November 2007

Our November meeting had us working on more ATC's (Artist Trading Cards). Some of us were making refrigerator magnets for gifts, some were making cards, others were just building our ATC stash so we can trade. Several of us brought finished ones to show off! Here is a picture of the ATC's that are done.

Sandy O is very prolific and here are some of hers

Some more of Sandy's

Some of the other's

and some more

And Linda K was wearing an adorable doll pin she made

Linda J had continued to explore the Flower Pounding technique we worked on in October. She did much more pounding, using the last of the fall color in her yard on cotton and muslin treated with Alum. She found the muslin seemed to work the best at absorbing the flowers and leaves' color. She then took a permanent black fabric marker and outlined her results. Very stunning!


A detail.

The weather has turned nasty cold here and Thanksgiving brought our first snow of the year (as usual), I hope it won't interfere with our next meeting - we are going to play with Spirit Wards from the latest issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors!

Deb H

October's Meeting!

EFF met at the Library this month due to a last minute school schedule conflict. Since it is so close and the library is so accommodating to us, it was just fine. They didn't even complain when we made so much noise, you'd have thought we were remodeling the meeting room! More to follow...

Several of us just got back from spectacular workshops. Linda J was at a four day workshop in North Carolina at the John C. Campbell Folk School called Playing with Curves taught by Pat Meinecke. She showed us her wonderful quilt-in-progress with all kinds of perfectly pieced curves and circles. She was delighted with how much she had learned.

Margot L, Linda J, and me (Deb H) just got back from workshops at Fabrications Fiber Art Retreat. Margot took Del's class and showed us her mixed media creation - a 3D floral that was very cool and contemporary. Linda was in the fabric painting class with Desi Vaughn and showed us a huge stack of really wonderful painted fabrics using a multitude of techniques, lots involved sun printing. Some of these just knocked our socks off! I gave a quick recap of my class with Laura Cater-Woods and showed the quilt that they have seen sooooo many times before because it was stuck and I just couldn't figure out how to save it or move it forward and I liked it enough not to trash it. It's on the move again - yahoo! For Show & Tell, Kay S had a needle felted witch's hat with needle felted flowers and a vine and leaf wandering the peak of the hat. It was lay-down-and-dye (pun intended) adorable! Sorry, I had my camera and forgot to take pictures at this point - oops!


But before we called it a night we tried our best to annoy the whole library. We tried a little leaf and flower pounding. We all agreed, this is the best way to take out any and all aggressions :o)

Being a last minute idea, inspired by the lovely fall leaves here in Michigan right now, we did not have time to pre-treat our fabric properly. We did have a roll of PhotoFabric cotton twill by Muttonhead (Blumenthal Craft). It's a pretreated fabric that is backed with paper, you can feed it through your printer to print on fabric and it makes the printer inks permanent once rinsed in cold water. We tried it on that and after pressing with a hot iron, removing the paper backing and rinsing in cold water, then drying with a hot iron, it seems to be permanent. I guess only laundering a few times will really tell how much, but.... How often do you wash wall art anyway?

None of us produced art here but we did discover some interesting facts;


all plant matter should be very fresh
leaves and flowers that had more "juice" transferred a lot easier (even with just a rolling pin)
leaves and flowers that had too much "juice" gave water-color effects
to appease library staff who are troubled by the noise, invite them to join in the fun
it's better to hammer on leaves and flowers than people whom you are angry with ;o)


This may not replace regular dyeing and painting for me but it does have a lot of potential for a surface design technique.


Whew! I'm all caught up, see you next month!

Deb H

Busy Fall!

Hi all,

Well, I'm a bit late but here is September's post.

September's meeting found us back at the school in our fabulous art classroom. Ah, home! We were a small group this month and our topic was art journaling. Not as in "journals as art" but as in "journaling our artistic efforts". So, not the pretty little journals, memory books, and picture books that are a work of art in themselves, but the kind that you use to track (journal) all of your artistic thoughts and ideas. It appears these kinds of journals can fall into the first category as well, but are really a way to think through a project, help us with our bazillion issues that have to do with just plain being a working artist (whether professional or hobbyist) and a place to collect all those ideas that just need to get written or drawn down. The photo above is a journaling aid I picked up at Borders. It's a pre-decorated, small journal that you are supposed to write down your thoughts or art ideas that are spurred by the accompanying card deck of art related essays. These types of journaling aids are ideal to get you started if you are not sure how to proceed with one and to break-up a creative "block".

But most of us use journals to plan out art projects and write our own essays to get us through difficult points of art or creative dead-ends. We scribble ideas down in quick sketches, write a brief description of a concept worth developing and paste in pictures from nature, magazines, the Internet (whatever) that inspired an idea. Here are some of the journals that we shared;

From very neat to very messy to very colorful. But they all do the job!

That's all for this month!

Deb H

August Meeting!

Our last summer meeting was August 15th at the library. In September we will meet at the school in our marvelous art classroom! The agenda for Setember is not finalized yet, but it will be geat!

So, for August we had a lesson on some of the elements of design. Cathy A led us through a few eye opening exercises. The first one was to draw a posed figure without looking at our paper in 10 seconds. I will NOT post my results of that exercise. They were hugely funky and not in a good way :oP"""""
Next we sectioned off our paper into six boxes and crated lines to express certain concepts or emotions. <--- From top left to bottom right they were; feminine, overheated (I could relate to this one, sigh), angry, cheerful, masuline, and relaxed. Here are the results of my efforts.

Next, we did the same type of thing using color. ---> Our words were; fresh, tired, energized, slow, road trip, and Birthday. Here is my 20 second rendition.

Lastley, we divided our page into three sections and cut up magazines. We pasted images we liked into the three sections and then decided the emotions the mini collages brought to mind. <--- Here is my cut-and-paste. It was great fun (felt like grade school :o) and I learned that my "art language" is definately COLOR, as opposed to line or image, to create a feeling in my work.

We all had such different results, I should have remembered my camera so I could post others work. It was very revealing and I'm off to do some more, there is always more to learn!

I have managed to update our meeting dates on the side bar. Come join us if you are close!

Until next month! Deb H

July Meeting

Here are the paper exercises we did in July.

First up, we picked one color, a more intense version of that color, and it's complement. Then we cut out graphic designs to make positive/negative images.


Secondly, we chose complementary colors, then chose more paper to create an analogous + complement color scheme. We used the analogous colors to fill space.


Lastly, we did a group exercise, round robin style:

This was great fun!

How could these exercises translate into fiber? The first one might be interesting translated into thread painting or quilting. What if a design is quilted in yellow thread on black fabric? What if it's black thread on yellow fabric?

Could the analogous color exercise be used to design a literal image such as a face? How might this idea translate into a traditional quilt block?

The elements in our final exercise pull it all together. We started by dividing space (anything but in half!), then we added text, black and white elements, printed image, and finally filled out the design to balance it. Think of all the ways you could add these elements with fiber......

April Meeting!

Pat S is one of our most prolific members and she has three of her ATC's (Artists Trading Cards) published in a new book by Patricia Bolton, publisher of Art Quilt Magazine (among others). Go to our "Gallery" to see the inside photo of her three cards. Good work Pat!!!

At Show & Tell she shared some of her latest work with us; the blue fern piece has a photo printed on fabric - twice! The sheer fabric is mounted about an inch in front of the back photo and give the work a very 3-D look. She had seen it in Quilting Arts and had to give it a try.

Another one of Pat's recent pieces; beads and wire on hand dyed China silk.











Another Show & Tell dazzler; Sandy O's denum jacket that she has embellished. Beautiful!

Or meeting was a review of some techniques we've done in the past for our newest members; torturing Tyvek, Shiva Paint Sticks on fabric, silk screening, and a few other things.









But one of the fun events involved Cathy A pulling out her hand-dyed fabrics that were left from her booth at the Chicago Quilt Show last month. They were gorgeous and turned into a "feeding frenzy". No one was surprised except Cathy (and don't you just lover her pink hair?)!

March Meeting!

Our March meeting was fabulous. We unveiled some of the quilts for our "Eye" challenge. Not everyone has finished their quilts (yours truly included) but the quilts that were there; finished, unfinished, and sketches of great things to come, were very impressive. At left is Kay S, Pat S, & Sandy O discussing some of Sandy's incredible work.

We had a great show and tell as well; Many people had the yarns and fabrics they dyed last month and they looked marvelous - sorry I didn't get photos of those - I spaced out!

http://www.sheepyhollowherbs.com/ is a local herb and wool farm that is owned by Jenny D. who did a great demo of Needle Felting for us. She showed us some incredible techniques for needle felting as an embellishment to our work. The wheels are spinning (so to speak) with ideas for adding this medium to our embellishment tool box.

And last, but not least - we hit the big time! This meeting was the 2nd anniversary of our group, two years have flown by and we have grown as a group and as artists. To celebrate we had cake (thanks Kay!) and a reporter from the Tri-City Times of Imlay City come and interview or group. In the March 4th edition we appeared - Cool, huh?

Feb '07 Meeting - Dyeing!

We decided we needed a dye day to play with some MX dye stocks left over from other projects. MX is a fiber reactive dye for cellulose fibers (cotton, rayon, linen, etc) and after it's been in a dyestock solution for several days it loses it's ability to "react". But the experts tell us it can still be used as an acid dye (acid dyes are used on protein fibers such as wool and silk). So.... we are testing this concept!

Linda J is dyeing roving for spinning. Linda K's roving is in the foreground.

The fibers we are dyeing have been soaking in an acid (citric acid) solution to bring their pH down to 5.0. We can then paint our dye stock solution on the fibers and nuke them in a microwave (very carefully, can't set the building on fire!) to set the colors.

Left,

Debra G is painting sock yarn.

Right, Kay S is painting yarn and wool fabric.

Margot L painted lace - yum!

Right, Howard - I mean Linda K has her roving ready for the microwave.

Sandy G is painting silk dupioni!

Stay tuned next month (ish) for the results of our ground breaking and art-world shattering experiments!

Respectfully Submitted - Deb H

Eye for Fiber - Lagniappe!

Hi all,
Lagniappe: Cajun, a popular term in southern Louisiana meaning “a little something extra” – a gift or show of appreciation. This is an extra e-mail to share something with y’all I thought was really cool!
While perusing some of my favorite Blogs this morning,
http://fibermania.blogspot.com/
http://www.persistentillusion.com/blogblog/index.php
http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/
http://www.funkyc.blogspot.com/ this is our own Cathy C; my favorite because it’s almost always good for a deep belly laugh :o) Thanks Cathy!

But, while on Fibermania, Melody Johnson mentioned this fiber artist and I clicked the link, only to be blown away by her work. Stunning!!!
http://www.deidreadams.com/

Enjoy! And see you at our meeting,
Deb H

Eye for Fiber Newsletter - February 2007

Hi all!
Since some of our member's spam blockers consider me a moral threat (just kidding, Barb!) I have posted our newsletter here...

But first, a quick recap. January's meeting was stellar. We were led in another session of machine quilting, focusing on original designs and contemporary quilting. I learned so much and we even got a peppering of Ricky Tim's wisdom thrown in (not in person, obviously ;o). I found the whole thing very inspiring and helpful. Sorry I didn't get any pictures - I forgot my camera!

Next Meeting's Info:
Our next meeting is February 21st at the school at 5 PM (ish). For directions/address/map to the school, check the link in the General Meeting Information section below.
We will be doing acid dyeing with MX dyes. This will be mostly left over dyes from other dyeing projects, but we may try some fresh powder too to see what the different results might be.
Supplies;
WEAR OLD CLOTHES! I can’t tell you how many clothes I have ruined thinking I wouldn’t get messy :oP""
Bring any protein fiber, yarn or fabric to dye. That is wool, silk, soy silk, alpaca (any animal fiber), etc.
If you have a "dye" dedicated microwave or dye dedicated microwaveable containers, bring them too. Also anything you want for a mechanical resist; string, rubber bands (stinky), plastic clips, needle and thread for Shibori, etc.
An idea of what colors you might want to play with.

Cheers!
Deb

December & January Meetings

We had a really great meeting in December. Cathy A. taught us about the techniques of machine quilting. She covered a lot of tips on smooth lines (boy, do I need to practice!) and even bobbin drawing - very cool! Threads, following a design, etc. It was very beneficial to those of us who need all the help we can get in that area (me!).

January (tonight's meeting) will be taking it one step further. Our teacher's quilts are wonderfully full of interesting designs of machine quilting that really complement the design and elements of the quilt they are on. She is going to cover the designing of the quilting that can make your art quilt even better! Another area of quilting that I desperately need!

Did I mention that quilting is not my strong point? :oP""

Deb H

Eye for Fiber Challenge!

Eye for Fiber has decided on a challenge for our group members. Most of us are already working on our mini quilts for those who have not started, here is a reminder of the rules;
The theme is vision; the eye, how you see the world(?), something about vision.
Size is 18” x 24”, you may pick the orientation (portrait or landscape).
It must be an original design by you.
Technique: totally up to you!
Due Date: March Meeting (3/21/2007)
What is the purpose of our challenge?
1) To get us to our fiber stash and working on art!
2) To put together a body of work as a group.
3) To challenge us to work a little outside of our box(s) and grow as artists.

Sew on!
Deb H