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Archive for the ‘Columbia FiberArts Guild’ Category

Day 10

Thursday, December 10th, 2015

tylarfeltjacket

My guild, Columbia Fiberarts Guild, had a wonderful speaker at our meeting with yummy show and tell and a chance to spend some money. Tylar Merrill of Thimbleberry Felted Designs in Eugene was the presenter. Above is a jacket with a matching knitted collar.

This is a detail shot of the closure that she made from recycled knitting needles and felted beads.

knitneedleclosure

She is very prolific, creating simple felted jewelry and hats in addition to the larger clothing items. She also does felted wall art and blankets.

tylarfeltedpins

tylarfeltedhats

The intricate work in these capes just blew my mind.

tylarstole1

tylarstole2

She came up with an ingenious one sleeve shawl. I really wanted to get one, but she didn’t had a colorway that worked for me. This is guild member, Jan Story, wearing one of the one armed shawls. The beauty of this design is that it does not slip off your shoulders.

onesleevestole

These are stained glass scarves. They all start out with white silk and black roving. After they are felted, she paints each section with procion dye and then steams it to set the dyes.

stainedglassfeltscarves

This is the scarf that I bought. The colors in this will go with almost every thing in my wardrobe.

tylarscarf

I am happy to report that I am having great success with my knee brace. Today, I was up and about wearing it for over 3 hours. I even did a 30 minute walk with Scooter and Mr C.

I am so happy that Cheryl Sleboda has given me the impetus to start posting every day. It is a good thing.

 

Living Life in the Fast Lane

Thursday, September 24th, 2015

treequiltatexpo

It has been one of those weeks. I am working on a new landscape quilt whenever I can fit it in. I had a wellness check with my doctor on Monday and lunch with Lisa and Clay. On Tuesday, I had a meeting at Trinity to make plans for out multi-generational classes for this coming year. Yesterday, I spent the morning at the Expo Center hanging the new Oregon SAQA exhibit. That is Kristin LaFlamme in the first photo, hanging my Ode to a Tree Quilt.

Today, I spent most of the day at the show, looking at quilts, shopping and working at the guild booth. The guild has an exhibit titled a river runs through it. I have two quilts in the show. Here are a couple by Terry Grant and I, hanging together. These quilts have been out an about before, but fit the theme. I was disappointed with how this show was hung.

GECTGriverquilts

Here is my old friend, Meander, in the show.

meanderriverquilt

Here are the results of my retail therapy:

Some lovely hand dyed cottons from my friend Maureen from California. These will fill in some holes in my stash.

handdyesfromMaureen

 

This is a fat quarter bundle of Marcia Derse designed fabrics. She creates one of a kind prints and then they are reproduced as a fabric line by her. Love these colors.

marciadersebrownfabrics

This is a blurry photo of the landscape quilt I am working on.

landscape2015

Here is the zigzag free motion stitching that I have done.

freemotionzigzag

 

I think I will do some hand stitching. I found some perle cotton at the show and also some teal thread for the sky.

landscapethread

My Sky Blue Pink quilt made it to New York and has a spot on the exhibit postcard.

SPUN2015Postcard_Front_FINAL

SPUN2015 postcard back_FINALTomorrow, I will be hanging out at home, waiting for my new iPhone and quilting the landscape.

Oops! Missing in Action

Sunday, April 19th, 2015

explorelayers2

This may be a record for me! Seventeen days since my last post. I don’t have any exciting reason. I got a really nasty sinus infection with the worst vertigo. Ended up in bed for a few days. Then, this past week, I had a hectic schedule. On Monday, Mr C and I helped to hang the SAQA Oregon Exploring Layers show at the AIR Gallery in Pioneer Place, downtown Portland. It will be there through May 17th. The Gallery is open Thursday – Sunday, noon to 6 pm. That is Walking with Scooter and Mr C hanging at the show.

On Tuesday, I got caught up with some SDA work. On Wednesday, I joined a large group of SAQA members for a docent tour at the Portland Art Museum of Italian Style, a comprehensive look at Italian fashion from the end of the Second World War to the present day.  It was fantastic. I had lunch with friends and then took the street car back home.

On Wednesday night, I went to Trinity for the latest art short course. This month, we are screen printing. I could, of course, teach this class, but it is fun to be a participant. We used torn and cut paper to make our designs. First, I cut craft paper into rectangles in a pattern. by folding and cutting.

cutpaper1

Then, I cut circles in freezer paper.

cutpaper2

Her is my first print from the rectangles.

plackrectangleprint

Then, I printed magenta circles.

trinityprint1

We printed on paper. I am quite happy with this.

On Thursday, I got my neglected hair cut an colored. I felt so much better. Mr C and I took the street car downtown to a symphony concert. It was a one hour free concert for donors, educators and other community folks. It was at 6 pm and and then we stopped at one of the breweries for supper.

On Friday, I got lots of errands done. I found some steel rods to use for my 3-D construction and have started work. Hopefully, I can share some progress tomorrow. I also produced the Constant Contact newsetter for Columbia FiberArts Guild and got it sent Friday night. Whew!

On Saturday, I met a friend at 8:30 in the morning and we drove down to Silverton for our Oregon Critique group meeting. This was the beautiful view of the Silver Lake reservoir from Carol’s deck. So pretty and peaceful.

viewatCarols

Our critic was an artist from Salem. I thought she was a bit too complimentary of our work. Didn’t really get much out of it. I did enjoy seeing the work the others have done.

Betty and I left, Silverton and then went to Pioneer Place to set up for the opening reception of the exhibit. Hung out there until 9 pm, when Mr C came and picked me up. Today, I have been trying to recover from the week and to get caught up on SDA work! Here is a shot from the show. It looks great.

explorelayers1

So, now we are all caught up. I hope I can get back to my regular blogging schedule again.

A Great Workshop

Monday, March 16th, 2015

firstCCworkshopcollage

I spent 3 days last week in a workshop with Cynthia Corbin – best 3 day workshop I have taken in ever so long. I am overflowing with ideas and ways to get myself out of creative funks. She is such a great teacher and wonderful human being.

The title of the workshop was Structure and Variations: Black Fabric Sketch. We cut a rectangle of black fabric and using a rotary cutter, cut shapes. We could do curves or straight cuts. I chose straight cuts for my first piece.

FirstBlackSketch

We then chose fabrics for each piece and used the black fabric as a template. We could machine piece or fuse our pieces. Well, you know what I chose! The first photo is my first composition. This is such a cool way of using my hand-dyed and printed fabrics. Here is my second composition.

SecondCCworkshopcollage

On the second day, we did another black fabric sketch and it was suggested that we do curves if we had done straight lines the first day. I decided to see how this would work for doing a landscape.

landscapeblackclothsketch

And here is my landscape collage of the California golden hills.

landscapecollage

On Saturday, she showed us how to use fabric sketches to make text. I just love this. I chose the word tree as I want to do a piece about trees for the SAQA show that is not a literal piece. Here are my letters. I think I will add an s and line them up vertically with a collage of other fabrics.

treeword

I came home with 3 finished pieces ready to quilt and a great start on another piece. I am one happy artist.

Yesterday, after church, I ran over to Fabric Depot’s big sale to look for some fabric options for my EB Master Class March piece. We are doing lines. Here are my sketches.

GECMarsketch3 GECMarsketch2 GECMarsketch1

She encouraged me to do the top one and PIECE it. Yikes. I want to do it in neutrals so that I can use it for the High Fiber Diet neutral show. Here are my mock ups. Still not sure which one to use.

MarGECMockup

 

No Rest for the Weary

Saturday, September 27th, 2014

GECatNWExpo

Well, I am not that weary, but fortunately, I recovered from my sinus infection and taking care of M & M so that I could keep up with my busy schedule this past week. On Tuesday, I went out to the Expo Center to help hang the SAQA Oregon Show, Exploring Layers. On Wednesday, I was busy, busy doing my left brain SDA work. On Thursday, I went back out to the opening of NW Quilt Expo. I spent a couple of hours at the Columbia FiberArts Guild table, showing some member’s work and promoting the guild. Then, I gave a docent talk for the SAQA show. That is me with my quilt, Walking With Scooter and Mr. C. That quilt has really been getting around.

On Friday, I finally got to my studio to start some clean up and to work on my latest Printed Fabric Bee piece. The queen this month is Leslie Jennison who has asked for Urban Surfaces -think about layered textures of old walls, peeling paint, graffiti, etc., on building walls. I was trying to decide what piece of fabric to use as my base for printing and had an epiphany as I was falling asleep or waking up. (Always get my best ideas, then.) I had done some shibori folds on some cotton scarves that I bought from Darma. They looked horrible – what was I thinking horrible. Here is one of them, dampened and ready to be tortured some more. I will only say that my first step was to paint over the whole thing with diluted black Jacquard DynaFlow paint. I will show the final result in a few days.

 

whatwasithinkingscarf

Intermission: Time to stop, make dinner and go to the symphony.

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg played a violin concerto by Shostakovich. Fantastic concert.

And, I am back!

While at the quilt show, I found my favorite booth with hand-dyes from Maureen Schmidt – a friend from Sonoma County. I bought two packs of neutrals – one, warm and one, cool. High Fiber Diet has neutral as the theme for next year.

neutralfabrics1

neutralfabrics2

And I also found some Radiance (cotton/silk blend) in colors that will be perfect for the commission I am working on.

 

radiancefabrics

This is the gorgeous nuno felted backdrop that my friend, Maris Cavanaugh, made for the guild fashion show.

marisfeltedbackgroundLast, but not least, I finally got to use my new studio tool – an Oliso Smart Iron.

olisoiron

When it is plugged in, it pops up on it’s legs. When you hold it to iron, the legs disappear, but as soon as you let go of it, up it pops. It has a long cord and it goes off after 30 minutes when not in use, unlike most irons, which last for only 7 -8 minutes. I love its bright sunny color.