Slideshow Added

I have added a slideshow of photographs of our Fyber Cafe activities and textile art. I wanted to show how much fun we have at our various workshops and play days. Many photos are from our monthly Show and Tell at the meetings, and from our group challenges. The slideshow runs on the right hand column, try clicking on a photo and see if it will take you to the Picasa site, so you can see them in a larger format. It works for me, but them I am signed on. Then click the < or > on the sides of the photo to move forward or backwards through the pics. I hope this inspires you to try some of challenges or activities in the workshops. Stop by and join us if you are in the Roseburg, Oregon area. We meet the 2nd Tuesday of the month, 10am, at the Mercy Hospital Community Education Conference rooms, above Parkway Mobility and Supplies, next to Office Max on Stewart Parkway. Contact AMY, email is on the Facebook badge to the right, put Fyber Cafe meeting in the subject line.

SAQA Mini's

Thanks to Georgia and Pat, we had 30 small works from a traveling collection from SAQA. Georgia and several of our members are also members of SAQA, and they participate in many of their challenges and calls for art. The set of small works were about 8" square and matted in white frames, with plastic over them, so we could pick them up and observe closely. Each had a paper with an artists' statement on the back. We have decided we need artists' statements for our "River Runs Through It" challenge, so get to work Fyber Cafe artists.

We were very impressed with the simplicity of design in some of them, and the complexity of others, in an 8" format. The hand work and other techniques were perfectly executed. I only took a few photos, sorry about the glare. Please check out the SAQA site, to see more of their wonderful art.

October Meeting 2013

Old BusinessOur new challenge theme is "Weather Report," any technique, under 20" on a side. Due February meeting. Must be labeled and sleeved. New Business We need to write artists' statements for our river pieces, in this format, Name, Title of piece, statement about the Art piece, techniques or unusual materials. We wish to make a professional presentation to the Umpqua Valley Arts Center, for display. Reminder, please wear a name tag at the meetings, our group is growing. We had 17 members at the meeting, and 4 new members in the last few months. Nov. meeting, Crystal will still do her computer fabric info, and Amy & Pat will do "Texture Magic." Dec. meeting - Holiday Potluck. Jan. Vera with Solvy lace/thread fabric, (Corienne please bring your bag of thrums) Feb. on TBA. Show & Tell

Amy finished her "Leonardo Da Vinci's Sketchbook" for the international painters challenge. She used tissue paper image transfer, acrylic paints, and thread painting, then appliqued a sketchbook, pens & ink, and feather pen to the bottom area. Also a quick sunflower abstract was made from a photo printed on fabric, cut up and hand dyed fabrics added to the composition. Thread painted with lots of rayon threads brought the flower petals into the dyed fabric for a complete picture.

Sylvia's painters challenge is Cezanne, his style is short choppy brush strokes. She has replicated this with small rectangles of hand dyed silk and Wonder Under fusible. One of his many paintings is a local French mountain, she had to dye several blue sky fabrics to get the right shade. The photo doesn't due the sky justice. The quilting is not yet done.

Vera and Meredith made it up to the Quilt Country venues to see the SAQA exhibit, they thought the SAQA was the best, but enjoyed several other fiber and art exhibits in the Corvallis area, including the Philomath Historical Society and a wearables exhibit. Vera had made 18 silk scarves for her daughter to give as parting gifts from her job in Malaysia, she had a photo of the ladies wearing them. Meredith has reached into her archives to bring a poofy black vest and beaded bow tie. The vest fabric was made by poking fabric through a screen and ironing in the poofs, then adding a layer of fusible interfacing to the back of the fabric to set the bubbles into it.

Cheryl has finished getting a leather bottom onto her wool boots. She dyed the leather with acid dyes and "boiled" them to set. Wrong, they shrunk and became hard as rocks. Next she tried it with steam, and got a nice finish to the leather. She and her daughter have started a project to make a queen size "Snail's Trail" pattern bed quilt, for their joint birthday project.

Nancy drew a Halloween pumpkin for Pat G. on her postcard, but Pat is in Australia/New Zealand on a quilt cruise, so she will get it when she is back. Lorraine received a landscape postcard from Tricia, with delicate reeds and a dragonfly.

Jana has gotten a start on Christmas, with a set of batik quail silhouette place mats. Her Halloween hanging with fused cats, got finished with quilting lines that extended the spider webs from the border print.

Lorraine was also in the Halloween mood with her pumpkin table topper, the pieces were fused with "Steam a Seam" on a black background to create the striking contrast.

Dorrie has also been working on Christmas, with a soft red scarf on the knitting tool, and sunflower place mats and napkins. They are making me feel like I need to get a move on for the holidays, blink and it will be Christmas, blink again and it will be 4th of July. Peggy made a cell phone pouch (no photo) with a pattern from Quiltsmart.com they print the pattern onto fusible, and you just fuse to fabric of your choice, cut out and assemble.

Kay brought a whole stack of postcards, she received from an art postcard exchange. There was a huge variety of styles and techniques, with many beautiful images.

Sept. Demo - Foam Words

Amy brought a sample of her printed words on fabric. She used a "Gelli Plate" to do mono-printing on muslin with acrylic paints. GelliArts.com The Gelli Arts website, had a video on printing onto fabric, with foam words stamps, they are a reverse process, so CAN NOT be used for straight printing, but they can be used for rubbings, like a collagograph. We used two foam sheets and white glue to layer a base material (I did not realize the foam I brought was so thin, you might want to add an extra layer) Foam apparently comes in different thicknesses, the 2mm works best. Most of the foam alphabets are self adhesive, so we stuck them on the foam, then cut out the individual words. If you can find Non adhesive words, they can be glued on upside down and reversed and then they CAN be used for stamping. We all had fun playing with the letters, and thinking of fun words. Some one broke RULE #1, the judicious use of vowels. You need to make as many words with as few vowels as possible, other wise you run out of vowels quickly. Combining words and making phrases, is a good way to be inspired to create an art piece.

September Meeting 2013

Old Business Vera is unable to go to the "Quilt County" events in Corvalis, but Peggy wants to go, for info call her, to ride share, and confirm date and time. The SAQA show is at the student Memorial Union building, on campus, and also an exhibit at the LaSalle Center.The "River Runs Through It" was a big hit at the winery, Nancy is checking with the Umpqua Valley Arts Center to display it there. Please check on any other venues that we can pursue. New Business A new theme for our next challenge was voted on, "Weather Report" was chosen with close voting, other suggestions will be saved for future use. The only requirement is a maximum of 20" on a side, it can be smaller, any technique. Hanging sleeves/or other appropriate method for display, and labels MUST be on the piece, or it will not be excepted. This is an informal challenge, quick and easy, you DO NOT HAVE TO participate, it is just to have fun. Dead line is February, after the holidays.

Show & Tell Amy brought a small box, 3" on a side, that she made from the leftover quilted hand dyed fabric, from her 3-D spiral. It is put together with violet rayon satin stitching and has silk ribbon embroidery and beads along the sides. She also had the postcard Kay sent her (no Pic) done with fabric and paper collage.

A lovely large postcard made by Pat G. was passed around, it has fabric collage, and free motion stitching on a large white flower. She had made it for a sample for Cheryl Malkowski's book on fabric postcards. Pat is also planning on going on a quilting cruise, what fun!

Our new member Lorraine bought a cute vintage baby quilt that her mother made her when she was 8 years old, she is surprised it has survived this long. The embroidered woman is very expressive.

Bright sunflowers from a fabric dyeing class, are a stunning example of what Lorraine learned with Phil Bieber in Fortuna, Calif. They painted damp fabric on a frame with MX Procion dyes, then choose from many patterns he had, to make the floral piece.

She is still working on the quilting, it is very detailed and intricate on the flowers.

Cheryl has made a special postcard for Crystal, in our postcard exchange. It has a ribbon rose and embroidery on a floral fabric. She also received from Corienne as beautiful woven postcard in delicate pale blue and white.

Cheryl continues to work on her winter wardrobe, with felted booties. She "accidentally" shrunk/felted an old hand spun wool sweater, so she decided to use the sleeves for boots. She cut them off the sweater, and continued to felt and hand shape them. She will add leather soles to the bottoms for extra strong wear. She also made a stack of wool potholders from miscellaneous knit and woven samples, after learning wool won't melt like acrylic yarns, and it is self extinguishing. I like that last part.

Vera received a postcard from Meredith, that was made with the silk sample squares from Corienne. They were fused in a geometric pattern on to a black backing, and Meredith has been practicing her free motion machine quilting.

Vera has continued her fabric dyeing using corn dextrin resist on a yellow/orange all over pattern, the crackle detail adds a lot to the texture of the print. She used leftover dyes from her silk screen demo, for the cinnamon colored piece, squirting it on and smearing the dye around.

The finished washed fabric from the deconstructed silk screen from last month's demo, showed a lot more color and detail, when it doesn't have all the print paste on it. Vera likes the square that was double printed the best.

Corienne received a postcard from Pat W. of an African theme, titled for our local "Wildlife Safari" park, it's bright colors and embroidered detail were stunning in a small format. Corienne has been busy weaving sets of place mats and towels and other items for the silent auction at her class reunion. (no pics) and she finished a bed quilt for herself from scrappy batiks fabrics. We told her to rip it off her bed and bring it to show & tell next month. Jana reported a new quilt shop in Sutherlin, Oregon, called "Chicks and a Rooster," on S. Comstock St. and that the Oakland, Or. outdoor quilt show in August was a great success, and will be done again next year. A new artist Tricia joined us, she has just moved from Washington DC and wishes to learn art quilting. Welcome Tricia!

Peggy has been working on a fabric collage using one of her paper collages for inspiration. She is practicing her free motion quilting with metallic and rayon threads. We discussed the use of larger #18 needles, Metallica needles and top stitching needles for specialty threads. They all have larger eyes, but the Metallica needle has a groove above the eye for the thread to fit into. She passed out a handout on layouts and formatting in design use. Peggy also had a magazine cover of "Needle News" that has a thread painted portrait, that was so real looking it was unbelievable. It also had articles and book reviews on art quilting.

Meredith received a postcard from Amy, with a mono printed fabric, with the word LAUGH on it, it was embellished with hand dyed cheesecloth and free motion quilting.

Meredith also had all sorts of excuses for not doing any art for show and tell, she passed around her I-pad with a photo of her canning efforts, 60 qts of peaches, 14 pts of pickled beets, 14 qts of pears, ad nauseum.......She also passed around a basket of sycamore bark, if anyone wanted any for weaving or embellishment projects. After show & tell Amy did a demo of using foam words on her "Gelli" prints and for rubbings. I'll detail the demo in the next post.