November Meeting 2012

Old Business Amy has all the "What's My Line" pieces, and will be arranging for them to show at The Umpqua Bank, this month. I'll let you know when that is set up. Kay and Peggy are hanging the "Beatles Song" challenges in the Sutherlin Library this week. The Quilting Arts issue Oct/Nov 2011 has the article on the vinyl/silk screen printing that Vera demoed last meeting. We got a thank you email from Sherry for all the painted/printed leaves we helped make, she packed up about 467 leaves to take home to Ketchikan, Alaska. They have started to add batting and burlap to the trunk of the tree, and the bark fabrics, and hope to have the project finished by mid-December. New Business Umpqua Valley Arts Center has a textile arts exhibit "Oregon, State of Diversity II" by members of Oregon SAQA, hanging now, until the end of January. There was a wonderful article in the News Review, this week, and our own member Vera has a piece in the show. We are planning a potluck for our December meeting, and after the meeting, we are planning a field trip together to go see the exhibit. We will be also doing a group photo, so brush your hair and your teeth. Our January meeting, Amy will demo photo transfer techniques from the book Peggy loaned her, a material list will be available at the Dec. meeting. We have a new member, Cheryl, she saw our flyer at the arts center, she is a spinner, weaver, knitter, doll maker, and needle felter. She has been making angora knit hats, and llama slippers for the Christmas fairs. She will be at the Douglas Co. Christmas Fair this month.

Show and Tell Dorie made a chenille scarf for her daughter out of 6 layers of rayon fabric, it was soft and fluffy, in rich fall colors. She has also been making lots of Christmas napkins and socks. Jan is knitting a bright green wrist cuff, and she finished her "weaving" challenge, the metal hand is a found object. Nancy found the iron on vinyl at Walmart, and plans on doing some silk screened denim shirts, she really liked the technique that Vera demoed last meeting. Vera told us the "Clay Folks Show" in Medford at the Armory is Nov. 16, 17, 18 and will have over 60 quality potters from N. Cal, Oregon and Washington. She usually participates but this year she is only going to go and enjoy the show. Landreth's art quilting friend in Colorado shared info on a Dick Blick "silhouette cutter" that she uses to cut stencils, stamps, and fabric from her own designs she puts in with a stylus on the computer. Jana is feeling well after a hip replacement after breaking it, and spent lots of time knitting socks for Christmas presents.

Peggy knit a scarf with "homespun" yarn in a warm rust, with bits of matching eyelash yarn. She also made stuffed decorative pumpkins with 2" strips of fabric, silk leaves and a branch topper. Her hand dyed leaf quilt was finished being machine quilted by Amy.

Kay found 3 large foam cut outs at the dollar store, and used them to make three sunprints. She used Setacolor acrylic paints, and is using machine decorative stitching , embroidery, beading and a dyed doily for the center. She finished her Beatles challenge, "8 Days a Week" a crazy patch heart with tags for days of the week and small embellished hearts in each section. Pat has been making knit fabric "Infinty" scarves with her granddaughters in Alaska, they bought a variety of knit fabrics and made over 20 scarves. She also finished a baby quilt, with preprinted alphabet blocks on it for a Great-grandbaby!

Pat has also begun her weaving project, she is using her images of the big fires in the Bend area as her inspiration, and is working with strips of birch bark, and other natural materials. She has a box of inspirational fibers, dyed cheesecloth and yarns, and has started "pin weaving." Meredith is getting started on her weaving challenge, and is calling the piece "Pick Up Sticks," and to tease us, she had some painted dowels that she is going to use.

Amy also got inspired to work on her weaving challenge, she began by printing her photographs of woven baskets to use as a background. After sewing the background, she printed several woven textures on the fabric and added rug grid, embroidery stitches and beads. She is finishing it with four sections of woven materials she cut from baskets. She smartly superglued the baskets, so the woven materials would not "unweave" when she cut them apart. Demonstration Amy showed everyone how to make covered buttons to use as art embellishments. We used both "teeth" and "Press together" covered buttons, and everyone made samples. Fabric with small motifs, faces and geometrics were used. The larger the buttons the easier they are to do. Also, Landreth had a sample for fabric pompom embellishments, she showed us how to do.

Mee

Member Profile - Georgia

I've been quilting for almost twenty years, focusing on "art quilts" for half that time. It's a form I find indefinable, fascinating, and on most days tremendously enriching. Earlier membership in the fiber art group Tactile Expressions and now Fyber Cafe and High Fiber Diet have given me freedom to explore the medium fearlessly. The support and encouragement of other members is invaluable.

Each project teaches its lesson. Sometimes I finish a piece knowing that I want to repeat one or other aspect of it, and sometimes I know I've learned, yet don't want to go there again. No matter how the piece turns out, the process has been valuable.

Making an art quilt requires many small decisions. I seldom know exactly what I am aiming for - there is no picture in my mind of the finished piece. I deal with these small decisions one at a time and don't look ahead too far, as I've learned that doing so cuts off possibilities that I may not see at the moment. There will never be enough time for me to tire of this wonderful world of fiber, design and unforeseen possibilities.

Georgia is also now, the Oregon representative of SAQA and a board member of The Umpqua Valley Arts Association.

Sherry's Leaf Workshop, part II

A few more pictures from Sherry and Kay's leaf making workshop, from Kay's camera.

The little next door neighbor boy, also came over to help.

Peggy, Kay, Vera, Amy, Landreth

Sherry's Leaf Workshop

Lots of fun was had by all who attended Kay and Sherry's Leaf making workshop on the 18th. She needs thousands of leaves for her fiber art group in Ketchican, who have a grant to make a 17 foot fiber tree for the children's section of the new public library. It will be decorated with book characters, words, flowers and leaves. Sherry has been doing artist in residence programs with fourth graders to make leaves also.

We made a creative mess with paints, foam stamps and glue. Sherry had samples and directions for us, and a leaf template. We worked on phone book pages and washed acrylic paints over the paper.

After laying the washes out to dry, we began the second layer of stamping, with foam stamps, make up foam triangles, plastic fly swatters, alphabet stamps and other items.

The next part was to layer the painted paper with fabric, and insert a wire stem between the layers. We used gel medium to glue the layers together and the leaves were hung on a chain link fence to dry.

We made over 90 leaves to this point and took a break for lunch. They still need to be trimmed to shape, and coated with more gloss medium to seal. Sherry had an assortment of finished leaves for us to see.

Kay made a wonderful lunch of vegie soup, sandwiches and pumpkin pie cake with Sherry wielding the whip cream can. After lunch the ladies went back to paint more paper and hopefully finished hundreds more. Here is the recipe for the pumpkin dessert, by popular demand. Pumpkin Pie Cake 16oz can of pumpkin - 1 can sweetened condensed milk - 1 1/2 cups sugar - 1 tsp cinnamon and a 1/4 tsp ground cloves - 2 eggs - Mix and pour into a 9" x 13" greased or Pam coated pan. Sprinkle one package white/yellow/or spice cake mix (with pudding type) over the pumpkin mixture, Dry! Drizzle one cube melted butter or margarine on top of dry cake mix, Sprinkle one cup chopped walnuts on top. Bake at 350' then cool, serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Lucy in the Sky

Peggy has finished another Beatles challenge piece, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." She is a true artist, breaking rules to create a beautiful piece. It is about 16" square (rules 12") and has multiple techniques, photo transfer, Angelina fibers, raw edge applique, and free motion quilting. We will have a great display at the Sutherlin Library, as everyone keeps making additional pieces.

October Meeting 2012

Old Business We have quiet a few Beatles Challenge pieces, they are going up at the Sutherlin Library this month. Our new challenge "Weaving" any thing goes, 18" per side max, smaller ok. Due at December meeting. Nov. meeting Amy will demo covered buttons as embellishments. Bring covered buttons, either style, larger is better. Dec. meeting will be a potluck. Jan. meeting Amy will do a hands on of photo transfer techniques from the book Peggy brought in. New Business Kay and Sherry are hosting a "leaf making" day at Kay's, on Oct. 18th, gather between 9 and 10am, Kay will provide lunch. RSVP with Kay. Supplies will be provided, but you can contribute your own, paints, stamps, brushes, an email went out to all. Show and Tell

Nancy made a pair of napkins for a friend with English pub fabric, edged in blue and yellow. She got the fabric on her trip to England. We had a special visit from our missing friend Jan, she brought her newest jacket with an embroidery theme. Machine embroidery dragonflies with embellishments adorned the blue batik jacket. She and Bonnie are working on a new bag/purse pattern project for Simplicity. Meredith brought along a new book "Japanese Quilting" that had beautiful photos of quilted projects. Corienne is dyeing pots and pots of white yarns that she has spun, and brought us scraps of her hand weaving to pick through. She also has pieces on display at the Portland Hand Weavers Guild Holiday Show, Nov. 9-11 in Lake Oswego, Or.

Kay has been working on her Beatles challenge "8 Days a Week" with a pieced and embellished heart. Jana got her piece finished "I am the Walrus" with a wonderful walrus portrait with eyeglasses. Amy made a second Beatles piece, "The White Album" with trapunto whole cloth free motion machine quilting. It is a portrait outline of the four faces, and song titles and lyrics stitched around them, all white on white. Demo by Vera Vera did a hands on demo of screen printing with iron on vinyl and organza. We each had a piece of iron on vinyl that she had colored with a black marker so you can see what you are doing, picked a pattern and cut it out. It was then quickly ironed to the organza, 8 seconds on the vinyl side and 4 seconds on the back, use a pressing cloth.

We then used acrylic paints mixed with mat medium and textile medium to scrape across the silk screen and print the image onto cotton. Place the image shiny vinyl side down on your fabric.