Bandon Textile Art Retreat

Eight wonderful artists spent 3 days/two nights on the coast at Bandon, Oregon, creating individual projects. The retreat center is above Forget Me Knots Quilt Shop, right on Hwy 101, above "Old Town" Bandon, Oregon. Instead of a structured workshop, we all brought our own projects to do, and shared ideas and inspiration. The facilities have a huge sewing room, with floor to ceiling windows and a design wall opposite the windows. A large kitchen accommodated our potluck goodies, and we ate very well!

Cheryl spent most of her time sitting in a real comfy chair, spinning a soft mixed breed wool, and then knitting what she spun, she was making a poncho type hooded wrap, with a name I can't spell or pronounce. She did get up long enough for a walk on the beach and brought wonderful home made pickles.

Crystal worked on making colorful quilt blocks for a block exchange that she was behind on. Once she was caught up, I worked with her on her machine quilting, but her sewing machine was having problems, unable to work out the problems, she used Amy's machine to couch a beautiful teal ribbon to her "River" project, outlining the lady and swirling the ribbon into the river. Next she worked on modern strip piecing in neutral grays, with accents of navy and lime green, to make as a gift for a friend. The strips are to represent the NY City skyline.

Meredith's daughter Debbie joined us from up North, and she worked on an Amy Butler pattern for a stuffed footstool. Iron-on laminate was used to cover her fabric in plastic, then the wedges were sewn together. A hexagon top piece was appliqued on and the stuffing began. The instructions called for 7 bags of stuffing, and she stuffed and she stuffed! What a great modern finished look.

Amy spent the first afternoon mono-printing painted fabric, on a Gelli Plate, stenciling, stamping and adding layers of paint and detail. Pinning on the design wall and adding 5 Bali batiks for background, she began to create a design. Circles were cut from a set of coordinating fabric, with similar blue, green and rust colors, and circular printed motifs. Playing around with placement a final design was settled on. A digital camera showed that the circles looked like flat discs, and the next morning, painted shadows and highlights were added to create spheres. Intense free motion machine quilting followed, with rayon threads, in an all day marathon of quilting.

Jana and Meredith shared lessons on their phones, about how Pinterest works, something that has puzzled most of us. Jana spent all her time free motion quilting her "Alice in Wonderland" project for her sister. See the June Meeting post for a full picture of the quilt top.

Kay brought hand work with her, a black and white print pillow case, that she colored in with water soluble crayons, and watercolor pencils. Adding water with a Q-tip and ironing to heat set will make it permanent. She continued her hand work with a set of three sunprints that she is embroidering on. Her details and "crazy quilt" attitude really dress up the soft prints. She will be also adding "Shashiko" mirrors to some of them. Kay relaxed with an ice cream cone, and got ice cream from the new "Face Rock creamery" next door, to go with our dinner desert brownies.

Meredith worked hard all weekend to create her sunflower picture. She wanted to experiment on sewing fabric to newspaper. Following her inspiration sunflower photo, she cut out petals and started to free motion machine quilt. She did back her newspaper with a fusible interfacing, so it would not perforate. She only made this as a sample to try her technique, and wishes she had used her better picture to make the finished project, as she put so much work into it. Meredith's other daughter also joined us, Tracy worked on making her daughter a dragon Halloween costume. I'm sorry I did not get any photos of her work in progress, but she promised us pics of the finished costume. She had collected thrift store fabrics, a blue satin graduation gown, a very bright reflective gold table cloth, and a shimmery old gold satin sheet. She made the base outfit from the blue robe, and was making gloves, a tail with peacock designs spots, and other details. She did A LOT of unsewing, after we all found our seam rippers for her. Her daughter will be so proud to wear this creation! We had lots of fun, talking, eating, sewing, spinning, painting, and being the creative artists that we are. We shared two walks on the beach each morning, one with a full double rainbow over the ocean, before the storm rolled in. Field trips to a wool shop, and "Old Town Bandon," visiting the new Creamery for cheese and ice cream, and shopping in the quilt shop and fighting over the last book, we all wanted, were only a small part of a wonderful weekend. Good friends, good art, good food.

A River Runs Through It

The Fyber Cafe 2013 Challenge, "A River Runs Through It" was due at our June meeting, we had 10 pieces, mostly finished, and 5 still to do. It was great to see them unveiled in order, left to right, and to go ooh and ahh, when we saw each one.

There are still several missing, and they are not lined up correctly, like they will be when they are hung up on a rod. From left to right, Maureen, Crystal, Pat, Jana, Cheryl, Vera, Amy, Kay, Vera, Peggy, and Meredith.

Maureen's on the far left is inspired by cover photo on Scientific American Magazine of a "Naked Singularity" she has needle felted fibers, Angelina, and quilted with added Rhinestones. It is an inspired beginning to our Universe of River art.

Crystal is still working on hers, she has copied a poem onto the muslin sky, and the green grass, by running it through her computer printer. A figure of a women is on the left, blending into blue into the river, she is going to machine embroider or couch yarns, and intends to add some color to the sky, appliqued fish, and other details.

Pat's work is also unfinished, she used "Texture Magic" fused to the back of her mountain fabric, using a steam iron, she shrunk it to create a wrinkled texture in the fabric. The bottom is multiple layers of green to form a golf course, with needle felted fiber to form a green, and rough area. She intends to add a flag at the hole and other details.

"A River Runs Through the Shire" is Jana's creation. She has made a Hobbit House, with a circular door, built into a hillside, above the river. She has added a lot of thread painting, flowers, reeds, and grasses, to create a garden.

A trip to Maui inspired Cheryl to do her 3 Dimensional needle felting, titled "A River Runs Through Maui" She has created a vibrant scene with waterfalls on the mountains, coconut palms and a parrot. The foreground has the river and many details of 3-D flowers and leaves to show a lot of depth.

Vera based her abstract art piece on a topographic map, different color grids represent lakes, mountains, fields, etc.. A legend hangs from the bottom to inform the viewer of the types of landscapes in her piece. Stitched detail of rivers, and lakes, and other features to finish the quilt.

Amy's grove of birch trees in the moonlight, is filled with deer, ferns, salmon, and wildflowers. The flowers are embellished with silk ribbon embroidery, and the birch trees have an extra layer of Tyvek painted and melted to make textural leaves. The trees extend above the border, and an extra area of rocks and flowers were added at the bottom, to give extra depth.

Kay's beautiful hand dyed sky fabric shines in colors of the sunset, her hand painted papers and fabric embellish the sky and hang from the bottom. Fibers, yarns and beads embellish the rivers edge.

A photograph out her brother's kitchen window inspired Peggy's creation, of greenery hanging off the cliff edge, overlooking the river. She used many fibers, and 3-d elements to create layers of green, a large tree and her river. Rocks in the foreground and a Blue Heron looking on the peaceful scene complete the view.

Meredith's piece is still in progress and finishes off the panels on the right side. She has created a shimmering waterfall, to fall off the piece, reaching to the floor. She plans on a bucket or bowl to catch the escaping river. Her forest is very 3-d with padded trees, rocks and loose foliage. The water and falls are made with many different white and blue fabrics and fibers, many of them shiny. She is dyeing more blue cheese cloth to add length to the falls.When the final pieces are finished and inserted into the right order, it will be a stunning project, that we will be proud to display at different venues. See 8 pieces on display at the "Elkton Butterfly Gardens" June 29th at a music and art vendor event to benefit the Elkton Charter School Music Department. Pyrennes Winery in Mrytle Creek will display the entire collection in August.

June Meeting 2013

Old Business Fyber Cafe will have a booth at the Elkton "Smile" Festival to benefit the Elkton Charter School Music program. We will display our "River" quilts, have pieces for sale/display, and promote our group. We will be doing children's activities, having them decorate "Festival Flags" with markers, crayons, glitter, stencils etc... Call Meredith to volunteer or help with supplies. The event is June 29th, Saturday, 10am to 4pm. The Black Sheep Festival is in Eugene, June 21, 22, & 23, call Peggy or Jana join them. The "weaving challenge" has been hung in the Sutherlin Library by Peggy and Kay. New Business July demo, Sylvia, Georgia, Amy & Jan are participating in the International Quilt Challenge "Painters" and will discuss their projects, in progress. For Aug. Vera will discuss deconstructed screen printing, after she takes a class in Portland. In Sept. Crystal will show us how to upload images to be printed onto fabric by a company, for her sliced photo quilts. We are also taking ideas for a new challenge, quick, less formal then the "River" challenge, bring your ideas to the July meeting. We will also return the "What's My Line" challenges to the artist, Pat wants hers for a gift. Show & Tell Many of us met the deadline to finish our "River Runs Through It" challenge pieces. I'll show closeup details in this post, then make a separate post with the finished pieces. To sort of tease you. Maureen started, as she is on the far left side, her piece "Naked Singularity" was needle felted and embellished with rhinestones.

Maureen and Sylvia did a dyeing session , see previous post, and Sylvia ice dyed several pairs of cotton socks, WOW! She also made a matched set of t-shirt and blouse, in rich green/blues and mauve.

When ice dyeing, they layered several items, with layers of ice and dye, in a zip lock bag, with holes punched in the bottom, and let it drip through. Nancy was playing with stained coffee filters to create rocks for her "River" scene, still in progress, she folded and shaped, then stitched, to form individual 3-D rocks. Crystal's "River" is unfinished, but coming along nicely, she has printed a poem onto muslin and on the green grass area, by running the fabric through her computer printer. There is a flowing outline of a lady, blending into the water, like a river sprite. She was going to thread paint, but ended up couching silky yarns at the Bandon retreat.

Pat's piece is nearing completion, she is working out the details, she has created a mountain background with "Texture Magic" and a golf course with a green and sand traps out of needle felted fibers. She will add a flag at the hole, and other details.

Jana has created "A River Runs Through the Shire" with a hobbit house into the hill side, with a round red door and flower garden. She has also made an "Alice in Wonderland" applique top, for her sister, from a commercial pattern. It is bold and colorful.

"A River Runs Through Maui" is Cheryl's needle felted creation. She worked on it while on vacation in Hawaii, with lots of wool, and 3-D figures, of parrots, and coconut palms, and waterfalls in the background.

Cheryl took at card weaving class, and brought samples to show us, she also brought the "Inkle" type loom, that it is woven on.

Vera has been busy getting ready for her trip to the Czech Republic to visit family. She hand painted with Tskineco inks and a felt tip stylus, two portraits, one of her cousin as a young girl in her first communion outfit, and another of her cousin's grandmother. They are very life like and delicately detailed, she framed them in picture frames. A "Color Hues Dye" class at Oregon Collage of Arts & Crafts in Portland, by Barbra Picket, gave Vera lots of samples in color mixing on silk, the product does not need fixing or heat setting.

Vera continued the dye painting with stencils, and used shaving cream as a base to thicken the Color Hues Dyes. She also played with soy wax batik for large multicolored patterned pieces of fabric.

Vera's "River" piece is finished with a geometric interpretation of a Topographic map, she has added a legend at the bottom, which shows what each color stands for.

Amy's "River" has a birch tree grove, with the trees extending above the edge of the quilt, and an extra section of rocks and flowers below the bottom. Silk ribbon embroidery among the bottom flowers adds texture and depth.

The bottom of Kay's "River" has hand painted squares of fabric hanging from it, and ribbons, trims and bead accent the edge of the river. The sky is a beautiful orange mauve, with more scraps of papers and fabric embellished on top. Kay also brought a long wall hanging with the 5 stages of life of a butterfly, to display in Elkton, at the Butterfly Gardens.

Meredith has the last piece to the right, and has chosen to end with a waterfall, going down to the floor. Her forest was not quiet complete, and she is dyeing more blue cheese cloth for the waterfall, but we got a pretty good idea of how it will look.

There was no demo this month, as we knew that unveiling the "River" pieces would take some time. Congratulations to all our artists, who have created some wonderful work for this challenge. We are looking forward to seeing the rest of them finished.