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.

April Meeting 2013

Old Business Sign up and payment for the Bandon Art Retreat, we have 7 people going and room for one more, contact Amy if you can go June 17 & 18. May 4th playday at Merediths, in Grants Pass, we will be doing fabric discharge, using several different products and weather permitting we will be doing ice dyeing, Shiva oil pastels, and other stuff. Contact Meredith for supply list and directions. Bring items to add to a salad. New Business Sylvia presented an opportunity to have a booth at the Elkton Community Butterfly Garden in June, to benefit the Elkton Charter School Music Program. We agreed to participate, so she will pay for the booth. We will make "Festival Flags" with the kids, drawing, coloring and stenciling on fabric. Please save June 29th, Noon to 4pm, and join us. There will be food and several bands, and booths. Maureen announced the Master Gardeners Plant Sale is at the fairgrounds May 4th, if you are not going to Merediths. Show & Tell Maureen made several large fabric bags with big fun prints. Crystal has a beautiful piece of rich green marbled fabric, given to her from her Eugene Group, to use in a challenge. Jana and Peggy both brought in their "River" pieces in progress. Jana is making a "Hobbit House" built into a hillside along the river. Peggy is using a photograph from her brothers kitchen window as a pattern, overlooking a cliff along the river, with foliage hanging over the edge. Vera loves working in the abstract, she decided to design like a topographic map, and has sketched out a grid of colored squares, that she will superimpose a river, and detail streams, lakes and roads with stitchery. Meredith was working on designing her river piece with a projector, trying to get the photo/drawing the right size and perspective. Her sketch is complete and she is ready to start working with the fabric. Sylvia has been drawing on a linen like textural fabric, with Pigma micron pens to do a Zentangle design. It is very intricate and detailed, she plans on doing more of this for a project she is creating. Demo Landreth gave us a presentation on Studio Design. She had gone on a studio tour of 15 artists in the Colorado/Denver area, and took photos and created a Power Point presentation, which she gave to us. The basics of room design should include, a design wall, storage, sewing area, cutting area, and ironing area. Many wonderful ideas were plucked from her photos, using a chunk of styrafoam next to your machine to stick everything into, from small tools, scissors, needles and crochet hooks. Try using a small step stool under your table, for your feet, to relieve back strain, and to mount your foot controls. A free standing design wall can be used from both sides for extra space. Put a design wall at the end of your hallway, so you can step back from the piece to get a distance perspective. Hanging quilts/art from hooks set along a piece of wooden molding, fixed to a long hallway. Also a long wooden curtain rod, can be used with shower curtain clips to hold your art work. Many other useful ideas were discussed, Thank You Landreth for a wonderful presentation!

Umpqua Valley Quilt Show

The Umpqua Valley Quilters Guild Show was this last weekend at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, in Roseburg, Oregon. It is the BEST show in Southern Oregon!! Over 300 quilts are entered, and many other special displays and vendor quilts samples. The featured quilter is Dr. Polly Sepulvada of Roseburg. She has been in the Paducah show many times, and does beautiful work in applique, hand quilting and traditional style quilts. Our Fyber Cafe group, has a display of our last three group challenges, "What's My Line?" "Beatles Songs" and "Weaving" I'll post some pictures of our textile arts display. I made name tags for the pieces on the computer, mounted them on bits of mat board, and put strips of magnet on the back. Another bit of magnet behind the sheet, held the sign in place. We also handed out business cards with our group info, and quiet a few were taken, maybe we'll have new artists join us next meeting. Thank you so much Umpqua Valley Quilters Guild for allowing us to exhibit our work at your show.

March Meeting 2013

Old Business Plans were made for the Umpqua Valley Quilters' Show in April, set up is Thurs. April 11, the show is Fri. Sat & Sun, at the Douglas County Fairgrounds. We will display our three challenges from this year, "What's My Line?" "Beatles" & "Weaving." A membership list was passed around for updates and corrections, a copy will be made for everyone. The Fyber Cafe Textile Arts Retreat is in Bandon, Oregon at the Forget-Me-Knots retreat center, June 17th-19th, RSVP with Amy ASAP. It will be a "do your own thing" textile arts event, with creativity, fun, shopping, field trips, food and chocolate. Plans for our new challenge "A River Runs Through It" were discussed, and river fabric and patterns were handed out, we still have one more piece if anyone wants to get join, it's not too late. Jan?? Maureen?? New Business" At our May meeting Landreth will do a talk/presentation on "Studio Space" storage ideas, etc... A May Play Day at Meredith's in Grants Pass, will be Saturday May 4th, fabric dyeing and a demo of Meredith's Glass bead making. Plans, info, directions and carpooling will be at the April meeting. Show & Tell A new member joined us, Linda Walker is a recently retired, friend of Dorie's, she does machine embroidery, knitting and crochet, and is a new quilter. Kay had a photo of Sherry's tree project in the Ketchikan Library, some of our members helped make painted leaves for it. Cheryl plans on needle felting her River project, with a 3-D tree and figures, and brought a sample of her needle felting, a Wildman sculpture on a wooden branch. She also knit 2 scarves with handspun wool and alpaca. She crocheted 2 purses in heavy fat yarns, with acrylic handles, and washing machine felted them. She also made crochet leg warms in "Water" colors for her son, and furry llama slippers. The slippers in llama are very strong fibers for good wearing strength, then the guard hairs are brushed out to give a furry appearance. Dorie brought products called "Catch and Release" from Crawford Designs. These are discharge pastes similar to Jacquard de-colourants, that paint on and heat set with steam to activate. They also come in "Sparkly" colors, that caught all our attention. She painted the edge of the hood on her sweatshirt for a sample. Nancy worked on her computer skills, doing photographs for the "Celebration of Literacy" an Altrusa project, she emailed photos, learned to make prints. She also helped to hang the "Animals" show at the Umpqua Valley Arts Center, which has several art quilts on display, notably from artist Cassandra Williams of Hugo. Vera discussed her trip to Malaysia to visit her daughter, she visited a batik artist again, and took Guta and a Jacquard water based resist for her to try. She traded these for 4 meter piece of batik. The artist uses dyes from Germany, that takes steam to set. Meredith brought her photo transfers, from Pat's Play Day to show, and a new piece for the "Weaving challenge" She painted papers, and collaged them onto a wood frame with a cut out area, she wove copper wires in the opening, and stitched love, laugh, life, onto the canvas. She brought "Ikat Tape" to share, it is used in weaving as a resist to tie around warp threads for dyeing Ikat patterns. Pat took a class in Eugene from Angela MacIntyre on creating fabric papers, they layered various tissues, papers and fibers on a muslin base with a glue and added more paper and dyed cheesecloth and other fibers to create a colorful textile. You can find Angela on the web at Laughing Cat Designs. She also showed her peacock pattern she had made from a photograph, related to Amy's demo. Kay took a "nuno felting" class in Eugene from Tylar Merrill. They used a thrift shop silk scarf as a base, and added silk fibers, wools, and embellishments to make layers, that were then covered in plastic and toweling, then rolled up to felt. They hand rolled 400 times, then 100 more, then 400 times and MORE!! The hand nuno felting process took a lot of elbow grease. The Eugene Textile Center, has a machine to do this. Tylars company is Thimbleberry Felt Designs Crystal brought three quilted projects, a wall hanging pieced with bright fabrics and appliqued with flowers and birds. An Easter print table runner with patchwork, and a boy's Pirate quilt with a 5 point star in the center, and various pirate fabrics. Amy brought for show & tell, the start of her River project, a raw edge applique piece of a night scene with hand dyed fabric for the sky and moon, birch trees and ferns/foliage, with the river below. It is a work in progress, as details are added a little bit at a time. Landreth finished her "Weaving" piece, it has beautiful golden fabric with an open woven grid of rust yarns. It is over laid with 3-D rust dyed fabric leaves. Demo Amy did a hands on demo of creating a pattern from a photograph, by tracing with a ultra fine point Sharpie pen on clear plastic, creating pattern pieces for applique, to outline shapes, details, color changes and quilting lines. These can be enlarged on a computer, in "Tiling" or "posterizing" mode, or by the Copy Center by the Court House, which makes blue print size copies.

Photo Transfer Fun at Pat's

We had a wonderful time, printing photographs onto fabric, at Pat's on President's Day. Seven of us got together, and brought their photos to download into Pat's new Laptop computer. I had a handout on preparing treated fabric, printing from Windows Photo Wizard, and printing from Adobe Photoshop. We mostly used the Photoshop program, because it allowed us to enhance the photos, kick up the color and contrast and otherwise play with them. We also wanted to print 8" x 10" to save fabric. Peggy printed two versions of her hand painted flowers, we changed the color on each, and printed two sizes. Sherry's photo of a barn in the snow, was a study in contrast, we brought out the texture in the shingles and fence, and the contrast on the white snow. We printed her two versions, in horizontal and vertical orientations. Meredith had 3 photos her son had taken of rocks in the bottom of a crystal clear stream, with light reflecting on the ripples of water. Kicking up the color gave the gold rocks and the blue water strong contrast in complimentary colors. We cropped a section for detail and reprinted in an 8 X 10, giving her matching fabric to coordinate. We also made a negative of one and reversed the image into a light blue image, then played with distorting it with "Liquify" this made "star fish" and swirls through the pattern. Kay and Dorie printed family images, and realized how focus, and cropping help the image. Pat had a photo with blah color of Monarch butterflies in Monterey California, adding color and severe cropping helped make a bad photo interesting. Dorie and Meredith were impressed with how it could make an average photo (or photographer)into something special. We printed several photos for each person, and played with cropping and flipping images. By lunch time we were ready for a fabulous potluck, taco soup from Pat, homemade bread from Amy and brownies, banana bread and various other desserts. Really good cheesy-melty french bread from Landreth. After lunch we mostly talked about printing options and what to do with our photos, and called it an early day. I am looking forward to seeing what people make with their prints.

February 2013 Meeting

Old Business Beatles challenge pieces were removed from the Library and returned. The weaving pieces are finished and will be hung in the Sutherlin library next month. Reminder to new members to make profile pages for our members binder. We will be participating in the Umpqua Valley Quilters Show in April. March meeting will be pattern design from a photograph, with Amy, materials list we be emailed. Pat's Play Day will be Monday the 18th, focusing on photo transfer techniques, specifically computer printer to fabric, we will then make a project with our photos on fabric. New Business We are going to pass on the "Art in the Garden" this year, it is Fathers Day weekend and the same time as our Quilt Retreat. The Bandon Quilt Retreat days are June 17th and 18th, arrive Monday thru Wednesday noon. I Emailed info, final payment is due at the April meeting. The new Group Challenge is a bit more formal than the last few, "A River Runs Through It" is a series of 14" wide panels that go together in order. Therefore there is a commitment to do the section you selected. If you did not get a pattern piece and directions at the meeting, contact AMY. The challenge will be due in May. Jana advised there will be a Quilt and Antique event in Oakland, Oregon, on August 17th, and asked if we want to put the River Runs Thru it challenge there, or otherwise participate, she will keep us advised about it. Show & Tell Dorie has been making several scarves with a combo of knit and crochet, and even weaving in bits of other yarns. She was wearing a creamy eyelash yarn with a darker mix in the center. She told us there is a large old floor loom at Heartwood Resources in Green for sale, if you know anyone who is interested. Corienne says it has about a 36" to 40" wide weaving area. Corienne has helped her daughter design a quick arts project for a group, using heavy mountain wool or Pendelton wool scraps, they made a square basket/bowl. She used fusible interfacing to layer scrap weaving pieces into the bottom of the bowl, and pinched the four corners together to shape it. Finishing it with pearl cotton edges or knots. Peggy told us about a place called "Mecca" in Eugene, next to the Amtrak station, that collects and sells recycled, reusable, art materials, salvage, and miscellaneous. Also that teachers can come in and get materials for free. Info at www.materials-exchange.org Peggy got her weaving challenge piece done, it is a beautiful birds nest on a tree, with glittery copper bird, silk leaves, and the nesting material was a naturally woven palm frond she collected in California. She used a computer printed fabric for the background made from scanned scrapbook paper. Unfortunately I did not get a photo, send me one Peggy. Jana has been struggling with a paper pieced art quilt of trees, and we all gave her advice which probably complicated it even more. A website was recommended for Linda Hibbert in Colorado, who specializes in paper piecing and has a tutorial on her website. Kay has been taking lessons on her new Janome sewing machine. Landreth invited us to tour her studio space when we go on the Bandon trip, or if you are just in the area, in Coos Bay, at the old Charleston School complex. Amy brought her little fold up accordion book with the single line of stitching forming the entire sketch. It was colored with watercolor pencil and wet with a Qtip. The back was colorfully painted with acrylics and stenciled with flowers and sequin waste. She and Peggy had a play day and painted fabrics, stenciled and stamped, just having fun. One of the pieces of fabric with 3 roses was then machine thread painted and quilted, into a small wall hanging. Amy also had made two t-shirts for a gift, one was fused and stitched with a saying, the other was stenciled with torn freezer paper and Shiva oil sticks. The oil sticks had dried out a lot, and advise was giving on storage, wrapping in wax paper before zip lock baggies. So every one is excited about the new challenge and several play days, and the retreat that we are working on. If you know anyone who is interested in textile arts, ask them to join us for our continuing adventures. Demo Peggy brought in a book about photo transfer processes, "Image Transfer Workshop" by Darlene McElroy & Sandra Wilson, she challenged Amy to try the techniques and give a presentation on them. So after trying many of the various methods I concluded that printing on fabric with a computer printer is the best technique, by far! Most of the techniques in the book were for transfer to paper, but some could be done on fabric. I learned there is a difference between Ink jet and copier toner images, and magazine images, so many of the techniques can be tried with both types of images. Putting matt medium on fabric, with the photo rubbed onto it was my 1st choice, only a faint image resulted. When the photo was left on to dry, then the paper rubbed off with water a good image was left, but a little bit of the paper fibers left a white washed look, a little bit of fray check rubbed on helped the image but gave it a light plastic finish. Taping a piece of paper backed fusible webbing, or plain white tissue paper onto printer paper, and run it through the computer printer gave a clear result. The iron on interfacing left a slightly sticky texture, that wore away after a while, and reversed the image, but left a good impression. The tissue paper was applied with matt medium, and the paper fibers merged with the fabric and disappeared, but left a shiny finish, that I think would still be easy to quilt over. So there are many options to try, get the book and try some of them yourself, it was interesting experimenting, and record keeping was a must.