Bandon Textile Art Retreat

Eight wonderful artists spent 3 days/two nights on the coast at Bandon, Oregon, creating individual projects. The retreat center is above Forget Me Knots Quilt Shop, right on Hwy 101, above "Old Town" Bandon, Oregon. Instead of a structured workshop, we all brought our own projects to do, and shared ideas and inspiration. The facilities have a huge sewing room, with floor to ceiling windows and a design wall opposite the windows. A large kitchen accommodated our potluck goodies, and we ate very well!

Cheryl spent most of her time sitting in a real comfy chair, spinning a soft mixed breed wool, and then knitting what she spun, she was making a poncho type hooded wrap, with a name I can't spell or pronounce. She did get up long enough for a walk on the beach and brought wonderful home made pickles.

Crystal worked on making colorful quilt blocks for a block exchange that she was behind on. Once she was caught up, I worked with her on her machine quilting, but her sewing machine was having problems, unable to work out the problems, she used Amy's machine to couch a beautiful teal ribbon to her "River" project, outlining the lady and swirling the ribbon into the river. Next she worked on modern strip piecing in neutral grays, with accents of navy and lime green, to make as a gift for a friend. The strips are to represent the NY City skyline.

Meredith's daughter Debbie joined us from up North, and she worked on an Amy Butler pattern for a stuffed footstool. Iron-on laminate was used to cover her fabric in plastic, then the wedges were sewn together. A hexagon top piece was appliqued on and the stuffing began. The instructions called for 7 bags of stuffing, and she stuffed and she stuffed! What a great modern finished look.

Amy spent the first afternoon mono-printing painted fabric, on a Gelli Plate, stenciling, stamping and adding layers of paint and detail. Pinning on the design wall and adding 5 Bali batiks for background, she began to create a design. Circles were cut from a set of coordinating fabric, with similar blue, green and rust colors, and circular printed motifs. Playing around with placement a final design was settled on. A digital camera showed that the circles looked like flat discs, and the next morning, painted shadows and highlights were added to create spheres. Intense free motion machine quilting followed, with rayon threads, in an all day marathon of quilting.

Jana and Meredith shared lessons on their phones, about how Pinterest works, something that has puzzled most of us. Jana spent all her time free motion quilting her "Alice in Wonderland" project for her sister. See the June Meeting post for a full picture of the quilt top.

Kay brought hand work with her, a black and white print pillow case, that she colored in with water soluble crayons, and watercolor pencils. Adding water with a Q-tip and ironing to heat set will make it permanent. She continued her hand work with a set of three sunprints that she is embroidering on. Her details and "crazy quilt" attitude really dress up the soft prints. She will be also adding "Shashiko" mirrors to some of them. Kay relaxed with an ice cream cone, and got ice cream from the new "Face Rock creamery" next door, to go with our dinner desert brownies.

Meredith worked hard all weekend to create her sunflower picture. She wanted to experiment on sewing fabric to newspaper. Following her inspiration sunflower photo, she cut out petals and started to free motion machine quilt. She did back her newspaper with a fusible interfacing, so it would not perforate. She only made this as a sample to try her technique, and wishes she had used her better picture to make the finished project, as she put so much work into it. Meredith's other daughter also joined us, Tracy worked on making her daughter a dragon Halloween costume. I'm sorry I did not get any photos of her work in progress, but she promised us pics of the finished costume. She had collected thrift store fabrics, a blue satin graduation gown, a very bright reflective gold table cloth, and a shimmery old gold satin sheet. She made the base outfit from the blue robe, and was making gloves, a tail with peacock designs spots, and other details. She did A LOT of unsewing, after we all found our seam rippers for her. Her daughter will be so proud to wear this creation! We had lots of fun, talking, eating, sewing, spinning, painting, and being the creative artists that we are. We shared two walks on the beach each morning, one with a full double rainbow over the ocean, before the storm rolled in. Field trips to a wool shop, and "Old Town Bandon," visiting the new Creamery for cheese and ice cream, and shopping in the quilt shop and fighting over the last book, we all wanted, were only a small part of a wonderful weekend. Good friends, good art, good food.