March Art Group

Sheila's collaborative project - yes, Virginia, that's actual size!

Amazing how time flies and how quickly these monthly meetings of my art group come up, pushing all of us, I think, to get a little work done to show and possibly get feedback on. I've been working in collaboration with a representative from my diocese to design and execute a liturgical stole for our new (and first ever) female bishop. I'd done some research for possible edits on the first design draft sent me, and without the meeting, might still be dragging my feet about printing out the things I'd found at approximate size for the stole. As always, the gals had insights and ideas that helped so much.

Just a few of Meg's snow dyes.

In truth, we moved the meeting from the 3rd Monday to the 4th Monday for member Rebecca who had a conflict on our regular day. Irony of ironies, she broke her wrist the previous weekend, required surgery and was not up to attending the meeting. However, our sharing of our snow dyes last month apparently started something. Two other members tried their hand at this using our information and the stacks of snow that have been slow to melt and just look at the results! Believe it or not, except for that gorgeous raspberry piece, Meg was going for skin tones with the different brown dyes she tried.

Terrie's folding results plus fabric in the bottom and a single layer scrunch

Terrie experimented with scrunching and laying mostly flat

Terrie too tried the snow dyeing, both the parfait method (some folded) and the single layer scrunched method. In one case she wanted to leave the fabric mostly flat and did not have a rack large enough. Instead, she placed branches in her big bin and rested the fabric on that. The darker parts along the ends are where the fabric draped down into the melted snow/dye.

Terrie's silk tie find

Detail of some of the tie fabric

Terrie also brought this silk tie piece she found, I believe in a second hand shop. Even though it has some "issues" she knew she had to purchase it and bring it home. The detail shot is of a couple of tie fabrics I particularly liked - very textured as if embroidered.

Bark cloth backing to the silk tie piece.

The backing is a piece of bark cloth - so popular in 1950's home decorating. Its design certainly has nothing to do with the front! There is no batting.

Vickie's latest project

Vickie is busy on another piece where she is trying out lots of things, including stenciling and stamping with blue Elmer's glue resist and flour paste for a crackle effect, all being painted over before being removed.

Vickie combines surface design techniques with machine and hand quilting.

The orange through the middle is dyed cheesecloth with netting over it to make the free-motion machine quilting easier. She has also added her signature big stitch hand quilting and has just started adding beads.

Robin's boro

Finally, Robin, who went on that fabulous textile tour in Japan back in January, shared a boro she is working on. I think she learned about this traditional Japanese mending technique on her trip and told us more about its history. I just love the look of this, the colors and fabrics that look so Japanese (some are traditional Japanese indigos) and the way she arranged the rectangular, square and round patches.

Look closely - the patches are not pieced nor are the edges turned under. Everything is overlapped and held in place with those rows of big stitches. In this one she has used a cotton batting but is finding it makes the hand quilting difficult. Next time she may forgo batting altogether. For now she's working on getting her stitches more even.

Robin's hexagon quilt - all hand sewn.

More handwork from Robin - this is a piece she started a long time ago, and like most of us, she's looking at her aging UFO's and pulling some out with an eye to finishing them. She has many many hexagons already cut and basted over forms. Now it is just a matter of continuing the whip-stitching of them together - an in-front-of-the-TV evening project - and considering how to finish it out (border?). We all sighed with her at the work before her but agreed that it is quite beautiful and has a Japanese feel to it. Well, it should because it includes a lot of traditional kimono fabrics!

 

We met at the bank where the POAC 100 Artist Exhibit is displayed so that following the meeting we could peruse the art and practice our critiquing skills. I'll share some of that art in the next post. In the meantime, hope you enjoyed seeing what we are working on. And once again, we all left quite energized.