May Meeting 2013

Old Business Plans were made for the Elkton Butterfly Garden Event on June 29th, Meredith volunteered to coordinate supplies, and activities. Please bring supplies for kids to make "Festival Flags", crayons, markers, 6" x 8" fabric, stencils, etc... to the June meeting. We will be able to display items for sale, hand out info on our group, and hopefully have the "River Runs Through It" pieces for display also. If you have items for sale bring them to the meeting, with a tag with your name and the price. Call Meredith for details. The Black Sheep Festival is June 21, 22, 23 in Eugene, Jana, Peggy and Cheryl are going, call them, to go along and carpool. The festival has vendors with wool, fibers, looms, spinning wheels, art displays and other fun stuff, and LOTS of Sheep! The Bandon Art Retreat is June 17 &18, still have one spot left, plans and info will be finalized at June meeting, for questions call Amy. There is no demo for June yet, any ideas? Volunteers? "The River Runs Through It" is due at the June meeting, this could take a while, is this and Show & Tell, enough for the meeting? New Business Vera has volunteered for a workshop Play Day at her house in October for wet felting, and making fabric with yarns/fibers/threads and Solvy stabilizer. There will be no dyeing workshop this August, as Vera will be out of town. Show & Tell Vera had her samples from Meredith's Play Day, a piece of black fabric she discharged, and another piece she embellished with fuseable interfacing colored with Shiva oil Pastels, then added gold foil to. Vera's "River" piece is finished, she used squares of hand dyed fabric to represent a topographical map, stitching rivers, and lakes, and other features onto the squares. Cheryl brought her "River" piece in progress, she hand needle felted a sky, waterfalls and coconut palm trees, while on vacation in Hawaii. The piece is very 3 dimensional, with coconuts and palm fronds. She also brought an assortment of fibers she received in an exchange at "Fiber in the Forest" at Camp Myrtlewood. She will also be taking a card weaving class soon. Maureen's "River" piece is mostly finished, but still in progress, she intends to add beads, and stars to it. Her inspiration is a cover photo from "Scientific American" magazine of a "Naked Singularity" black hole. She used "shirt taylor" stabilizer, and needle felted, yarns, fibers, Angelina to create a swirling space theme with a sparkly river running through it. Her panel is the far left edge, and will make an awesome beginning. Nancy had a beautiful ice dyed mauve silk from Meredith's PlayDay, and brown and "camo" ice dyed muslin and cheesecloth, which she will use for shoreline in her "River" piece. She used "After Fix" on her Spectra Art Tissue sample, and most of the color still washed out. She used a fern stencil at home to decorate a denim shirt with purple and brown Jacquard Decolourant Plus. The discharge paste has not been ironed to activate yet. Crystal and Corienne did not have show and tell, but Corienne had a bag of Thai silk sample booklets to pass around. Pat had gone home and fondled all her hand dyed fabrics, muslins, silks, and cheesecloth to make strata for her "River" piece. She is still contemplating the starta and what she wants to create. She used one of her pieces of fabric from Meredith's to make a Ricky Tims "Convergence" wallhanging, it has hand dyed fabric with metallic Shiva rubbings texture. Pat and Peggy both had several silk scarves they ice dyed at the Play day, the silk picks up the dye very well for intense, rich color. Peggy also had an old t-shirt she used green to over dye. The stenciled t-shirt with the Jacquard Decolourant Plus, came out very well, she added acrylic paint highlights and detail to make the sunflowers stand out. Kay's finished "River" piece is an abstract landscape with hand dyed fabric and papers, yarns and beads. Her peach sky is striking, and goes well with Vera's sky. She has dangled various shapes of dyed paper from the bottom. Meredith and Amy have their "River" pieces in progress, Amy's is ready to quilt. Amy also brought her t-shirts and ice dyes she made at the Play Day, see previous post. Next post - Water Soluble Crayon and Watercolor pencil demo.

Group & Recipe

The group picture taken at Meredith's Play Day by her son. Left to right, back row: Meredith, Jana, Vera, Peggy, middle: Nancy, Nancy, Amy, Pat, front: Barb The recipe for Meredith's yummy ham sandwiches. "Hula Buns" (renamed by Pat) Funeral Sandwiches(original name) 1 pkg King's Hawaiian Rolls, 1/2 to 1 Lb of good deli ham, Swiss cheese slices, 1/2cup butter, melted, 3Tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 2 Tbsp mustard, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, dash of onion powder. 1. Cut the rolls in half and line the bottom of a baking pan with the bottom of the rolls. Layer the ham slices, then Swiss cheese, and place the top half of the rolls back on. 2. Mix together, butter, Worcestershire, mustard, brown sugar and onion powder. Pour the whole batch over the buns, drenching each one. Cover tightly and marinade from 4-24 hours. 3. Preheat the oven to 350' Bake for 15 minutes, uncovered, or until cheese is melted, and bun tops are a bit golden. Serve warm.

Meredith's Play Day, part II

We started out the morning with ice dyeing, while it was still cool outside. We went through 8-10 bags of ice, as we all fixed up baskets, and wire trays with fabric that had been soaked in soda ash. We mostly scrunched, or twisted, silk scarves, white fabric, yardage, and t-shirts. Piling the ice on top, we sprinkled on an assortment of powdered Procion MX dyes. 2 Blacks, bronze, and bright purple were favorites, but every color was used. We covered it all with black plastic garbage bags, and left it in the sun to heat set and let the ice melt. We were all concentrating on the work, so I did not get pictures of the process, only some of the results, as we put the fabric in zip-lock bags to take home. Barb started out silk screening a hand carved flower stencil onto some lime green fabric, after it dried she used Shiva oil pastels to rub a large grid onto the fabric. Jana and Peggy used declourant plus to stencil, onto T-shirts. Amy used plain decolourant to stencil on several t-shirts, a spirograph pattern on a red T, and birch trees on a navy T. Meredith used the discharge paste to brush paint over previously quilted sections of fabric, creating a deep relief pattern of the quilting. Finally, Pat, Nancy and Vera played with bleeding tissue paper, applying it with water to white cotton handkerchiefs. They lay overlapping ripped pieces, to cover the cotton. Left to dry, then removing the tissue, it left a colorful pattern on the fabric. Nancy and Pat painted a fixative over the fabric, we'll see how it works out. Amy removed the tissue and rinsed hers when she got home, and the color almost all disappeared. A great time was had by all, and many fun techniques were tried. Show and tell at the next meeting will be exciting! Thank you everyone who participated, for being so creative.

Meredith's Play Day, part I

On May fourth, we had an awesome Play Day at Meredith's! Six of us traveled to her lovely home in Grants Pass, and two of her Grants Pass artist friends joined us, Barb and Nancy. Meredith planned way too many fun activities to try, ice dyeing, discharge, Shiva oil rubbings, foiling and other fun products to try. We had a tour of her sewing room/studio, she has a sunny space over looking the valley. One of her design ideas, was a fabric ladder, holding many of her hand dyed fabrics. She also has a beautiful loom, and an antique spinning wheel. As we worked in the morning Meredith's son came over with his fancy digital camera, and we posed for pictures, framed by a wooden picture frame, hanging from a dark maple tree. We hammed it up, and paired up for pics, and finally took a group pic. I can't wait to see them! We had a beautiful lunch, a large salad with all sorts of stuff to add to it, and warm ham and roll sandwiches, which I promise to get the recipe and post it here! Vera made a fruit layer coffee cake for dessert. After lunch Meredith showed us how she makes her glass beads, she and her husband have a double torch set-up on a sturdy workbench in the garage. She has a huge assortment of glass, and very carefully constructed a bead to show us. After it was in the kiln to cool slowly, she showed us a set of rectangles she had pre-cut and stacked, ready to fuse into a plate. Every one had a great time, dyeing and discharging and playing with products. As the heat rose, we started to fade out, and just sat in the shade and let the breeze cool us, as we chatted. Packing up and the hour drive home, finished us off. Thank you Meredith for your hospitality, and a wonderful time, being creative with friends.