothe Ugandans, bury the dead and mark sacred ceremonies in Uganda. In 2005, it was designated as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO to be preserved and protected. Today, it is inspiring contemporary artists, designers, scientists, scholars and researchers locally, regionally, continentally and globally.