Bandon Art Retreat 2014

Eight adventuresome artists headed for the Southern Oregon coast, on the way we stopped at a members home/studio for a studio tour and lunch. Landreth was a wonderful hostess, she had set up her Gamill long arm quilting machine for us to play on.

Cheryl took her turn on a lime green section, with a yellow flower or sun. There were lots of samples of Landreth's quilting patterns to follow. Most of us took turns trying to get a smooth quilting line. Her machine is set up with a stitch regulator, which most of us had never sewn with. It stops when you stop, and keeps a consistent stitch length. This made the daunting task of learning free motion quilting seem simpler.

Look at the smile on Tricia's face, is she having fun, or what? We had a delicious lunch of salmon loaf, crab puffs, clam chowder and green salad. Landreth out did herself feeding us a coastal extravaganza! We wandered around her studio, looking at all her art work, and she gave us each a chicken pincushion pattern with precut pieces. After lunch we headed South to Bandon and got checked in to the Retreat Center, above Forget-Me-Knots quilt shop. click here It is a wonderful space to work, large sewing tables, with a whole wall of design board, the opposite wall is floor to ceiling windows with wonderful sunshine and a view of "Old Town Bandon." A large kitchen, 2 bath, 3 bedrooms to sleep 8 artists with beautiful quilts on each bed. Extra rooms are set up as ironing stations and cutting tables. We got right to work, getting our sewing machines set up and beginning our projects.

Amy began by free motion quilting a large wall hanging that she had started at our first retreat 3 years ago. Two whole days of quilting, lots of texture and pattern in each of the petals. The flowers are all made with her hand dyed fabric from Vera's dyeing workshops.

Lorrie worked on her barn pattern, it had lots of small pieces. She tried very hard to make the Stream-a Seam work. She was very frustrated trying to remove the paper backing from the front or back.

Meredith worked with some black and white silk noil, trying very hard to get "balance" with her asymmetrical pieces. I'm not sure what project this is for. The rest of the time she spent with a jade green silk, making sections for her "Tombs of China-Terra Cotta Warriors" the project has been percolating in her head for ten years, and she finally feels she has the expertise to meet her vision. Vi worked on finishing a UFO, traditional piecing with white and bright fabric prints, lots of half square and quarter square triangles. We were up until at least 11pm, sewing and visiting. Dinner was potluck with Meredith making a stir fry, and lots of pasta salad, green salad and other goodies.

The next morning started early with 5 of us making a visit to the beach, it was beautiful, sunshine and no breeze, with a low tide. You can't ask for better from the coast.

Tracy and Cheryl found a driftwood throne to sit on. Lots of rock collecting and sea shells. Walking down the beach to the large rocks that give Bandon a distinctive look. Tricia walked the furthest and even walked back to the center.

The Retreat Center shares a parking lot with the new Face Rock Creamery, which replaced the old Bandon Cheese Factory. Meredith and Tracy's pair of yellow Smart cars, were getting lots of curious people taking pictures of their license plates BSMART and BSMARTR. We indulged in ice cream, cheese curds, and wine sampling at the Creamery. Several people walked back to "Old Town" to do some shopping in all the cute shops and touristy things.

We all had lunch out at the "Wheelhouse" with a view of the Marina. After lunch several of us went to the "Wool Factory" in Langlois, about 15 miles South of Bandon, she had a wonderful variety of fibers to choose from, and a nice display of needle felted art work by local people. Tracy and Amy got a selection of Merino/Silk blends in sky blue, darker ocean and a deep rich blue/brown combo.

Crystal joined us Tuesday morning and began to add sashes to her collection of Kaffe Fasset quilt blocks. She made great progress, even getting some of the borders on.

Then Crystal went on to sash and put together a set of children's "book pages" into a baby quilt.

Lorrie, Meredith and Vi consulting on a project.

Tracy spent her time making two large and one Jumbo size pillow for her daughter out of very glitzy fabrics. Her cute old Singer Feather Weight had difficulty with some of the fabrics. The glittery parts gummed up her needle and caused trouble. Sewing machine expert Vi, helped get her unstuck.

Tricia started the day with her fused applique of a flower, the pattern is her original drawing and her bright colors of yellow and gold was a stark contrast to the black background.

Tricia added her collected beach stones to her hand made batik stones, and worked on some design issues, trying to decide how to use them. Cheryl had been doing very small work making arms and legs etc.. for her tiny Teddy Bears. She hand stitched the small parts out of furry fabric.

After bears, Cheryl helped Tricia learn to do a needle felted face.

Cheryl and Tricia inspecting her large bin of hand dyed fabric. Lorrie and Vi, look through several magazines for ideas.

Amy ended the retreat by using Jacquard Decolourant on several T-shirts. She used stencils and a foam brush to apply the paste, then ironed to activate the bleaching process. After lunch on Wednesday, we all pitched in to clean up, and pack away our projects. We ended by trying to finish off the left overs, cantaloupe, salmon dip & crackers, bagels, pasta and stir fry. Tracy passed around her jars of home made jams and jellies, apple butter, peach, blue berry, almond/cherry to very appreciative participants.

And finally a black mail photo of Lorrie vacuuming, her husband does the vacuuming at home, so we have proof Lorrie knows how to do it! We all had a wonderful time! It was great to share space with creative, artistic like minded people. Thank you, all who participated!

I've connected this with Nina-Marie's "Off the Wall Friday" click on the badge in the right hand column to see other wonderful artists.

June Meeting 2014

Old Business Elkton Festival is canceled, it has been changed to a music festival with no vendors. Black Sheep Festival in Eugene is June 20-22, Umpqua Valley Arts Festival in Fir Grove Park is June 27-29. Bandon Art Retreat is June 23-25. July's meeting will be Fimo/Sculpy buttons with Peggy and Amy. If you have supplies bring them or we will have enough to share. The "Weather Report" pieces are hanging at the Sutherlin Library. New Business The Sewing & Quilt Expo is at the Portland Convention Center Sept. 25-27, This would be a great field trip!! Our August meeting is going to be at Vera's for a dyeing workshop. We will NOT be meeting at the conference rooms for August. We will be doing wool dyeing as well as cotton fabrics, order silk scarves from Dharma if you want to do ice dyeing. We can also ice dye the cottons. In September bring your ideas for a theme for a new challenge. Ideas put forth so far, 3-D, recycled materials, Nonsense words. I'll dig up the other ideas, that we passed on before. Show & Tell

Amy brought her work in progress of birch tree bark, printed from her photo, that she is stitching with texture, and moss, several swallowtail butterflies will be placed on it with leaves.

More ice dyeing by Meredith on large yardage of silk, the first piece is textured habotai silk from Dharma and has bold colors. The second larger piece she wants to use for an outfit for an event she is going to SOON. Good Luck on that!

The sunflower is Meredith's trial piece from last years Art Retreat, she practiced stitching onto paper. She liked the practice piece so much, that she cut it out and applied it to the correct piece of paper, with some extra leaves. Framing with the picket fencing on 3 sides finished the piece for hanging. Pat W. has finished cardio rehab after her surgery and is doing well, and she is ready to start on art work again. Dori did a class in Central Point with an applique rooster, it was a hands on with Donna Greenwald. She enjoyed it a lot and learned some expertise in applique. Peggy has been drawing Zentagles in her sketchbook.

A rich navy blue sweater has been needle felted by Kay, it has other embellishments as well, ribbons, beads, & embroidery.

Jana's love for thread painting is showing up in her work, from an original photograph taken in Ireland. It is still in progress, as the musician is playing a small accordion, beneath a Guinness sign. She is also participating in the "Tour de Fleece" an online challenge to spin everyday while the "Tour de France" is running. She is carding and spinning white cashmere for this challenge.

Pat G. has made an amazing bag with trimmed selvedge edges, she always trims her selvedges to 1" or 1 1/2" wide strips.

Pat G. is looking forward to a quilting cruise to Alaska in August, they sent her a challenge fabric, to make a block for a drawing. She has made this delightful Sunbonnet Sue block.

Tricia has been printing leaves onto a hand dyed fabric. She paints the leaf or fern with acrylic paint and uses a brayer to print it onto the fabric.

Hand made stones with batik fabric are Tricia's latest adventure. Instructions are from the newest issue of Quilting Arts magazine. The organza dragonfly is made the same way her leaves are made from today's demo. Cheryl set Lorraine up with a friend of hers and she got 3 Jacobs sheep for her orchard pasture.

Corriene has been making "Split ply braiding" it is traditionally done for camel girths. It uses an 8 ply cord that is split 4 & 4 when it is woven.

During a recent trip to Washington DC, she also went to Pennsylvania visiting old grave yards, and woolen mills and Amish farmers markets. At a roadside stand she purchased a small Amish quilt with hand quilting.

She also could not resist a traditional handmade Amish straw hat.

Nancy used her design exercise to make a bib to cover her "Crumb catchers," she zigzag stitched it in colorful threads for contrast.

Sue has been on the road to Las Vegas, and she managed to knit two baby hats for her new grand baby. She also discovered a wonderful quilt/yarn shop in Winters, Calif. right off of I-5. The Redding quilt shop is also right off of I-5. Demo

Tricia showed us how she makes her fragile fabric leaves, that she used in her "Weather Report" wall hanging. She layers several layers of organza, tulle, or silk between two layers of Sulvy, washaway stabilizer. She draws her pattern on the Solvy and does a narrow satin stitch around the edges, the leaf veins and detail are finished with free motion stitching. Then the Solvy is dissolved leaving a delicate see through leaf. She also traps bit of fabric between sheer layers, the free motion stitches the layers together.

Tricia's leaves are on the left, Amy's on the right. Amy makes her leaves on painted and melted Tyvek and Lutrador, the heat gun leaves bubbles and holes in the synthetic fabrics, then stitched with free motion stitching to outline and vein the leaves. The texture is rough and very good for autumn leaves. No Solvy is used, the pattern is stitched directly on the Tyvek or Lutrador.

Demo - Needle Felting & Wool Blending

During our May meeting, Cheryl gave a demo on wool carding and blending wool to get different color combinations, and Landreth gave a hands on workshop for needle felting. Cheryl began with hand carders, showing us how to card and roll punis, preparing your wool to spin. Then she blended wools to get an assortment of different effects.

Landreth prepared several info boards, showing how different fibers needle felted, and different types of interfacing to use to secure the back of the fibers. She gave everyone an assortment of fabric to try, chiffons, silks, knits, lame and she supplied needles, foam and fibers so everyone could play with the assortment.

All our artists had a wonderful time playing with the fibers and needle felting, thank you Landreth and Cheryl for your expertise.