FIBER JUNKIES HOLIDAY GATHERING

We gathered at Judy's house for our 2014 Fiber Junkies holiday meeting.....

Besides being such a gracious hostess, she goes all out with her decorations, making it a wonderful festive day. 

We are in the heart of Christmas tree farms.....this live tree was a beauty.

We feasted like we haven't eaten in weeks.  Our menu was topped off by Denny's yule log......it was as delicious as it looked. To her credit....she willingly admits that she 'made it' by picking up the phone.....

 Our show and tell was pretty much a Denny show this month.......it was just one great piece after another!  She utilized some dyed/printed fabrics to make large rocks.

 Here is a close up of the 'mortar'!!

 This is such a charming piece......but it was the textured tree bark that awed me.

 I'll interrupt the 'Denny show' with this marbled piece made by Kate. She wasn't thrilled with the original design, so she brought it the day we painted completed/quilted pieces with house paint.  After numerous applications using several colors, plus highlighting with some metallic paints.....it was truly transformed. Her trademark machine quilting elevates the entire work. 

 I wish I had photos of the dozen plus looks this piece had.  Denny brought it to our paint day.....but it had already been stitched, dyed, painted, stenciled, and so on.  By the end of the paint day it was BLACK....seriously......she kept adding paint the entire day and was so unhappy with the results.....she decided to paint the whole thing black.  And...honestly it didn't look bad.  After taking it home....she got after it again.....taking a sander and removing some of the layers.  Then she continued with more surface design techniques.  Finally when she was satisfied.....it was covered with polyurethane. 

 DETAIL

Since I'm bragging on Denny......please take a moment to really meet her here.  She's a retired psychiatric nurse and feminist therapist.  Recently she has focused on a series of 'healing' quilts.

Now....this is truly brilliant.....her quilts are LARGE and heavy....and nearly impossible to easily transport as a group so she turned to Spoonflower.  She had the images of the quilts printed onto individual pieces of fabric.  She sashed and stitched them into a managable size wall quilt. (Note how large it is...by comparing her holding it.)

But she didn't stop there.....she made a 2nd one about half the size......what a GREAT idea to preserve her quilts! (This one she's holding it by the top with two fingers of each hand!)

 And finally, isn't this a great portrait?  Denny has decided to scale back her vast collection and this piece (if I recall correctly with all 6 of us talking at once)....it's going to the model.

....Come back again.....to see our Christmas gift exchange.