May Show & Share

Karen made a clothesline basket at a class run by Lois.
We'll probably be making these baskets at a fall CinC meeting. Lois says buy your all-cotton clothesline NOW. It's a seasonal item that won't be available in fall or winter.


Inside Karen's Rainbow clothesline basket.


Karen's felted clutch bag, made at a May workshop run by Lynda (our resident Felter and Fiber Artist).


Betty beaded an amazing Ocean "to use up some old beads." She used 1500 yards of Fireline in this piece. See if you can find the squid - brain coral - and seaweed.


Detail of Betty's Ocean.


Betty's Paisley bag.


Michele's thread sketched Lakefly postcard. It is May, after all!


Sandy's Neck Tie Bags made from Fox Valley sewing instructor (coach) Donna Teagan's pattern.


Georgina (guest) is knitting an afghan.


Lynda's varigated dyed wool yarn (which she does with a canning jar set-up).


Theresa's Family made a Star-within-a-Star Quilt.


Pat made a set of Artist Trading Cards.


Pat's Indian Dancer Quilt.


Brenda discovered a new magazine that is worth a look. Click on the picture to learn more ...

Reveal of Walk-a-Mile Challenge

May was the big reveal of Karen's Walk-a-Mile Challenge.

The basics for this challenge : Walk one mile down the road of your choice and pick up anything that you can find that has possibilities. Work it into a wall hanging use anything you find, muslin, one focus fabric (it must be something you already own, there is no shopping involved in this challenge) and all of the paint, ink and anything else you want.


Karen presented her self-portrait that used a rust-dyed fabric for a background, potato chip bag for body and flowers. Curly hair is cut from a foam tube. Stars are cut from a mylar bag food bag.


Michele made a riverbed postcard from a zapped Ghiradhelli chocolate chip bag, net, a scrap from a billboard, lace and beads. Read more about the making of it.


Brenda's "Whimsy" includes an old pizza box transformed into a moth, beer bottles, Skoal tins and more ...


Detail of Brenda's Whimsy.



"Which Path Would You Take" by Lois incorporates product wrappers turned into billboards along a road; cars made from a lighter and Caramex tube; a music CD for Sweetest Day turned round-about. She mounted it all on an old canvas.


Lynda dyed wool yarn with compost - pomegranite and onion skins with Madder Root (and some synthetic red) with oak leaves. (In the corner, you can see part of the vest she is knitting from her Newfie's dog's wool.)


Betty used a technique seen on Quilting Arts using recycled plastic shopping bags, green net bags, sequins, a broken bike reflector (among other things) fused with a heat tool to make the composed fabric for this clutch.

Detail shot of another sample of Betty's composed plastic bag fabric.


Pat made a self-portrait from items she found along a road in Arizona. Her self-portrait incorporates seed pods, a shoelace, broken glass, broken concrete, and a bent bottle cap for lips.

Karen provided a book prize for participants (won by Brenda in a drawing):

Making Fabric Beads : Demo by Lois W.

Detail of an embellished fabric bead in Lois' Persephone wall hanging (mixed media).

The full Persephone by Lois W.


From a bag of fabric scraps like this, you can make fabric beads. Some of these scraps are already backed with fusible. If not, Lois recommends the THICK version of Heat 'n Bond.


In this picture, it's a little hard to tell that Lois is rolling a triangle of fabric onto a wooden dowel or knitting needle over a hot iron. The iron is hot-side up (so be careful not to burn yourself) so it can engage the fusible.


That's how you end up with tubes like these, which can be cut down to the desired size and embellished.


This is some wire that Lois scavenged from a dead electrical appliance (a bread maker?). She is using the copper wire to embellish her fabric beads in the following pictures :


You can string other beads onto the wire and wrap them onto the fabric bead. You could also wrap with yarns.

You can also work with Kunin Felt and a heat gun to make fabric beads.

Wrap the painted, embellished felt around a wooden dowel (metal knitting needles can get too hot). YOu may need to pin it so it stays in place while you are zapping it :



A zapped Kunin Felt Bead.



This is an example of how the Kunin felt distresses and gets "moth-eaten" with the application of heat.

Some examples of composed fabric made with felt, organza, beads, metallic and acrylic paints and other bits of leftovers and scraps. Lois said these were entirely held together by just zapping it with the heat gun :


Although these look like beautiful pieces in-and-of-themselves, they could all be cut up and used to make fabric beads as described above.




This one may be on a base of painted Tyvek.

For more information, check out the following books (Don't forget to try your local public library.) :

Fabric Art Workshop by Susan Stein


Raising the Surface with Machine Embroidery by Maggie Gray

If you make any fabric beads using these (or other) techniques, please bring them to a future mtg of CinC. Thanks for the demo, Lois.

April Show & Share : Spotlight on Jo's Hand Dyes

Jo Holden brought a stack of her hand-dyed fabric for Show & Share this month.
I won't try to explain the techniques, because I'll probably get something wrong ... She uses some traditional shibori techniques, along with parfait, shaving cream marbles, and snow-dyeing. Enjoy this Feast for Your Eyes :
















That's Jo peaking out from behind this pole-wrapped shibori piece.







Jo--anytime you want to offer a workshop, we'll be there!