Fyber Cafe @ UVQG Show

Fyber Cafe has a special display at the 2014 Umpqua Valley Quilters Show, in Roseburg, Oregon at the County Fairgrounds. They generously gave us a prime spot, just in the front door! We have 2 sections on either side of the aisle, we decorated with our ice dyed silk scarves, swagged across the top of our area. It made everything bright and colorful, and sets us off, from the rest of the show.

A panoramic view of the "Weather Report" challenge pieces. The fish in the center is NOT part of the weather report pieces.

"Snow" by Sue, "Slightly Breezy, with a Chance of Dragonflies" by Amy, "Tempest in a Teapot" by Peggy, and "Sayonara Rain" by Cheryl.

"Raining Candy" by Amy, "Raining Cats and Dogs" by Lorraine, "Sunshine, Lolipops and Rainbows" by Meredith, and "Glowing Sunset" by Tricia. The "Clown Tang" garment bag by Meredith, not part of the weather report, but a dramatic addition to our display!

"Frost on the Pumpkin" by Meredith, "Unseasonably Warm" by Jana, "Spring has Sprung" by Pat G. and "Fall is Here" by Tricia, finish off the Weather Report side of the display. A wonderful group of creative, artistic, and fun interpretations of the theme.

On the other side of the aisle, members were invited to submit an individual piece of art to represent their work.

"Color Play I & II" by Sue, are graphic exercises in bold colors. "English Meadow" by Peggy, is free form stitchery with a big variety of yarns, ribbons and fibers, it is mounted on a stretcher frame covered in gray fabric. "A Chaos of Moons" by Amy, is made with monoprinted "Gelli Plate" fabrics, cut into circles and applied to batik fabric background. The free motion quilting brings out lots of texture in the painted moons.

"Mended Vows" by Vera, is a bold and colorful abstract, with many couched yarns, stitches and texture. "Beware My Dear, of the Snakes in the Grass" by Lorraine, is a class project in free form piecing an original design. "Dharma Pot Holder" by Jana, is an inspiring reminder to "Show Up" and live life to the fullest.

Kay's untitled piece has delicate detail and embellishments with Native American artwork and symbols.

"Prospera's Forest Cloak" by Sherry, was made for an adaptation of Shakespeare for an Alaskan play. Draped in dyed cheesecloth, yarns and fibers, it is embellished with bark, shells, moss, and small bottles of magic potions. A fiber draped walking stick is part of the ensemble. It is an impressive sight on the right side of the aisle, drawing the people in closer to see the details.

"Moonlit Moths" by Amy, is a black fabric, discharged with hand cut stencils, and free motion stitched. The reflective Sulky thread used for the spiderwebs, glisten in the night.

We began to have a collection of 3 dimensional work, so we put together a table display to highlight the 3-D art.

"Thunder and Lightning" by Kay, is a 3-D response to our "Weather Report" challenge. Several Mobias Strips, and an additional shape, were used to create a dramatic, lightning splashed piece.

The Gypsy fortune teller doll by Cheryl, "I See Fiber in Your Future" has a wonderful hand painted face, lots of bangles and jewelry, and layers of skirts. She points to her hands full of cards, and has a basket of yarns at her feet. "Vessels" by Sue are two 3-D triangular vases, holding twigs, with beaded tassels on each turned down corner . The 3-D bowl and box by Amy, are made with a stiff interfacing, and free motion quilted onto a hand dyed fabric.

"The Wild Man" a needle felted doll by Cheryl, is standing on a branching piece of wood, with his wild hair flying. He looks ferocious and cuddly at the same time. "Horse Chestnut at Bear Creek" is a 3-D sculpture by Amy, the highly textured and thread painted leaf is laying on a bed of rocks.

Thank you to the group of hard working artists, who came down to the fairgrounds, to help set up our display. Left to right, Tricia, Sue, Peggy, Nancy, Lorraine, Pat G. and Amy.I think we will be the highlight of the show. Thank you to the Umpqua Valley Quilters Guild for allowing us this opportunity to display our art!

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right hand column to see what other creative textile artists are doing.

March Meeting 2014

Old Business A commitment was made for the Bandon Art Retreat, I have Amy, Tricia, Crystal, Cheryl, Meredith and Tracy going. There is room for a few more, cost is less than $100, reserve your space now! Payment deadline is end of April. The Umpqua Valley Quilt Show is April 11-13, set up is Thursday April 10, at 10am, volunteers for set up are Amy, Peggy, Meredith and Lorraine. Any others are welcome. Other entries for the Show are taken at the Arts Center on Friday the 4th. To the April meeting bring your Weather Report challenge piece, and one other personal display piece. TBA sometime in May is our wool dyeing and wet felting play days at Vera's with Cheryl's guidance on the dyeing. Peggy announced that the Quilt Visions Museum's new display in San Diego, is called "Weather Report" were they reading my mind? No New Business

Show and Tell

Tricia started us out with her cashmere wool scarf, that she embellished with ladder ribbons and other types of yarns.

Tricia is deciding on a name for her glowing sunset, made with layer upon layer of shear fabrics. She can't decide if this will be her Weather Report piece or the Autumn leaves.

The background of the forest floor is crazy patched with leafy fabrics. She has made an assortment of delicate fall leaves, by stitching on shears, organzas and other light fabrics. Each leaf is individual, and is so well done, it looks like it could have been done with an embroidery machine, but it was all done free motion by Tricia. Great job!

A scrappy bright blue, teal, and turquoise, with little bits of warm colors, was Tricia's project, with strips being curved pieced, and quilted in waves. Names were suggested for this piece also, is Tricia Title challenged? How do you come up with names for your art work? Corienne was in Pendleton for 5 days watching the Oakland High Basketball team go to State.

Nancy's fiber fabric is the same as everyone elses, in that we all have a favorite side. But she has added bits of rayon embroidery floss from her Mother's collection of Brazilian embroidery supplies. She is thinking of adding starch and forming it into a free form shape for a wall hanging.

Fiber fabric by Lorraine is mainly purple and teal, but the back ended up being very multicolored, it is also very thick and dense, she just could not stop adding more fibers.

Pat G. has been busy making "Strands of Jewels" for the Umpqua Valley Show. They are long narrow strips for display on the end of each row, guild members have been busy making these for the show in April. Pat G. has made several, a set of chicken blocks, embroidered squares, paper pieced Batik leaves and free floating colorful circles.

Pat has put her Fiber fabric to good use. She said it looked like colorful flowers, so she has used it for the background of her "Weather Report" challenge piece. The title is "Spring has Sprung!" and she embellished it with an assortment of metal springs from the hardware store, and a curled strip of black bias tape.

Cheryl has done it again, with a fabulous needle felted piece called "Sayonara Rain." Her "Weather Report" challenge features a Japanese temple with Cherry blossoms, that bloom between the spring rains and the monsoon season. She is a master at needle felting, I really like the reflection of the temple in the pond at the bottom of the picture, her attention to detail in this technique is amazing.

Cheryl's picnic of Teddy Bears is so darn cute!! On her vacation in Hawaii she took small bits of mohair fur and make these tiny little bears. They are assembled traditionally with cotter pin joints, bead eyes and embroidered faces. They are dressed in a variety of handmade outfits giving them even more personality. The Ringmaster is her favorite, and she is making him a small whip to go with his outfit.

The yarn that she spun at last years "Tour de Fleece" has been knit into a beautiful shawl by Jana. The 100% Merino wool is called "Rose Quartz" and has a heathered blend of many colors for a mauve/rose sheen. Kay has been working on a wedding quilt for her grandson, a batik log cabin quilt, for an October wedding.

Fiber fabric with lots of added bits and glitz was made by Peggy, she added lots of ribbon, dyed cheesecloth for extra body, and a piece of a crochet doily she made ages ago. She brought a 3-D folded box pattern for us to copy.

"Tempest in a Teapot" is finished with lots of extra embellishments, real parrot feathers in the hat, metallic thread embroidered lightning in the teapot, and other details. Peggy redid the tablecloth, removing the items and the white doily, and replacing the tablecloth with a printed fabric she made by photocopying an old paper doily, the more muted color and the texture & detail is incredible. The sky was painted with Tskineco inks, not watercolor paints as previously reported.

Meredith's fiber fabric has a one sided likeability also, she is going to use it to cover her Zentangle Journal.

Meredith has been busy weaving two scarves for her husband, to get a truly random zigzag, she had her two playing grandchildren yell "STOP!" in her studio while she was weaving. This only lasted a while as they got into a rhythm of yelling also. The small bits of color are squares of sample silks given to her from Corienne, and added to the weave. Vera returned from visiting her daughter in Malaysia for 6 weeks, with two seagull wings in her suitcase, that she found on a bird on the beach, they had a beautiful pattern of black accents on the white feathers. No clue yet, what she is going to do with them. But she is a true artist at heart. She also attended the Oregon SAQA conference in Newberg, Oregon, and enjoyed the discussion & presentations. We had 13 members help make the bright colored geometric design exercise, see the previous post, and will pass out sections to the participants at the April meeting.

I am linking this to Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right column to see some other wonderful textile artists.

Geometric Design Fun

At our March Fyber Cafe meeting, we had fun doing a design exercise with geometric shapes. I stole this from another group's blog, Kathy Schmidt at Quirks Ltd. in the UK click here & scroll down to Nov 22. We each started with Six 5" squares of bright fabric, with fusible ironed on the back, such as Steam-a-Seam or Wonder Under. Then the two squares with the darkest value we cut once, to use in the background, the remaining squares we cut into other smaller geometric shapes, about 4-6 pieces from each square. We cut rectangles, strips, squares, lot of circles, crescents, snakes, many different triangles, stars, eggs, etc... I provided a yard of black solid cotton, to use as a background, and we placed the larger pieces first, then the smaller cut shapes. We started just throwing them on, but had to stop and put more thought into the placement.

We were allowed to place pieces on top, underneath others, overlap, and all over the black fabric, you could move previously placed pieces, we played a long time. Every so often we moved two steps to the left, so you worked on a different section. At the end we each removed two pieces! The idea was to consider design options, balance, value, line, repetition, shape, and color. After everything was in place, we stood back and gave it a good critical look, a few things were tweaked. We wanted a little more of the black/negative space to show. Paper was placed on top and it was rolled up, to take home and iron all the pieces in place.

As I ironed it, I fussed a little, mostly on how they overlapped and to even out the black space. After ironing, it was cut up into 16 sections approximately 8" x 10" some of them cut straight, and some wonky. Each artist will receive a piece to play with, cut up, repiece, add or subtract, extend, cover over, alter, or embellish. Just to have fun playing with color and design.

It will be very interesting to see what everyone does with their piece. There were thirteen who participated, if you were not there at the last meeting, email Amy for one of the extra sections.

February Meeting 2014

Old Business The Bandon Art Retreat is set for June 23-25, Mon-Wed, I need a verbal commitment at the March meeting, and payment at the April meeting. We will spend relaxing days, sewing, painting, embellishing, working on our projects, field trips, beach walks and lunch out on the town. A fun time to share our friendship and creativity. Also maybe a studio tour of Landreth's in Coos Bay? Sylvia has invited us back to the Elkton Festival in June, to paint Festival Flags with the kids, we had a great time last year, please volunteer to help, contact Sylvia. The Umpqua Valley Quilt Show is in April, please bring your finished "Weather Report" with sleeve and label, no dowel, to the April meeting, we need volunteers to hang and organize the show. Also we will display one other art piece per member, your choice, with a member profile, please participate, so we have a good display. New Business For the March meeting, please, bring Six 5" squares of BRIGHT fabric, prints, stripes, solids, etc... with iron on fusible on the back, Wonder Under or Steam a Seam type. Also bring your scissors! Amy has a fun design exercise/game for us. Jana announced there is going to be a BIG Quilt, Stitch and Knit Show at the Portland Expo Center on August 14-16, with lots of workshops. Check the web for more info or call Jana.

Show & Tell Corienne stitched and washed her fiber fabric from last months meeting, each side is different, she used a bit of shimmery organza fabrics, and silk ribbons in hers. She definitely likes the "underside" better.

Corienne, Sylvia and Cynde took a dye class at the Eugene Textile Center, to use "Color Hue" dyes. She did not bring her swatch book, but they worked mostly on silks, made color charts, mixed shades, and learned a lot. The dyes need no mordant, are very concentrated, a few drops in water, and add the silk. Nancy has been busy with taking photos of events she has been involved in, a Project Literacy Book Challenge, and a Valentines for Vets at the Roseburg VA hospital.

Dorie made a name tag from her fiber fabric, after stitching and washing, she couched her name in gold metallic cord, used iron on vinyl as a backing, and a silk organza ribbon as a binding, bow and neck cord. After hearing Pat's idea of a box, she might make one with her leftovers.

Pat W. got adventurous and added moss and lichen to her fiber fabric, she went out side and collected it, then stitched it onto the fibers. It adds a very interesting organic textural quality to the fibers. She plans on making a basket or box from her fibers, we discussed a cardboard form, glue stiffener or heavy interfacing. It will be fun to see what she comes up with. Tricia's fibers have a lacy quality, she used a lot fewer fibers than the rest of us, and plans on backing it with a fabric that will show through the lace holes. She also used bits of organza and fabric snips to make hers unique.

Jana has been spinning up a storm, participating in an international challenge with a group called "Ravelry" to spin through watching the Olympics. "Unseasonably Warm" is Jana's "Weather Report" challenge. She has thread painted a crow and fall leaves with lots of texture. She really enjoys this technique and is getting much better at her free motion stitching. The echo quilting around the sun, give it a radiant look, and the hot yellow background fabric gives it HEAT!

"Tempest in a Teapot" is Peggy's wonderful creation, two ladies at a tea table with a stormy sky, and a tornado in their teapot. She has painted a dramatic sky with watercolors, and the tornado has tiny hand painted details. Lace, ribbon, beads and other embellishments decorate the ladies clothing, the edge of the lace doily tablecloth has a loose flowing ruffle. Peggy loves to decorate the ladies, and this is part of a series she has done, with vintage women. She would like to do one with the Eiffel Tower and Paris in the background. We discussed the Value contrast on the tablecloth, and how to tone it down a little bit, with shadows for the tea service, or tea dyeing the fabric, or a vase of flowers on the table, she feels it is too bright in relation to the subdued colors of the rest of the piece.

"Thunder and Lightening" is Kay's bold, dramatic, 3-D art work. She has used 4 separate pieces of Pellon heavy duty interfacing, to create two Mobias strips and a double strip sphere. It is covered in black and gray fabric, with gold and silver lightening, in threads and paint. It is embellished with pieces of a black sweater, and black pipe cleaners to help hold the shape. Mounted on a block covered with a white/black print, it is intriguing from many angles. We discussed how it would look, mounted to a wall, rather than flat on a table.

Fibers from a mystery artist, were embellished with bits of batik fabric, giving it focal points of interest, sorry my notes did not say who made this.

Sherry brought a skirt to share with us, where she used an assortment of fibers, laid down under a layer of Solvy, then stitched to secure. It was a creative way to use a similar fun fibers technique. More lacy than our mats of fiber, it highlighted some beautiful ribbons and trims. Discussion Instead of a demo this month we had decided to critique our "Weather Report" pieces. We only had four here at the meeting, but we counted 12 finished pieces. We started with asking each artist about their theme, how they interpreted it, and if they thought they had succeeded. We discussed what they liked about the piece, what they learned doing it, and if there was anything they wished they had done better. Then we gave suggestions on how that particular area could be improved. We mostly discussed design balance and composition, and techniques used. I thought it was a very useful, more detailed discussion of each piece. Secondly, Sherry wanted to discuss working in a series, she had a new book by Elizabeth Barton on the topic. She wanted to know if anyone was interested in working through some of the exercises with her. We discussed how we each had a theme or two in our work, that tied some of it together.