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.

July Meeting 2015

Old Business Two challenges are proposed, the first is due at our October meeting, the theme is "She Flies with her Own Wings." 20" to a side, any technique. The second is due for our March meeting, in time for the annual Umpqua Valley Quilt Show. The theme is "A Path Less Traveled," patterns will be handed out with a path drawn on to connect all the sections together, like our River project. Tues. Aug 18th will be Pat W. and Sue's fabric bowl class, materials list and directions to Pat's are available. Aug 14, Friday we are carpooling to "Quilt, Knit Stitch" in Portland, it is a big national show. August 15th is the Oakland, Oregon outdoor quilt show, in historic downtown, please plan on attending and doing some antique shopping too. Sept. 24-26 is the NW Quilt show in Portland. New Business "Quilt Country" in Benton County is August 21 to October at many different venues in the area. The SAQA regional show will be at the Student Union building on the Corvalis campus. Vera has a piece in this exhibit. Show & Tell

Amy showed us her Moda fabric precut Hexies that she put together at the Bandon art retreat. The needle felted rabbit, made of wool and covered with silver/gray angora fibers, was made with help from Cheryl. Sara is our new member, she is a friend of Peggy's, and she likes all crafts, knitting, quilting, and beading. Welcome Sara.

Vera has finished her entry into the SAQA show "Blending Poetry with Fabric." The piece is made with all her own hand dyed and printed fabrics, she has layered transparent fabrics, and folds, so that there is another hidden layer to discover. Titled "Those Who Do Not See" from a poem, about those who do not look, and those who do not see, which is more blind.

Her second art piece is a Tryp tich, based on the Chech Republic and it's flag, the first side is the old folk art of the country, the 2nd has the time of Nazi and Communist rule, and the third is the modern Republic. She is also entering this into a show challenge.

Meredith ice dyed some yardage of raw silk noil, with some amazing colors and patterns. She is planning on making a jacket.

Corinne made several ice dyed damask napkins at our dyeing workshop. She also dyed some muslin and did some 3 layer parfaits.

Sue M. has been busy making row by row strips for a National challenge. The challenge runs June 20 to Sept 8th, at 81 quilt shops in Oregon, and over 2500 nationally. The theme is water, and any of the participating shops will give you a free pattern they designed when you go to their shop. Check out rowbyrowexperiance.com to see about participating shops sorted by a state by state listing.

Our newer member Sue C. brought an example of her flower pounding, she also had a handout on treating fabric to prepare it for flower pounding or for dying.

Lorraine has continued the modern quilting she learned at Asilomar, a group of fellow students are working through each chapter of the book, "Modern Quilting" and making samples of each technique. She has made several of the chapter samples now, quilting as she goes, and will assemble them all together into one project.

Pat G. has made a lovely, snuggley flannel robe. The fat quarters of bright colors and fun prints go together well.

Pat has also made several Row by Row strips, and collected even more patterns from around Oregon and other states.

Jana has made this colorful strip quilt in her Tuesday nite group, as a summer quilt with words. She also went to the Black Sheep festival in Eugene, they were in a new air conditioned building, and she got some fleece. The carded blend of fleece is called "Fractal" and is a blend of yellow, red, blue. She got it in preparation for the upcoming "Tour de Fleece" where she spins everyday during the Tour de France.

Peggy had a selection of fabrics that she dyed at our workshop at Tracy's. She likes to do the 3 layer "Parfaits" for a textured look.

Peggy also made 2 ice dyed silk scarves.

Vi brought a beautiful angel doll-sculpture, that she made a while ago. It is embellished with lots of lace and ribbon and she believes it exemplifies our theme of "She flies With Her Own Wings."

A 3-D dragon she made at about the same time, has wonderful personality.

Crystal had some wonderful dyed fabric from our workshop. This bright piece was folded and wrapped around a large diameter rope.

This Shibori silk scarf was wrapped around a PVC pipe, and scrunched up and dyed in turquoise and royal blue.

These wonderfully cute little owl prints were made up into postcards by Crystal.
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 wonderful textile artists are doing.