Profile, New Member - Cheryl

Our newest member brought a bunch of her art work for Show & Tell. Cheryl is a spinner, weaver, needle felter, knitter and doll maker, she works with angora rabbits and llama fibers.

First up, was a set of llama slippers, that she knit then wet felted in the wash machine, very sturdy and fluffy. She also brought a pair that was not felted yet, so we could compare the difference. Next was a colorful beret, made with her hand dyed roving and spun, then plied with black wool, and knit. The skein of yarn was beautiful too.

A needle felted "Lion Man", with a wild mane, and serious face, was an interesting sculpture. We might need a demo on making stuffed needle felted dolls. Her "Gypsy" doll was gorgeous with lots of layers in her outfit, beading and fiber work. With her hand painted face and arms & legs, she was very pose-able and life like.

Cheryl did a short demo on Navajo thigh spinning, with a large wooden spindle that she took camping in Arizona. She had a large hank of wool roving that she hand dyed with Lanocet acid dyes, in rich colors of rust, burgundy and warm browns.

She showed several samples of her loom weaving, in wools, in several different patterns and colors, and one made with hand spun wool. She also showed us how she is making a rag rug, with the Pendleton Wool trim from Maureen, and trim she already had, and the technique of straw weaving. She has taught the straw weaving to children's groups, and this might be a fun project for us to also try.

So at the next meeting, say Hi to Cheryl, she is going to be a wonderful talented addition to our group, with various skills to show and share.

Group Picture- Pumpkin Lasagne Recipe

At our December potluck meeting we also took a group picture.

Back Row, left to right - Dori, Corienne, Cheryl, Nancy, Jana, Meredith, Vera, Landreth Front Row - Kay, Pat, Peggy, Amy -- Missing - Sandy, Maureen, Georgia, Sherry, Marcia, Sylvia, Gracie, Cynde, Jan, Bonne, Karla. Pumpkin Lasagne The recipe for pumpkin lasagne, which everyone loved, is a combination of garlic, and cinnamon and spices. It is a vegetarian main dish, not a dessert. It can also be made with butternut squash. In a 2 quart pan melt 3 tablespoons of butter, and brown 3 cloves of minced garlic. Add 3 cups of pumpkin puree(1 1/2 cans), 3 tablespoons of lt. brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of maple syrup, 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, stir til warm. Mix 1 1/2 cups of ricotta cheese with 1 1/2 pounds of shredded mozzarella. Boil lasagne noodles, layer noodles, pumpkin & cheese mix, make 4 layers of filling with a layer of noodles on top, add extra mozzarella on top. Bake at 350' for 35 minutes with foil on top, remove foil, bake an extra 5 minutes, let rest and set before serving. Enjoy!

December Meeting 2012

We had a large turnout for our December holiday meeting, and a wonderful potluck. Old Business 12 Beatles challenge pieces were hung in the Sutherlin Library, thanks to Kay and Peggy's efforts. They had to add sleeves and hanging devices to some of them, so we discussed making sure we could hang the Weaving challenge before we display it. Mandatory sleeves at least two inches wide, and a piece of lath or yard stick with screw eyes on either end. If your piece is not able to have a sleeve, a weaving , 3-D sculpture, or doll etc... then some form of hanging device/display method must be provided or discussed with the people hanging the display. The January meeting will be photo transfer techniques, by Amy from the book Peggy provided. I'll email a supply list before the meeting. New Business We discussed having the blog printed into a book, Amy will get more details and a price, and let everyone know the cost. Amy's blog book was passed around as a sample. Amy got a new book "Art in Felt and Stitch" with wet felted landscapes, and a workshop is going to be planned at Vera's for trying this technique. Dates and materials list TBA. A new challenge was proposed with a Theme of "A River Runs Through It" with a continuous band of blue fabric winding through the side by side pieces. A sample was shown in a book, with this technique, and we thought it very appropriate for our group. Details to be announced later. If you are still working on your "Weaving" challenge, you still have time to bring it to our next meeting. We had many finished pieces in the show and tell, it will be a great group of art pieces. Any one with a technique to demo or hands on for our next couple of meetings, please volunteer. Show and Tell

Our new member Cheryl brought a large number of items to show us her many talents, I will make that a separate blog post. Dori brought her "weaving" challenge, titled "My Threads Of Life" she used torn material, yarns, strips of Corienne's weavings and other materials to make a woven hanging. She also brought a "Huck or Swedish Weaving" blanket to show. Her pine needle basket that she wove many years ago, is showing signs of wear and breakage, and we discussed what she could do with it, soaking in water occasionally to keep the moisture content up was the consensus. Landreth is making progress on her weaving project, using commercial fabrics, a woven grid made with chenille yarns, rust dyed fabric leaves, treated with GAC400 and she continues to add details to it. Oops no picture, I think I was waiting for it to be passed around. She also brought us the dictionary definition of weaving - 1. weaving in and out of traffic, 2. fiber weaving to a textile, 3. a hair weave. Meredith took Amy's advice to "have fun" to heart, she played with her weaving, adding her painted dowels, and some beading, she made two pieces with bright primary colors, and still had more painted sticks to use. The first piece is called "Fiddlesticks." She continued to have fun with brown Kraft paper scrunched up Japanese style "Momagami" she then painted it with Luminere paints and cut it in strips for her weaving. The first piece is woven with purple yarns and strips of paper, the 2nd is "Air Stitched" from Quilting Arts Magazine issue Oct/Nov 2012 then the paper strips are woven through the stitching.

Vera's finished weaving challenge, was woven on different pieces of hardware cloth, with bright colored strips of fabric and yarns. It is very 3 dimensional, with multiple layers, and embellishments.

Jana created a quilted winter table runner with chickadees and pine branches. Something she could use for more than just Christmas. Her weaving challenge was a delightful spider web quilted in silver thread onto a wall hanging, with a flower and leaves. A "weaving" saying was printed at the top.

Peggy showed off her new gadget, a lighted seam ripper with a magnifying lens attached to it, for the sight challenged. She made several Star Wars fabric pillow cases for grand childrens' Christmas presents. Two quilted autumn table toppers in Octagon shapes are also gifts.

Corienne the "Master Weaver" created a stunning black and red piece in a technique called "Taquete weaving" from a class she took on Widby Island last year. She edged it in alternating strips of red and black fabrics, and added tabs to the top to hang it.

Pat's creation is an example of "Everything that could go wrong DID!" Her weaving challenge is titled "Wild Fire" and was inspired by her views of the forest fires around Bend, Oregon last summer. She did a pin weaving, and her worst fears happened when she took the pins out and it fell apart. Corienne's advice helped her keep it together, she wove pearl cotton around it and stitched it on the sewing machine with a zigzag stitch that promptly ate the corner of the piece. She used birch bark strips from Wisconsin, hand dyed fabrics, silk hand dyed ribbons, and other materials in her weaving, she then mounted it on fabric and put it on stretcher bars for her finished piece.

Kay was hand stitching on her piece and will show it next meeting when it is finished and Amy had quilted several small 8 x 10 gelli prints, in preparation for embellishment work and beads and buttons. A wonderful potluck lunch was enjoyed by all, then a trip to the Umpqua Valley Arts Center to see the SAQA show, see separate post.

November Meeting 2012

Old Business Amy has all the "What's My Line" pieces, and will be arranging for them to show at The Umpqua Bank, this month. I'll let you know when that is set up. Kay and Peggy are hanging the "Beatles Song" challenges in the Sutherlin Library this week. The Quilting Arts issue Oct/Nov 2011 has the article on the vinyl/silk screen printing that Vera demoed last meeting. We got a thank you email from Sherry for all the painted/printed leaves we helped make, she packed up about 467 leaves to take home to Ketchikan, Alaska. They have started to add batting and burlap to the trunk of the tree, and the bark fabrics, and hope to have the project finished by mid-December. New Business Umpqua Valley Arts Center has a textile arts exhibit "Oregon, State of Diversity II" by members of Oregon SAQA, hanging now, until the end of January. There was a wonderful article in the News Review, this week, and our own member Vera has a piece in the show. We are planning a potluck for our December meeting, and after the meeting, we are planning a field trip together to go see the exhibit. We will be also doing a group photo, so brush your hair and your teeth. Our January meeting, Amy will demo photo transfer techniques from the book Peggy loaned her, a material list will be available at the Dec. meeting. We have a new member, Cheryl, she saw our flyer at the arts center, she is a spinner, weaver, knitter, doll maker, and needle felter. She has been making angora knit hats, and llama slippers for the Christmas fairs. She will be at the Douglas Co. Christmas Fair this month.

Show and Tell Dorie made a chenille scarf for her daughter out of 6 layers of rayon fabric, it was soft and fluffy, in rich fall colors. She has also been making lots of Christmas napkins and socks. Jan is knitting a bright green wrist cuff, and she finished her "weaving" challenge, the metal hand is a found object. Nancy found the iron on vinyl at Walmart, and plans on doing some silk screened denim shirts, she really liked the technique that Vera demoed last meeting. Vera told us the "Clay Folks Show" in Medford at the Armory is Nov. 16, 17, 18 and will have over 60 quality potters from N. Cal, Oregon and Washington. She usually participates but this year she is only going to go and enjoy the show. Landreth's art quilting friend in Colorado shared info on a Dick Blick "silhouette cutter" that she uses to cut stencils, stamps, and fabric from her own designs she puts in with a stylus on the computer. Jana is feeling well after a hip replacement after breaking it, and spent lots of time knitting socks for Christmas presents.

Peggy knit a scarf with "homespun" yarn in a warm rust, with bits of matching eyelash yarn. She also made stuffed decorative pumpkins with 2" strips of fabric, silk leaves and a branch topper. Her hand dyed leaf quilt was finished being machine quilted by Amy.

Kay found 3 large foam cut outs at the dollar store, and used them to make three sunprints. She used Setacolor acrylic paints, and is using machine decorative stitching , embroidery, beading and a dyed doily for the center. She finished her Beatles challenge, "8 Days a Week" a crazy patch heart with tags for days of the week and small embellished hearts in each section. Pat has been making knit fabric "Infinty" scarves with her granddaughters in Alaska, they bought a variety of knit fabrics and made over 20 scarves. She also finished a baby quilt, with preprinted alphabet blocks on it for a Great-grandbaby!

Pat has also begun her weaving project, she is using her images of the big fires in the Bend area as her inspiration, and is working with strips of birch bark, and other natural materials. She has a box of inspirational fibers, dyed cheesecloth and yarns, and has started "pin weaving." Meredith is getting started on her weaving challenge, and is calling the piece "Pick Up Sticks," and to tease us, she had some painted dowels that she is going to use.

Amy also got inspired to work on her weaving challenge, she began by printing her photographs of woven baskets to use as a background. After sewing the background, she printed several woven textures on the fabric and added rug grid, embroidery stitches and beads. She is finishing it with four sections of woven materials she cut from baskets. She smartly superglued the baskets, so the woven materials would not "unweave" when she cut them apart. Demonstration Amy showed everyone how to make covered buttons to use as art embellishments. We used both "teeth" and "Press together" covered buttons, and everyone made samples. Fabric with small motifs, faces and geometrics were used. The larger the buttons the easier they are to do. Also, Landreth had a sample for fabric pompom embellishments, she showed us how to do.

Mee

Member Profile - Georgia

I've been quilting for almost twenty years, focusing on "art quilts" for half that time. It's a form I find indefinable, fascinating, and on most days tremendously enriching. Earlier membership in the fiber art group Tactile Expressions and now Fyber Cafe and High Fiber Diet have given me freedom to explore the medium fearlessly. The support and encouragement of other members is invaluable.

Each project teaches its lesson. Sometimes I finish a piece knowing that I want to repeat one or other aspect of it, and sometimes I know I've learned, yet don't want to go there again. No matter how the piece turns out, the process has been valuable.

Making an art quilt requires many small decisions. I seldom know exactly what I am aiming for - there is no picture in my mind of the finished piece. I deal with these small decisions one at a time and don't look ahead too far, as I've learned that doing so cuts off possibilities that I may not see at the moment. There will never be enough time for me to tire of this wonderful world of fiber, design and unforeseen possibilities.

Georgia is also now, the Oregon representative of SAQA and a board member of The Umpqua Valley Arts Association.