October HiFiber Meeting

Last month HiFiber members presented portraits to the person who's name they had previously drawn about eight months ago. Those who were not going to be there asked that we not display their portraits until this meeting. Judy R. on the left presented Penny L with her portrait.

Penny is a world traveler thus the world with the bite taken out of the side.

We all filled out a form with lots of information about ourselves to help the member come up with ideas.

Judy R. also gave a demo about how to make fabric beads. It looked like Judy had brought all the embellishments she has in her studio. She showed us paints, tyvek, yarn, you name it and you can make beads from it. I was so engrossed in the process that I forgot to take photos of all the members in action. The beads above are some that I made.

Penny L. was the only one to bring show and tell. We meet in a gallery and don't always have wall space so we laid this one in the floor. Doesn't show it off well but it is quite lovely.

Penny asked for helpful suggestion on how she might quilt this piece. As usual we had plenty of ideas. I think Penny decided that she was going to machine quilt horizontal wavy lines across the piece. We hope to see it finished soon.

More October Focus Meeting

My blog continues with more of the Focus Meeting. I wish to make this statement. The photos do not give credit to the quilts. They were pinned to a hanging quilt rack with black fabric behind them. It's impossible to get them to hang straight. So on with the show.

One of Dixie's beautiful Pineapple quilts took third place at the Asheville Show. Sorry I don't know what category.

A new Pineapple quilt that Dixie is working on.

This won best machine quilting for Sabrina in the Spartanburg Guild challenge.

Donna brought three pieces in progress. The last one had been attached to a canvas and Donna wasn't happy with the way it was finished. Several choices were discussed. We'll hopefully we will see all three of these later.

Diana won a Silver Award for Machine Quilting on this piece at the Floyd, Va. quilt show last month.

Diana and her husband, recently retired, are doing some much anticipated RV traveling. She decided to have a project ready to hand piece during these trips. This beautiful piece is one of them.

OOPS! I gave the Silver ribbon to the wrong quilt. This one won a Silver ribbon at Floyd, Va.

Diana's been in Veronica's scrap bag again. This piece looks lake a Scrabble game to me.

Marge's "Heartwood" won second place in the Art Quilt division at the Asheville, NC show. Marge also took us up to her studio to show the progress of her HUGE quilt that we have been following for more than a year. It's almost ready to quilt.

I know I've missed taking some photos and I've already posted what I took for show & tell so won't do that again. I apologize again for the poor photos and for missing so much information. I was quilt handicapped hearing all the back and forth information that should go with some of these quilts.

Be on the lookout for my next post on my HiFiber Fiber Arts meeting.

Oct. Focus Meeting

This has been one busy week with meetings, appointments and one fun day with an old friend. It's been so busy that I have ignored my blog.

So, here goes. Focus met this week at Marge Edie's beautiful home. A few members were missing but we were happy to have an old or should I say ex member join us again. Judy Hayward has moved back to our area and is again joining us.

This is "Summer Soiree" which won Best of Show at the Asheville, NC quilt show this month. Judy's quilting in this piece is outstanding. In fact all her work is outstanding. I was able to get some close-ups of a few of the motifs used in this quilt.

This is the center design.

One of Judy's beautiful designs.

Judy also joined the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge this year.

Not bad for a little over a weeks work. Wish I could do my own work faster. Actually that's why I joined FFFC last year hoping to be able to move my process on a littler faster. This month I didn't even try, to much other STUFF going on.

This is a new piece that Judy is working on. She has a series of flower quilts that are titled with "lady" as part of the title. Can't remember what she said the name would be on this one. Sorry Judy, a senior moment.

This color palette is very different for Judy. Can't wait to see it finished.

I can see that I'm not going to get this finished today, too much to say. More later.

Mother Nature "Best of Show"

Last weekend the annual Keowee River Scarecrow Festival was held in Seneca, SC. Various organizations were invited to make a scarecrow for the festival.

My friend and fellow fiber artist Judy Rapelje along with Donna Juras are members of The Artist' Loft located at 121B Townville St. in Seneca. Judy and Donna took on the job to make a scarecrow for their group.

Mother Nature was made to sit by their tent at the festival. As we all know Mother Nature, especially in the Fall, is know for her beauty. Judy and Donna's represented her well as she won 'Best of Show'.

Mother Natures's Bra

Donna Juras and Judy Rapelje creators of Mother Nature

She now resides at the Loft and should be around until well into November should anyone care to visit her. The hours of The Artist' Loft are 12 - 5 Tues. through Saturday behind the purple door.

A Happy Dance--Art Quilts XVI: Something to Say

I received an email today from Vision Gallery in Chandler AZ that "Connor" was juried into Art Quilts XVI. The show will hang from November 28, 2011 through January 28, 2012. This is the second year that I have been juried into this show but this year is just as exciting.

This quilt is personal for me since it is of my grandson, Connor. I've told the story behind this quilt before but if you will bear with me I will tell it again. Last year my husband and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. We took our family to Costa Rica as a celebration.

One of the tours we took was of a pineapple plantation. The guide was very personable and made the information interesting to young and old alike. He stopped our trolly and taking his machete cut a pineapple out of the field. He proceeded to cut the pineapple up into small pieces to pass around for everyone to have a taste. Our grandson, Connor was at the back of the trolly and when the guide got to Connor all the pieces were gone.

Connor had a turned down smile when the guide got to him. He was presented with the core of the pineapple. The look on his face as he reveled in munching the core was caught by my son in this photograph.

As soon as I saw the photo I knew I had to see if I could capture his look in fabric. I think I did and I'm excited that it was juried into this show.

Memories

This is a photograph of my Father just a year or so before he passed away. I've been having a bit of sadness today as I prepare his photo as a demo for an upcoming class. I always try to do a demo portrait as I explain the different steps to my class.

Today I decided to search through my photos to find two photos of my Dad that I remember so well. They had not been digitized and I really had to do a closet search to find these two old photographs. I knew they were in a box but not where the box was located. Finally I found them.

I scanned them into my computer and am working on the steps to make them into a pattern for my "Fabricating Faces" class.

I love this photo. In the original my Mom is beside him. Daddy wore a light blue sweater and Mama a pink dress. I always thought my Dad was the most handsome man I had ever met.

Today as I work with the photo of Daddy as an older man I am struck by the kindness in his eyes. I see his gentleness in my son Gary, his love for all people in my daughter, Lisa, his love of God in my daughter, Lorin and his love for nature in my son, Michael.

My children remember how Daddy was able to make his ears wiggle and were amazed at him being able to take his tongue and move his teeth out and back into his mouth in one fail swoop. They remember how devastated he was when we came back to NC for a visit and the children found out their special Mimosa tree had been cute down. He hadn't realized how special that tree was for them and he was so sad that he had cut it down.

He had the most beautiful hands. I don't think hands are something that are noticed on a man. He was a laborer, a wonderful Father, a husband, a brother, a man of music. He was a wonderful man,.

A Play Day

Yesterday I got together with friends Bonnie Ouellette and Ann Hanewald. Bonnie had us over to her house where she had already mixed dyes for us to play with.

Ann and I have been wanting to dye silk scarves but weren't really interested in going with dye made for silk. Bonnie uses Procyon dyes for cotton fabric and we have been reading on the Art Digest about using Procyon dyes on silk. You have to soak the silk in white vinegar for 30 minutes, ring out and add dye to a baggie.

You then place the baggie in the microwave and steam. We set the time for 2 minutes and, with the exception of the green dye, the dye set in that amount of time. Don't know why the green took longer.

Bonnie and Ann waiting for the silk to steam.

It was so good to get out of the studio and do something other than work on classes. I want to do some stamping on a few of the scarves to see how that works. Back to working on classes for now.

Hang In There With Me

I'm busy writing information for a new class that I will be teaching in Nov. I am spending almost all day on the computer. That makes posting not very appealing at night when I usually do this. Hopefully I'll be creating soon.

Finally A New Post

It's been a while since I've had time to post. I was on vacation last week and had a very relaxing time. I've been very busy since then but most of what I'm doing is preparing for two big classes that are coming up.

I'm teaching a long weekend class for the Quilters of South Carolina Fall Retreat. The class is "Fabricating Faces" and I prepare the pattern for each person's portrait. I always go over this part in my class but time doesn't usually allow me to spend much time on that part. This looks to be a fun class.

QSC Fall Retreat is held at White Oak Baptist Conference Center. It's a perfect place for this type of retreat. Hotel, food, class rooms and an auditorium for night meetings. The retreat is Oct 20-23.

In Nov. I'm teaching at J. C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. The class is Nov. 6-12 and is called "Personal Places: Portraits in the landscape. When I found out last week that I had won a ribbon at the IQA Show in Houston I decided that I really wanted to go to receive the ribbon in person. When I made that decision to go I knew that all my projects would have to be put aside and I would have to have everything ready to go to Campbell before I left for Houston.

I've spend the day working in PSE 8 getting photos ready for that class and emailed to the group. For some reason I always think that I haven't accomplished anything when I spend the day doing computer work. I hope to share some of these blended photos but am waiting for my students to give me the Okay. During lunch I broke a tooth eating, of all things, a toasted cheese sandwich. So I'm off tomorrow morning to see how many trips to the dentist that will take.

I'm So Excited and I Just Can't Help It.

"Ohm" I got a phone call from Crystal in Houston today to tell me my entry "Ohm" was a winner in the IQA Show in Nov. I am still shaking. Tuesday we left to go on vacation to Hilton Head, SC. We didn't get here until about 5:00. As I was putting our clothes away my cell phone rang. When I answer it I was disconnected. Didn't think anything about it but later decided I should check my recent calls in case it was one of our children trying to reach us. The phone number was listed and it said Houston, TX. I had a little heart flutter but decided that it must have been a wrong number. The next day I carried my phone with me all day but once again missed a phone call from TX. About this time I say Marie Elkins post on Art Digest saying she had gotten a call from Crystal at Houston telling her she was one of the top eight winners in the show. So I was really getting excited that perhaps Crystal was calling me to tell me that I was a winner in something. We do all dream about this right? Today she called again and I actually got to speak to her. She told me that I was cash winner but she couldn't tell me what place. I am still shaking. This is beyond my wildest dreams. I hadn't planned to go to Houston this year because I start teaching a week long class on that Sunday. I'm going to have to get very organized and get my stuff ready because I AM GOING TO HOUSTON. For some reason blogger wouldn't let me use paragraphs in my post. Sorry, that makes it difficult to read.