September Meeting 2015

Old Business The NW-Portland Quilt show is Sept. 24-26 at the Expo Center, it is certainly worth going to, contact Crystal if you want to go. "Flock & Fiber" show will be in Canby the same weekend, contact Jana for more info. The challenge "She Flies with Her Own Wings is due in October. Pattern sections for the "The Path Less Traveled" will be available at the October meeting. New Business At the October meeting we will be making a portable work surface, for bringing to the meetings, so we can do more hands on projects at the meeting, like paint, glue, printing, etc. November Amy will do a hands on demo, on our new boards. December is our annual Holiday Potluck. January, we will do Japanese Braiding - Kumihimo. February Sara will show us how she makes her paper beads, these can be done with fabric too. March - Amy will do a printing on tissue, transfer technique. In March our 2nd challenge "The Path Less Traveled" will be due, for the Umpqua Valley Quilters' Guild Show. Show & Tell

To go with her blue ostrich, Jana has made a study in pink. She downloaded a copy rite free photo. She can't decide if her pink thread painted ostrich is just mildly confused or just pissed off. She reports the Oakland Quilt Show went very well and they were pleased with the quilts and turnout.

Clare participated in the bowl class at Pat W's. Her purple bowl has a different geometric shape. She wishes she had used a lighter top with the darker fabric on the back, so her embroidery would show up better.

Clare played with a technique she found in a magazine (Cloth, Paper, Scissors July/Aug 2011) to make a plastic patch quilt. She used colored plastic bags to weave strips together and melt with a heat gun. This looks like something we could make a workshop at someone's home, because you should really be outside in the fresh air.

Clare has finished a woven rug for her new home, it is in neutral colors and quiet a bit longer than the photo shows.

Pat W. was the hostess for the bowl workshop, taught by Sue M. Pat's bowl is a beautiful fabric with printed circles, she embellished it with sentimental family made antler buttons, and sea shells. Unfortunately her dog liked it too much, and crunched all the antler and shells off of it. She never recovered the buttons, and sewed on some new shells to make this version.

A Balloon quilt kit was frustrating to Pat W. She did not like it's layout, so she made it into a small baby quilt and several small wall hangings.

Corinne has cleaned her room some more, and found a clean fleece, which she drum carded, and she has some dyed silk roving, to prepare for a class in Bend.

Corienne participated in our dyeing workshop and has some beautiful ice dyed fabrics to show for it.

Silk noil from Meredith was ice dyed by Corienne and made into this lovely kimono styled jacket, the colors are so rich and varied.

Lorraine made a simple green batik bowl in class and added a fringed yarn around the perimeter. She is going to hang it on the wall and decorate it with some of her mother's jeweled broach collection.

Lorraine really enjoyed her modern quilt class that she took at Asilomar. She has made these two wall hangings by practicing the techniques she learned for no pattern piecing.

These two blocks show two different techniques she learned in class. She is going to join all her practice blocks into one quilt.

Pat G. made Harry the Hummingbird from a North West Indian pattern. She had trouble fusing him to the fur without melting the acrylic fibers. It is her entry to the "She Flies With Her Own Wings" challenge.

Vi made two bowls in Pat & Sue's class. The first is a cream and green leafy batik, that she will add some beading to.

Vi's second bowl was made with a Mary Englebrite fabric, her seams did not affect the print very much.

Sara has made a bracelet with a beaded Kumihimo braid. We will do Kumihimo again in the future and she can show us how to add the beads to it. Her second bracelet is made with paper beads finished with clear embossing powder. She will show us this technique in February, can it be used with fabric beads as well?

Sara wore a colorful sweatshirt that she had covered with raw edge applique patches. Cut the side seams out of a sweatshirt so it lays flat, that just slap on patches and stitch. What fun! We need to do this as a workshop also! It is fun having new members, so we can pick their brains for new ideas.

This small wall hanging with the prairie points, looks like it was made with hand dyed fabrics. My meeting notes do not say who made it. Speak up and I'll put your name to it.

Crystal had a guest with her from New Zealand, they were high school exchange students, at each others homes, and have kept in touch and visited several times. She is also a spinner and quilter. She was busy knitting dish rags from cotton "Sugar & Spice" yarn, and telling us how much it all cost in New Zealand. Crystal's bowl in a blue and white print hid the seams well.

Crystal went to the dye workshop also and made this beautifully rich colored silk scarf.

Peggy used some of her own flannels and a box of flannel from Amy to make this soft top, to use as a night robe. Such a fun way to use fat quarters.

Demo Amy discovered a new product on her summer travels. It is called Inn-spire, and is a heavy duty, heat moldable interfacing.

First you use a fusible interfacing, like Wonder Under or Steam a Seam 2, to fuse a front and back fabric to the heavy interfacing. Zigzag, satin stitch or couch thread around the edges. Free motion quilt through the layers, a Microtex size 90 needle is recommended.

Then use an iron to heat the layers and mold as desired. I tried a heat gun, but could not get a big enough area hot enough. You can drape it over a bowl or fit it inside to give you ripples.

It can be folded, twisted, pleated, and shaped in many ways. If you want to change or adjust the shape, just reheat and mold again. It finishes very hard and stiff, and would be great for boxes, mobias strips, cones, vases or other shapes.

Summer Dye Workshop

Vera was unavailable for our annual summer dye workshop, so we had it at Tracy's home. Meredith led our hardy group, but the temps stayed below 3 digits, with a nice breeze. Not many photos were taken since we were all intense with concentration. This is one of Meredith's ice dyes.

Meredith's husband was sent into town to get several bags of ice, so that was one of the techniques we used, sprinkling dry powder dye onto the ice, over a basket or wire shelf with scrunched up fabric.

Several of us tried a "Shibori" technique of wrapping fabric around this giant rope or PVC pipe. Meredith got the rope as a remnant at a marine supply store at the coast. Crystal did her shibori on the PVC pipe and got this beautifully patterned silk scarf.

Cheryl's ice dyed t-shirt as it came out of the dye bucket. We left the ice to melt as we had lunch, and at the end of the day we put the fabric into plastic bags to batch overnight. Then rinse, wash and dry the next day, at home.

Cheryl's shibori dyed silk scarf, what color, WOW!

The full view of Meredith's silk fabric, that was ice dyed. Peggy and Amy spent time doing "Parfait" dyeing, adding three layers of fabric in one tub with a different color dye added on top of each layer. We all had lots of fun, good friends, good lunch and good learning experience.

August Meeting 2015

Old Business Tues. Aug 18th at Pat W's, 10am-2pm Class for the large art bowls, Sue M. is teaching her techniques with canvas and fusible, bring your sewing machine and potluck. Materials list and directions available at meetings. Friday August 14th, Pat G. is taking a van trip to the Portland "Quilt, Knit, Stitch" show, contact her for info. Our two challenges for this year are "She Flies with Her Own Wings" due at October meeting, and for our big challenge for the Umpqua Valley Quilt Show in April, "A Path Less Traveled" patterns sections available at October meeting. New Business "The Quilter" will be preformed at the Cottage Grove Theater August 14-16. Show & Tell

Vi brought her Forth of July beaded bouquet, the red roses and blue and white flowers, created a patriotic theme. They are handmade with fine wire and hundreds of seed beads.

She is making the sunflowers for her daughter, they are very time consuming, and needed special reinforcing to keep the petals from drooping. She has made a beaded bumble bee and a dragonfly to go with them.

Vi has also made a Pendleton wool purse with deer leather trim and handles.

Clothesline coil baskets made by Vi are embellished with beaded coil flowers and leaves. Each basket took about 30 feet of cotton clothesline. A workshop is being planned for this technique. No photo- but Sara made a purse with 7 fat quarters of sunflower fabric, that she had collected.

Pat G. shared some photos of the Umpqua Valley Quilters' Guild presentation of "Quilts of Valor" to the returning Charlie Company, National Guard at Riverforks Park. They had made over 100 quilts to present, unbeknownst to Pat, the commanding officer was named Eagle, and she had pre-choosen an eagle quilt to present to him.

As Pat G. collected Row by Row patterns, she also purchased several license plates designed by each shop. She put them together into a purse with a free pattern and some of the raindrop fabric that was designed for the Row by Row challenge. Pat, Lorraine and Sue have collected free patterns from all the shops in Oregon participating in the Row by Row challenge. Check out rowbyrowexperience.com for a list of all shops participating, in state by state lists. There are over 2500 shops in 2015, where you can get a free pattern, they all have a water theme.

They have also each collected patterns from California, Tahoe area, and even Tennessee. They are lots of fun to do. You can win fabric prizes if you are the first to finish a quilt with at least 8 patterns, including the shop pattern you take it to.

Vera has been dyeing yardage with some leftover old dyes.

Lorraine has been making modern block experiments, with her class mates from Asilomar. She will put all her pre-quilted blocks together into one quilt. She is using Warm & White batting and geometric quilting motifs.

Clare has made a purse out of the remainder of the weaving, from a commissioned rug. It was made with a "Mexican" flavor to it.

Another small bag was made with a small sample weaving, woven "around a box."

Sue M. made this beautiful Poppy wall hanging after taking a class at "A Common Thread" in Portland. Designed and taught by Ann Shaw, from her book "Flowers of the Gorge." She kept insisting Sue add orange reds to her quilt, but she stuck to her plan of only using true reds. Nancy has returned from her trip to Germany and Belgium, that included a tour of the Lindt Chocolate Factory, with many samples too.

Crystal dyed this glorious silk scarf with ice dyeing, at our summer dye workshop. She has also been teaching kids string art at the Umpqua Arts Center this summer.