MARCH SHOW AND TELL

February's Show and Tell

No small talk.  Let's get to the goods for this month.  A nice variety!  Carroll Lee provides pictures and commentary.  Thanks lady!

Ladies, thank you for sharing!

February. A lesson in Thread Painting

Hello Ladies!

First off,  there were some nice comments related to me about the blog so I want to thank you for your kind thoughts.

This meeting we covered thread painting.  Sue Gilgen headed up this meeting's adventure and everyone I talked to said it was fun, they learned a lot and feel they can now start thread painting with more confidence.  We call that in the learning community "The Magnificent Trifecta".

Sue Gilgen, Carroll Lee Stolz and Margaret Abramshe set up three thread painting demo tables. Each member spent 20-25 minutes at each table. Sue Gilgen showed some of her tips and tricks.  Carrol Lee made a tumbleweed on solvy sandwiched between two pieces of twill.  Margaret  demonstrated casual thread painting on a drawing made on muslin. She demo'ed on a Brother machine to illustrate that you don't need an expensive sewing machine to achieve nice results.  Margaret also talked about thread painting on her Sweet Sixteen so if you have a midarm and missed the meeting - she is a resource.

No pics.  Sorry.  But here is the Info Margaret provided us prior to the meeting that you will find useful as you give thread painting a go:

A thread sketch uses your sewing machines capacity to turn a  line of stitching into a sketch by tracing an image you draw on  cloth.  

Supplies: Sewing machine, set to a basic straight stitch Thread -  my suggestion is a neutral or earth tone like black, dull green, gray,  or brown.  Bobbin thread does not have to match but should be something that does not “show” A scrap of muslin or any white or cream fabric about the size of typing paper or less Pilot  FRIXION erasable pen ( you could also use a quilters marking pencil or pen) Poly batting with fusible on one side.  (temtex works well too) 
 Instructions:

1. Draw a simple sketch of a house or landscape using the erasable pen or print a image that uses simple lines and trace that image. (Hint: look for images that are pencil drawings or sketches). The drawing should be less than 8 x 10 and not very complex.

2. Fuse a good fabric (I use kona cotton) to batting. Place the sketch on the non fusible top of batting.

3. Put this quilt sandwich under you standard foot along a line of the drawing and trace that line a few times. Leave the needle down and continue to trace the lines by moving the quilt sandwich. 

4. Try reversing the stitch direction to darken lines. 

5. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT GOING OUTSIDE OF THE LINE!

6. Without cutting the thread, put your feed dogs down. Push and pull the quilt sandwich along lines that are not straight or areas of your sketch that are shaded. Think of this like scribbling with your sewing machine instead of a crayon. 

7. Play, play and more play with feed dogs up or down.  

When you are done, get out some watercolors or water soluble pencils and color in your picture possibly adding a background. As you color the erasable pen will disappear. 

Now get thread painting because that is your assignment over this month.  Bring your results to the next meeting which will be on March 6th where we will be learning all things beading.  Charm Crumrine and Jan Passek will be teaching.  Charm and Jan, do we need to bring anything for your purposes?

Fibers and Fabric

Rosemary talking fiber and fabric

 Tuesday Jan 9^th Rosemary Hargrove gave a talk about fibers and fabric.  Rosemary ran a fashion fabric store for 22 years, and is very familiar with all types of natural and man-made fibers.  We discussed natural vs manufactured fibers and a variety of weaves.  We were able to touch and feel similar weaves made of different fibers and compare.  She put a name to many fabrics she passed around.  I think all left with a better understanding of the media that we all use and why.  All were challenged to experiment and use something different in a small work.  Cathie Purdy was also there to show her collection of silk fat quarters available to add to your collection.

Cathie Purdy was also there to show her collection of silk fat quarters available to add to your collection.

A closer look for the web browsers...

Thank you to Rosemary and Cathie for providing us with such an informative talk and Cathie for binging in her silk collection.  Also thank you to Carroll Lee for holding down the meeting and blog fort while Cheryl and I were gone.

Show and Tell

Hi Ladies,

You'd think being confined to reclining (yes, that's a thing, not just something I made up - but I totally wish I had and could call it medicinal) that I would have jammed out a post on all the lovely show and tell items our artists brought in.  But no.

I was actually building the anticipation. 

OK up to bat #1:  Patti Van Oordt's appliques were a part of 12 fusible applique quilt blocks in the book Seasonal Silhouettes by Edyta Sitar.  Each block represents a different month and can be assembled into a large quilt or used as smaller wall hangings.


So the first is memorializing summer.  Haha, just kiddin ya.  Very festive.

 I am picture level challenged.  Sorry Patti.

 Patti brought in the Christmas tree you see in the background.  She is all about creating mood for her art.  Clever.

 And here we have Sue Swinyard's zentangle.  Her zentangles are so interesting and different.  Love.

January brought in some new and interesting treasures.  Wish I was there to see them live.  Thank you ladies of January's art installments (and Patti for December's) for such good descriptions.  Big thank you to Carroll Lee who took all the picture and for making me laugh with her emails.  Needed that lady.

First January entry:  Charlotte Gary's  "Still Beautiful". She says:  "When people do flowers, they tend to only draw the buds or flowers in various stages of bloom. I have been focused on the flower that is in it's later stages of life, much like most of us are. We are 'still beautiful'. I just wanted to show that. (she did)  I textured the canvas with a texture medium and painted it with acrylic paint. I wrote and scratched out words. Things like life and death, the circle of life, beginning and ending. My grandma's names, my mom's name, my aunt's names my mother-in-laws names and my girls names.... I placed the roses, leaves and stamps over the word. I made the petals, leaves and other parts of the roses from silk, burning the edges, holding them over a candle. I glued the petals to the canvas with permanent white glue, added yarn for the stems... didn't like the way the yarn looked to I mixed the texture medium with paint and put that over the yarn.  I stitched some down and am stitching beads in place for the center of my focus flower. I still have more beading to do...."

I told her I liked "later in life" poppies. Anyone else like them?  Still pretty even when their showy flowers drop.  And functional.

And here is Cindy Oxley with her small quilt.It is one of three pieces she will be doing as a result of a really fun Laura Wasilowski class she took via the Dixie Quilt Guild.  It is a combination of quilting, fusing, fabric weaving and embroidery.

 Finally, Wanda Bublick brought a sampler made in a weaving class done over an 8 week period. Each week they were taught 2-3 new stitches. They added each one for about 1-2 inches then started a new stitch ending up with a Sampler about 3 1/2 feet long. The top a stick is one her dog brought back from a camping trip (the dog has good taste). Wanda said it was fun to learn a new skill and it has given her ideas for new art projects.

 OK now.  Check out the next post.  Short but sweet.   Hint: Rosemary sorta sweet.   See you in a few weeks! 

Merry Christmas!

They are dreaming of all the fiber they will be chewing and mauling next year.  It will be.... fabulous.

You Know It's a Party When...

The ladies don their party hats?

The ladies think paper plates are party hats?

Some tried to pretend they didn't enjoy the plates on their head.  Others enjoyed getting a room full of women to put paper plates on their head while they remained hatless (you know who you are).

But this table was filled with sporting women who wore their hats with elan!

What was the best part of the evening?  Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section.  I will leave mine here since I am writing the post.  I enjoyed meeting Cheryl's mom Louise.  She has a smile that is ever so charming.  It was also nice to see some of our members personalities.  Often we are sitting and listening or talking about projects we are working on, but last night it was more friendly and funny.  A real treat to be surrounded by both funny and talented ladies.

The best news of the evening is that Cheryl said she wants to lead the group for another year!  Apparently she enjoys hard work and stress.

I wish I had a picture of Cheryl with a mean face because I would insert it right here.  

 But I don't have one. 

 Mean face because she is reading that part about leading another year and wants to throttle me.  Nope.  She is giving us 6 months to find another fearless leader.  Luckily there are plenty of talented and well organized ladies to step up and lead.  Consider it and let Cheryl know.

Now for your entertainment... a little video of the post card challenge:

Now how about some Show and Tell!  No I am holding those back for next month.  Sorry.  They were really good too.   😁

But.  There is one last thing...

Next meeting:  Bring in any fabrics you have that you have ever wondered what they are and how to handle them.  We will be getting a nice lesson on all things fabric.

Until then, happy new year, merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah and may the new year be full fabric lint and thread from manic. blissful creation!