Black Sheep Handweavers Guild Meeting October 15, 2026 7 - 9 pm

If you saw Penelope (Anne Hathaway) weaving in Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey over the summer and are interested in knowing more about our craft’s ancient past, this month’s program is for you!

Detail of a 6th century oil flask at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Black Sheep member Lizzy Ten-Hove will give a presentation on weaving’s place in Greek mythology and culture, focusing particularly on Athena, goddess of weaving and war, and how those two domains came to be interwoven with each other and with Greek poetry. We’ll look at surviving artifacts and imagery of ancient Greek weaving, share some tales of mythological weavers, and even learn a little bit of ancient Greek.

Lizzy began weaving in 2018 when she was looking for a way to procrastinate on her dissertation on Greek tragedy. She did eventually finish the dissertation, but not before getting entirely hooked on weaving. After several years teaching Latin, Greek, and Greek Mythology, she now works for Stanford’s Vice Provost of Undergraduate Education, which leaves more time for weaving but has fewer opportunities to nerd out about the ancient world; she is grateful to have the opportunity to do both with the guild!

We look forward to seeing you in person at the new Veterans Memorial Building/Senior Center, located one block north of our old location at 1333 Madison Avenue, Redwood City, at 7pm on October 15th; after the talk, we will have refreshments and show-and-tell as usual—please bring both to share as you are able! Let Lizzy (emtenhove@gmail.com) know if you would like to have dinner together before the meeting.