Thursday, May 21, 2009

May 2009 Newsletter

Minor schedule change (see below for details) – May will be “Bag Lady Night” and we’ll have our Paintstik experience in June. It will be ultra cool.
--Katy
Recap of April Meeting (April 30, 2009)
It was a small group, but we had fun swapping our accumulated “stuff” and working on projects. Lois brought in some scary ugly fabric, and showed us how she does “ugly fabric rescue”: get it wet and crunch it up. Let it dry and then fuse it down, in “crunched” form. It turns into a beautiful textured surface.

Show and tell was fun as usual: Lois’s quilt caught my eye because her “Tiny Bubbles” piece featured two of my favorite colors – orange and purple! It’s gorgeous. Karen finished her lighthouse quilt, and we love the sparkle she incorporated in it. Michele’s pictorial quilt skills just grow and grow – we loved her piece from a Wendy Butler Berns class featuring glue baste appliqué.

May Meeting (May 28, 2009)
Because of some staffing changes at Richeson’s, we’ve had to delay our Paintstik night. So, May will be Bag Lady Night. Bring any fiber art bags/purses/totes that you’ve made for show and tell and Q&A. We’ll make it a work night focused on bags. If you don’t have any projects already cooking or ideas you’ve been meaning to try, why not try one of the Quilting Arts patterns that came out recently?

Announcements and Reminders
The Shiva Paintstik night will be held at Richeson’s on June 25 in lieu of our regular meeting. We’ll join up with the Sew Savvy group, and one of the Richesons will take us through some demonstrations and exercises. They’ll have “stuff” available to buy at the end, too, if you would like. This is a huge opportunity to learn from the source, right here in our hometown. (We’ll have to reschedule felted pincushions, which was originally slated for June.)

Upcoming Events
May 28, 2009: May meeting, 6:30, Bag Lady Night
June 25, 2009: June meeting, 6:30, Shiva night at Richeson’s
July 30, 2009: July meeting, 6:30, Demo night
August 27, 2009: August meeting, 6:30, Artist Trading Cards or Inchies

Conversations in Cloth meets the last Thursday of each month at 6:30 at the Menasha Public Library.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

April 09 Show and Share

Only 4 of us at the April Meeting. Here's what we brought to show :

Lois Wolfe's art quilt. At the meeting, she was adding beadwork, so we'll be interested to see the finished piece!


Another piece by Lois Wolf. This work was the result of a class with Sue Benner (?)


Karen's piece from the Sue Benner class.


This is the result of the online Faces-in-Fabric class Michele has been taking with Terri Stegmiller at Two Creative Studios. It combines applique with fabric painting.


Lois shared a method for saving ugly fabric : Scrunch it up, spritz it with water, and steam the heck out of it to add texture. There may also be some fusible interfacing on the back to help it keep it's new shape.


Karen brought these surgical scissors that are wonderful for "un-sewing."