April Meeting 2014

Old Business The Bandon Art Retreat is Mon -Wed, June 23, 24 & 25. Payment is due, $100, we still have 2 places left if you want to join us, contact Amy. We'll start the Bandon fun by meeting at Landreth's in Charleston for a studio tour and lunch. If you can't go to the retreat, you can still join us at Landreth's. The Umpqua Valley Quilter's Show set up is Thursday, see previous post. Our display is awesome! The "Smile" Festival in Elkton for to benefit the school Music program is Saturday, June 21, contact Sylvia, Peggy or Meredith to help. We will again be painting festival flags with the kids. Sections of our design exercise from last month, were passed out, do anything you want with them, no deadline. We are still planning on a wool dyeing play day, and a wet felting play day, TBA, hopefully in May? New Business For our next meetings we will do: May - needle felting with Landreth, June - 3-D leaves with Lorraine, July - Fimo buttons with Amy & Peggy. If you have any ideas of something to demo, or something you would like to learn about, let us know. The Black Sheep Festival is also in June 20-22, Fri, Sat, Sun at the Eugene fairgrounds, entry is free, and there is a whole lot of fibers, yarns, sheep, spinning, weaving, felting, and more. This is a huge West Coast event and worth seeing, carpool anyone?? Show and Tell

Meredith finished her "Weather Report" piece, "Frost on the Pumpkin" she used 3-d elements on the stem and vine, foil to make frost, stitched a man in the moon, and other wonderful detail.

"Sunshine, Lolipops, and Rainbows" is Meredith's second Weather Report, she named it after an "Oldies" song. The rainbow was made with Inktense Pencils on iron-on interfacing,the sun's rays are a yellow organza, and she stitched on raindrops and beads. She also brought her "Clown Tang" garment bag to hang at the show. It was a group challenge that got out of hand, with hundreds of hours, to do zippers, piping, hand dyed silk lining, and lots of texture.

Kay added a different base to her "Thunder and Lightning" project, and mounted it on a turntable for the show. Peggy has been playing with a new book "The Painted Quilt" one of the projects is quilting first, then going over it with Shiva Paint Sticks to highlight the texture. She announced that the new exhibit at the Vision Quilt Museum in San Diego is "Weather Forecast" that is quiet a coincidence.

Jana brought her "Dharma Potholder" for display at the show, she believes she made it for the self portrait challenge, but never included it then.

"Color Play I" by Sue, is made from a failed project, that was cut up and repurposed to make two bold, graphic works of art. See show post for better pictures. She said one of her favorite quotes is "to think of your sewing machine as a power tool with thread."

Sue has created two wonderful 3-D vessels, with triangles, a stiff interfacing, and quilting. Each has satin stitch edging and the points turned down with beads dangling. A few twigs give it an elegant look.

Tricia's Sunset quilting has highlighted all the shears she has used to layer the glowing colors. It is finished in time for the show, as well as her fall quilt, which has added hand painted beetles in the forest floor.

Cheryl has finally taught her husband to spin, she gave him bits of roving and wool of all different colors for him to play with, then he wove his yarn into a rug. He is very proud of his progress, and wants to make several panels, then sew them together to make a blanket. Since we have several 3-D pieces for the show, we talked about having a table display for them, and Cheryl will bring her Needle felted dolls, Gypsy Woman, and Wildman. Dorie reported the hospital display looks great, and new labels are being made for the pieces. Stop and see them at Mercy Hospital, Roseburg, Oregon. Crystal's arm is recovering, and she wants to do a "Weather Report" piece titled "Eye of the Storm" we look forward to seeing what she creates. Pat W. is recovering nicely from surgery too. Nancy has been going crazy house cleaning and hosting double Bunco parties. Pat G. has been working on Patriotic quilts for the Umpqua Valley Quilters Guild, they need quiet a few by June of next year, for the returning Charlie Company of Douglas County National Guard members. They are now affiliated with the national group "Quilts of Valor." Landreth has been working on art papers made with "Citra Solv" for more info check out the Citra Solv website, click on the art section. She showed a lot of pages she has made from National Geographic magazines, they have a certain type of ink, that works best for this project. She is still experimenting, with different techniques, and a way to transfer it to fabric that is permanent. She will keep us updated on her experiments.