I had a great time at the meeting yesterday and it really didn’t have anything to do with the actual meeting.
After the business and show and tell, we sat down to work on the picture I posted earlier this week as our workshop picture. We split up and added more tables so people had more space to work and I sat with Gerre and Rhonda. Gerre was doing work in her collage book (a giant board book she bought at a thrift store and then gessoed over. Great idea!!!) in colors vaguely related to the picture I posted. I would have taken the picture, but since it was in a book with beautiful collages, I thought it might be rude.;-)
I really didn’t know that Gerre was so talented with collage. I adore this piece and think it would make a great card.
Rhonda was doing her very precise improv piecing in the colors of the posted photo, tending towards the abstract. I was preparing a piece of white fabric for later painting with Tsukineko inks.
I finished my work pretty quickly. It really didn’t go as I intended and I didn’t want to work on it anymore, so I offered to press Rhonda’s strips. She sat and sewed her improv strips and I walked back and forth pressing them and getting more.
After some time I heard Bron talking about folded boxes. Rhonda said she needed some for her niece and nephew for Easter, so Bron and I sat down to make them, with Bron doing the teaching. It is amazing how they go together and I can see many of my wrapping problems evaporating.
Rhonda picked out the bird paper. We made two of the same and this box is about 3″ square.
I decided it would be great to make my MIL a box and put a small gift in it for Easter, so we grabbed some sheets of wallpaper and I made a larger box from a 15″ sheet while Bron made a slightly smaller box, perhaps from an 11″ sheet. I ended up taking both home and will give one to someone else soon. I stopped and got some nice soaps to include in them.
Nota bene: We meet at FabMo and we have, pretty much, the run of the materials they have available. We still put donations in their box; we just don’t have to wait until selection day. In addition to fabric, they had books of wallpaper from which we took the larger sheets for the gift boxes. They are nice, because the sheets coordinate, though they are not always large. Some are half sheets or 3/4s sheets, which is why Bron made her box smaller. I thought some wallpaper with stripes would look great, but we didn’t see any in the quick look.
I enjoyed pressing for Rhonda and making the boxes. It interested me more than my Workshop piece.
The meeting went well. We talked about dues. We will be kicking people off the list soon, so people need to pay up. The Retreat is on and full, which si great. I can’t wait to check in and get sewing. I am going to work on the Field Day Zipper (I know! Blast from the past, right?) and the next Food Quilt. I suspect you can believe I won’t be working on FOTY 2014, but it works better for me to take more time and that requires working at home. I really want to get these two quilts done and 36 hours of sewing may be just what the doctored ordered.
The Field Day Zipper will be a gift. The fabrics and partially sewn pieces are clogging up my cutting table and I would like to get it done. I like the colors, but they are not demanding my time or attention. Too muddy. You knew that right?
The Food Quilt 2 will be a gift as well. It will be for a friend of Y.M.’s. We are friends with his parents and every kid should have a quilt. I keep looking at the Y.M.’s Food Quilt and trying to decide if I have cut enough fabric for the blocks I have slated to be made. The pattern is a Disappearing 9 Patch and I have decided that I will make 16 blocks. That means I need 64 food fabric patches (have already cut them), 64 black and white print fabric patches (almost none cut) and 16 purple patches, almost all of which are cut.
If I finish both of these projects, I also have the Box Full of Letters quilt on which to work. That will take come kind of miracle.
Anyway, the Retreat will be fun and I will have a lot to tell you about when I return.
The SFPL show is almost over. I’ll write more about that later. Be sure and go see it.
Rhonda will lead a workshop in June concerned with embellishment and hand embroidery. I can’t wait for that. I used some Aurifil embroidery thread for my ATCs and loved it! I will definitely buy more of that stuff.
Marie chimed in that there is a Stitchery show up at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles right at the moment. Fitting, don’t you think?
Show and tell was fabulous. Everyone does such interesting work and they all said kind things to me about the two pieces I brought: FOTY 2013 and the Hawaiian Donation Quilt. I know I haven’t written about them yet. Stay tuned for upcoming posts on those finishes.
Dolores and Sonja are taking an online class with Elizabeth Barton. They are regularly bringing their pieces to show us and it is interesting to see the process through which they are working.
Sonja’s piece was a follow-up to a flower she finished a few years ago that took forever. This newest piece was finished within the month.
I love the curves and the lines. The color palette emphasizes the design and there is no distraction from color.
Caroline does amazing landscapes and she is nearly finished with another one in her series of Lone Cypresses (Monterey Coast).
She threadpainted the greenery, but a new member showed some cheesecloth she had dyed, which sparked a discussion on the merits of making the greenery with cheesecloth instead of all of that threadpainting. Definitely doable, though different looks would be emphasized, I think. It was an interesting discussion.
Valerie, one of the visitors does amazing work. I didn’t get to talk with her much, but she brought her dyed cheesecloth and embroidery floss as well as a bag she made from hand dyed fabric. I seriously thought about trying to slips some of her embroidery thread into my bag. I restrained myself and decided to make friends with her if she comes back. 😉 She also brought large covered buttons with beading work using seed beads, some fabric postcards and a fantastic name tag.
As I said, it was a great meeting. I learned something, got to see my friends and got something to write about for you. The perfect day. 😉
