SHE'S CALLED THE 'GRAND DAME' OF AMERICAN QUILTING

Our very own Georgia Bonesteel continues to wow us with her energy and design talents.  Most appropriately her work was featured at the Asheville, NC Quilt Guild Show this weekend. She's best known for inspiring legends of new quilters through her PBS series "Lap Quilting" and the many books that followed.

 Her show began in 1979 and she's not slowing down, even after all these years. Georgia's newly released book "Scrap Happy Quilts" is sure to be a best seller.  She shares updated methods for making 25 classic quilt patterns along with her wit and humor, emphasizing the importance of creating memoirs.        

                                                      
A room filled with quilters.....nearly hushed to complete silence absorbed every word of her lecture.  Several of her quilts were shared with the audience.  She and Linda Cantrell designed and stitched "Roots", an homage to our small fiber art group.  Linda is another award winning entertaining quilter who is also a member group.  We are referred to as the PTA group.....which stands for Professional Textile Artist. This 'family tree' design features hand appliqued black Ultra-suede motifs.  A silhouette of each member of PTA is surrounded by personal icons that depict that person's style/tastes.

Mine is a bit lower of center left....see the word "Bluegrass"....and next to it is the image of the dining hall at Lake Logan.....a retreat center where I organized our annual retreats for 10 years.  If you look really closely....you might want to count the number of wine bottles on this quilt, a definite theme among all our members.  Yes, what a perfect memoir.....roots have grown and generated a close knit fiber group of 14.

 I snapped this pensive photo of Georgia just before she was introduced to the crowd.  It got me wondering just how many times she's quietly stood off to the side, waiting to be introduced to her adoring fans.

Georgia, along with Charlotte Warr Anderson has taught workshops at a small ranch in Wyoming for many years.  She created this fun quilt of her many workshop projects and 4 or 5 using Charlotte's inspiring designs.

Georgia and I had been friends/collages when we both taught on the national quilting circuit....and now I consider her a very special personal pal as well.  One I admire greatly.

A HOLE IN MY HEART

Fiber Junkies Founding member, Valerie McGaughey has gone on to set up a new FJ chapter in heaven.  We know she'll be keeping an eye on us and we'll be sending her good vibes as she continues to inspire new artists.

She was one of the first artists I met when I moved to Asheville.  Her friendship, generosity, talent, kindess, and unwavering spirit of life enriched my world beyond words.

 The FJ's only celebrate big birthdays...those that end in 0.  Val's was the beginning of our tradition of providing the birthday girl with a personalized crown and scepter to wear for the day.  

Val's artistic talent had us all in awe....ALL the time.  If we said it once, we said it a thousand time......we all wanted to share a table with Val.....hoping her talent would rub off.

Gen made all of us knitted hats for Christmas one year.....Val's joy in every single thing is evident.

As Val's health began to fail, she and her husband got a darling support dog for her.....both Skip (Mr. Val) and Halley became honorary Fiber Junkies.

Today there is a hole in my heart.....but I know it will fill with wonderful memories of Val and her kind, happy and humble spirit.

FEELING SPECIAL

Look what came in the mail yesterday!!!  A gorgeous Valentine postcard from the very talented Robbie at Robbies Paw Prints.  I'm sooooo flattered to receive one of her very special postcards. No matter what construction style....this gal can do it all.  It's always fun to see what she's up to...use the link above and wander over to her blog.

Blogger friends are truly the biggest bonus of hosting a blog!  Thank you Robbie.

Now....a note about today.....

Darn it....I was hoping to have a reason to wear my lucky Packer socks that pal Gen knitted for me......but as they say....maybe next year.  For me....football season was over two weeks ago.....(not pouting...just a reality).....but I will say....best wishes for both teams...hope it's an exciting injury free game.

FIBER RETREAT WITH THE BEST BUDDIES

 Three of us fiber buddies just wrapped up 3 days of non-stop fabric dyeing on Folly Beach, SC where friend Kate has a home.  I took a zillion photos.....and will share some of the techniques we used in a few days.  My social schedule is unusually busy at the moment so for now, here's an overview.

 We had many successes, but positive results with natural dyeing using plants still eluded us.  

 The view of the river marsh from our workspace....

Most houses that are adjacent to water are built on stilts.  This provides a great area out of the elements to work.

This is probably our 4th or 5th such retreat and over time we've dyed just about every fiber material we could get our hands on.  There have been many thrift sale finds such as old linens, napkins, aprons, tableclothes, bed sheets, plus socks, underwear.  This time I brought a off white knit nightgown that Judy is holding for the photo.

What a transformation after it was ice-dyed!!

 We divvy up all the chores.......here's one of our lunches that Judy provided.

 Even though we really do work almost non-stop, we take time to walk out on the dock to view the breathtaking sunsets.

Late nights are a given as we launder and iron our treasures.  We came home with an average of 4 pounds of dyed fabrics each.  As they say, a good time was had by all!!

Other artists have been busy this week.....see their treasures here:  Nina-Marie's Off The Wall Friday, Sarah's Whoop, Whoop Friday, Crazy Mom Quilts.

ECO PRINTING MATERIAL

My internet pal, Robbie Payne shared a BIG box of wood chips that she's been using in her eco-dyeing experiments.  Learn about her results on her blog...but continue reading to enjoy the talent she displays, no matter what the construction style she chooses! 

 When Robbie generously offered to share some of her stash with me, little did I dream the gift would be so vast.

The containers hold wood chips from many sources, such as Bolivian Rosewood, Sumac, Sassafras, Sourwood.  I can not WAIT to get some fabric (rolled with leaves and flowers) steeping.  I'll report back when I get this going.  A huge thank you Robbie!! 

LIFTING SPIRITS

The most valuable bonus of my 25+ career as a quilt professional is definitely the folks I've met along the quilting highway.  It's only natural that once the travel stops, contact with so many drops off.

 

So when a package arrived in the mail from my friend Casey in Baltimore....well it certainly put a smile on my face.  How very thoughtful that during her first visit to the famous Lambeau Field and the Green Bay Packer Hall of Fame that she remembered me.

"The husband" and I had just remarked that the first Packer game is only 1 month and a day away.....now that's a true blue GREEN fan!  Until then.....remember these words   GO PACK GO!!!!

Thank you Casey!!!

STUNNING DUTCH WAX BATIK QUILT

From time to time I've mentioned my gratitude over the generosity of my dear friend Helen.  I met her oh so many years ago at the NW Suburban Quilters Guild in suburban Chicago.  

Despite my two moves to two different states, we've remained in touch.  She has an enormous fabric collection....the good stuff.....nothing from Walmart or JoAnne's.  She's shared boxes and boxes of batiks, Japanese inspired prints, hand dyed, and lots of black and whites with me. When I say that about 1/4 of my current fabric stash came directly from her I'm not exaggerating.  

Helen just completed this stunning quilt. I LOVE, LOVE everything about it, esp. knowing how thoughtful she'd been to combine and utilize as much of these rare (original) Dutch wax batik prints as possible.  I'm not sure of the size, but know it's not small....Helen makes BIG quilts.  Click on the image to feast on these gorgeous fabrics.

Beautiful, no???

GIRLFRIEND ART CAMP - PART 2

After whittling down the excess number of photos from our art camp days.....here are a few that might provide some inspiration.

 After disappointing results over our first ice-dyed fabrics, the duds were selected for further enhancement.  We used mostly acrylic paints, some full strength, others thinned.  Stencils, stamps, texture plates, etc. provided the designs.

Nan found this treasure at a salvage store.....some sort of printing plate we think....it had sturdy raised metal motifs, attached to a wooden base.

She placed one of the pale fabric on the plate and dabbed it with a mixture of several colors of paint using a sponge rubber pounce. (Click to enlarge)

 Here's another one of her pieces, created using a variety of stencils.

 By now you can see how pitiful the fabric turned out that first day....again....since we followed the procedure I've used numerous times, it's still a mystery why they dyed so poorly. 

However.....if there's one thing Fiber Junkie Denny has taught me.....if you don't like the results the first time.....do-overs are the solution....and do-overs can be done more than once!  I applied torn painters tape to this piece......

.......then painted the fabric with thinned acrylic paint using a small foam brush.

This is a flexible rubber place mat.....

.......which was placed over my pale, ugly fabric. Using an old plastic awards/credit card, full strength metallic paint was pressed through the circular cutouts.

 Some of our fabrics were rayon, which also didn't color well.  Yup....I'm still scratching my head, esp. because rayon always dyes beautifully.  The motifs were added using stencils, mixed, thinned, and full strength acrylic paints.

Of course I had to ice-dye some felted wool.  This National Nonwoven's 80/20 'woolfelt' began as a peachy color.....some is still visible after the dyeing process.

So....I thinned some paint.....

 ......and using a basket weave stencil to transform it into what I now consider a usable background.

Gwen used a plastic coated wire grid (used for landscaping) to provide the background design on a piece of muslin.  Next, she stenciled ferns and a firefly. Dang....I didn't get a final photo....it was adorable after adding some brightly colored flowers.

Happily, we did have success with our next batches of ice-dyeing.....here's just one example.  

Another year ended on a satisfying note....good friends, good conversations, good food, good art......  I'm already looking forward to next year! Nan has gotten interested in making glass.....hummmmm....a whole new area of art to explore.  Grab a couple of pals and organize your own art camp....for a day, a few days, or a week.....happiness is sure to follow.

Check out what others have been creating this week:   Nina-Marie's Off the Wall Friday,  Crazy Mom Quilts, Whoop, Whoop Friday, 

GIRLFRIEND ART CAMP IN AZ

I'm fortunate to have such a generous friend who has now offered her home for the 5th year in a row for our "Girlfriend Art Camp". (Thank you Nan!!)  We planned to do some ice-dyeing one day, but ended up doing two trays the first day and one each the next two days.

 I've shared the steps involved with this technique several times in the past so this is only a brief overview.  After soaking our fabrics in soda ash, squeezing out the excess after 24 hours, we layered them in plastic trays.....one layer on the bottom to catch the extra dye, then added raised racks to hold the remaining fabric.  

I had recently read that soaking for 24 hours achieves better color......so we tried that approach....frankly, the color was worse. So we went back to doing just quick soaks instead.

 The fabrics were covered with ice.

Dye powder was applied (wearing masks and gloves).

Then encased with black plastic and left out in the warm AZ sun.  We waited till the next morning to view our creations.

 In the meantime, we made personal pizzas......way too much good food is consumed in these couple of days.

 Here's the biggest success.  Nan had purchased a never worn wedding dress in a resale shop. I think she paid $10.00.....all silk......lots and lots of laces and pearls.  So we decided to cut it into sections and ice dye it.  Here are some drying on her bushes......FABULOUS RESULTS!!!

 Our first day of ice-dyeing was fairly disappointing.....we still can't figure out why.....the wedding gown fabrics were wonderful, but none of these cottons and rayons had much color or interest.  

Of course that only meant we could spend another day enhancing them with paints and even redying some........stay tuned.....

BRAGGING ABOUT MY FRIEND

Call me grateful for the fabulous, talented friends that enhance my life!

How often do we exclaim...what a small world?!?  This area of NC tends to have more folks that relocated from the East....rather than the Midwest.  So it's quite astonishing to have gotten acquainted with another Sheboygan, WI born and bred gal who moved here several years ago.

She's so modest about her talents......and one very special one is the unique, exquisite pine needle baskets she weaves.  She doesn't typically sell them, so I feel very fortunate to have her custom make these two baskets.

Thank you to Lynn Wagner Mehring!!!

detail below

ECO-PRINT DYEING - FINAL THOUGHTS

FIRST - thank you, thank you to those generous readers of this blog who've taken the time to share a comment or connect with me personally, offering insights about eco-print dyeing.  Clearly, there are a host of methods to achieve results and there are a host of variables within those methods that can alter the outcome.  AND...finally, one's willingness to accept surprises will also impact the success of such experiments.

 I'd brought a few cotton hankies, dollies, and piece of machine made lace.  After realizing our initial approach wasn't providing good results, we began to simply experiment. I loosely scrunched the items on plastic lids.......  

 ....then poured some iron solution over each and let them sit in the hot sun for hours.  (After they were dry, the larger piece was unfolded and displayed on marsh grass for the purpose of this photo.)

By now we were grabbing everything within reach to see 'what if'.  This piece of silk noil contains salt, turmeric, cumin, red pepper flakes, and blueberries.  It was rolled as usual onto a dowel, tied and processed for at least 2 hours in our iron solution.

 We didn't give up completely using foliage....it turns out that ferns printed nicely....and the addition of the spices we used added a lot more color.

 We did give up using rice steamers, realizing that they simply didn't provide enough heat to achieve anything but very pale color.  But, before we did, we added ground red pepper to the water....hoping that would help.  It didn't.

Instead, a simple hot plate with an inexpensive aluminum pan worked very well.

Kate got super interested in working with fruit....here she's smashed blueberries and cherries, along with some turmeric.  It too was rolled on a dowel, tied and processed in the iron solution.

Judy gave me a piece of China silk. Kate had also been playing with tea....interested to see what the tannin would do.  It wasn't as successful as she'd hoped.  However, that left a bunch of wet tea bags on our supply table so after sprinkling turmeric and red pepper on the fabric....along with a spritz of vinegar, I arranged 6 tea bags and folded the whole thing into a package.  It too was processed in the iron solution.

Here's the finished piece.....which I quite like!

So....this concludes the "Eco-Print Storigram".  We have so much fun together, honestly if we'd have ended up with cow pies we would have been happy!  Why not grab some of your like-minded pals and plan a day or two to do your own experiments?