Sherry's Leaf Workshop

Lots of fun was had by all who attended Kay and Sherry's Leaf making workshop on the 18th. She needs thousands of leaves for her fiber art group in Ketchican, who have a grant to make a 17 foot fiber tree for the children's section of the new public library. It will be decorated with book characters, words, flowers and leaves. Sherry has been doing artist in residence programs with fourth graders to make leaves also.

We made a creative mess with paints, foam stamps and glue. Sherry had samples and directions for us, and a leaf template. We worked on phone book pages and washed acrylic paints over the paper.

After laying the washes out to dry, we began the second layer of stamping, with foam stamps, make up foam triangles, plastic fly swatters, alphabet stamps and other items.

The next part was to layer the painted paper with fabric, and insert a wire stem between the layers. We used gel medium to glue the layers together and the leaves were hung on a chain link fence to dry.

We made over 90 leaves to this point and took a break for lunch. They still need to be trimmed to shape, and coated with more gloss medium to seal. Sherry had an assortment of finished leaves for us to see.

Kay made a wonderful lunch of vegie soup, sandwiches and pumpkin pie cake with Sherry wielding the whip cream can. After lunch the ladies went back to paint more paper and hopefully finished hundreds more. Here is the recipe for the pumpkin dessert, by popular demand. Pumpkin Pie Cake 16oz can of pumpkin - 1 can sweetened condensed milk - 1 1/2 cups sugar - 1 tsp cinnamon and a 1/4 tsp ground cloves - 2 eggs - Mix and pour into a 9" x 13" greased or Pam coated pan. Sprinkle one package white/yellow/or spice cake mix (with pudding type) over the pumpkin mixture, Dry! Drizzle one cube melted butter or margarine on top of dry cake mix, Sprinkle one cup chopped walnuts on top. Bake at 350' then cool, serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Lucy in the Sky

Peggy has finished another Beatles challenge piece, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." She is a true artist, breaking rules to create a beautiful piece. It is about 16" square (rules 12") and has multiple techniques, photo transfer, Angelina fibers, raw edge applique, and free motion quilting. We will have a great display at the Sutherlin Library, as everyone keeps making additional pieces.

October Meeting 2012

Old Business We have quiet a few Beatles Challenge pieces, they are going up at the Sutherlin Library this month. Our new challenge "Weaving" any thing goes, 18" per side max, smaller ok. Due at December meeting. Nov. meeting Amy will demo covered buttons as embellishments. Bring covered buttons, either style, larger is better. Dec. meeting will be a potluck. Jan. meeting Amy will do a hands on of photo transfer techniques from the book Peggy brought in. New Business Kay and Sherry are hosting a "leaf making" day at Kay's, on Oct. 18th, gather between 9 and 10am, Kay will provide lunch. RSVP with Kay. Supplies will be provided, but you can contribute your own, paints, stamps, brushes, an email went out to all. Show and Tell

Nancy made a pair of napkins for a friend with English pub fabric, edged in blue and yellow. She got the fabric on her trip to England. We had a special visit from our missing friend Jan, she brought her newest jacket with an embroidery theme. Machine embroidery dragonflies with embellishments adorned the blue batik jacket. She and Bonnie are working on a new bag/purse pattern project for Simplicity. Meredith brought along a new book "Japanese Quilting" that had beautiful photos of quilted projects. Corienne is dyeing pots and pots of white yarns that she has spun, and brought us scraps of her hand weaving to pick through. She also has pieces on display at the Portland Hand Weavers Guild Holiday Show, Nov. 9-11 in Lake Oswego, Or.

Kay has been working on her Beatles challenge "8 Days a Week" with a pieced and embellished heart. Jana got her piece finished "I am the Walrus" with a wonderful walrus portrait with eyeglasses. Amy made a second Beatles piece, "The White Album" with trapunto whole cloth free motion machine quilting. It is a portrait outline of the four faces, and song titles and lyrics stitched around them, all white on white. Demo by Vera Vera did a hands on demo of screen printing with iron on vinyl and organza. We each had a piece of iron on vinyl that she had colored with a black marker so you can see what you are doing, picked a pattern and cut it out. It was then quickly ironed to the organza, 8 seconds on the vinyl side and 4 seconds on the back, use a pressing cloth.

We then used acrylic paints mixed with mat medium and textile medium to scrape across the silk screen and print the image onto cotton. Place the image shiny vinyl side down on your fabric.