The Artful Bra Challenge

The Fiber Arts Alliance along with Kitsch Fabrics invite you to the Artful Bra Challenge reception being held this Saturday, April 30 starting a 6: pm at Kitsch Fabrics, 742 Haywood Road in West Asheville. This event is being held to benefit the group - Ladies Night Out - a program offering free physicals, mammograms and health education for qualifying uninsured and underinsured women in the Asheville area.
Artists have created the most amazing, fun and interesting bras which are on display at Kitsch Fabrics. The whole idea is to view each one....pick your favorite and then vote for $1 a vote. You can do this by going to the store (all bras are on display there) or online. To vote and see them all online go to www.kitschfabrics.com and click on "Vote for Artful Bras".

All proceeds will go to Ladies Night Out...a very worthwhile cause.

At the last count, there were close to 40 bras and every one so different and unique...some will have you laughing out loud (like Meg Mandersons)....some will have you oohing and ahhing, some will tug at your heartstrings...Just have to see them in person - they're wonderful!

The reception on Saturday evening proves to be a lot of fun with refreshments, an auction and door prizes plus the chance to visit with so many fiber-lovin friends. There has been a lot effort putting together this fund raiser along with many generous donations from local businesses and individual artists.

Hope you can stop by....for more info you can contact Kitsch Fabrics at 828-505-8280 or go to their website for a list of donors, prizes and other good stuff......I know it will be a great evening!

Iris

I recently had the opportunity to participate in an upcoming show (this summer) at the Biltmore Estate. The Deerpark restaurant on the grounds of the estate has a wonderful space often used for shows and exhibits. This piece was almost finished when I heard about the show ....and it fit the theme. All I had to do was add a back to it (you'll see what I mean at the end of the post). I did lots of threadwork using rayon and metallic threads.....but....

my friend Mary S always says..."everything is better with beads" and I'm starting to come round to her way of thinking. Since the back was still open, I could add some beads.....hmmmmm...might make it prettier. So I searched through my very small stash of beads and as luck would have it.......I found 2 different purples and green...looks like this was meant to be. I used a size 12 quilting needle which fit most of the seed beads, a special beading thread and worked from the back of the piece.

Mary warned me this was addictive....okay...just one more row and so on and so on and then maybe I'll stop....and maybe not.

It really did a lot for the piece.

And then some green beads on the leaves.

Now that the beading is done...time to finish the back. Many of my pieces are "museum wrapped" using wide stretcher bars. These wooden bars are most often used for stretching canvas for paintings. The fabric is brought around to the back and stapled using an electric or heavy duty stapler.

Staples are placed very close together - @ 1" apart to insure a nice tight wrap. The back needs to be covered to hide everything and to give a nice clean finish. You can see how the open back allowed me to do beadwork.I cut a piece of muslin the size of the back plus seam allowances. I usually machine sew a long line of stitching along the fold line. This line of stitching allows me to see "where to turn" under. I also prepare a label and sew it on by machine using a zig-zag stitch before attaching the back to the piece.

I pin like crazy....usually 1 side at a time. And now for the tedious part (and it is tedious!) I hand sew the back piece to the edge. Sewing on a hard edge like this using a straight needle is difficult and very slow going...but I like the results.

To hang, I use an awl and poke small holes through the fabric and into the wood frame, twist in an eye hook and run picture frame wire (which is softer than regular wire) through the eyes.

This makes for easy hanging....

And here's the finished piece!

Waynesville Outing

Our fiber group - PTA (Piecers, Talkers, Appliquers) went to Waynesville yesterday to see the new exhibit by LINT (Ladies in New Textiles). We had lunch first and then entered mainstreet from a lot behind....first thing we saw were these huge metal sculptures and of course it became "picture taking time". Here's Connie... And Mary.....

And...."Oh no".....we didn't see this til after the fact...really, truly...honestly, we didn't!

We headed on over to the exhibit which is at the Haywood County Arts Council on Main Street in Waynesville, NC. It runs through April 30...Hope you get a chance to see it, it's a wonderful show.

Here are my 3 pieces....part of a series on trees. I might add that this is national poetry month so a poem accompanied each artists work....a poem we liked or worked with our art. I chose Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - a poem I really like but also works well with my particular pieces.

Kathy Roig is one of our weavers and does some beautiful wall hangings as well as clothing.

Vickie Essig is a weaver also. Her work is beautiful, delicate and very unique. Vickie creates these very fine weavings where she'll incorporate text and other delicate items such as seeds, tiny nails and here .... a Cicada wing. The picture doesn't come close to how wonderful they are in person.

Jude Stuecker created a very unique piece...a lifesize figure filled with her favorite things. Her poem of choice is printed on the piece - Change of Season by Audre Lorde. It's a wonderful piece to see upclose and personal.

Susan Lee created this wonderful, colorful abstract piece.

Suzanne Gernandt - a weaver, created several of these weavings for the show - very detailed and lovely in person.

Sondra Dorn works with a lot of digital imagery she creates herself and has printed on fabric.

Mary Stori did this series featuring the four seasons...just beautiful in person. At one point I commented on the sparkle the thread gave in the "winter" piece...turns out to be beads (lots of them) and not thread - amazing!

and a detail...all the leaves are made using the needlelace technique.

Janice Maddox created this next piece...actually started at one of our PTA retreats. We had no idea where she was going with this...Wow, it turned out great!

Peggy DeBell is a quilt artist and also writes poety so she wrote the poem for this piece along with poems for several other pieces. Peggy works with recycled materials to create these wonderful collage pieces.

Several of my favorite artists were left out...not intentionally...the pictures did not come out. I'm sorry you did not get to see the work of Norma Bradley and Carment Grier....their contribution to the show was wonderful and I do hope you all have a chance to drop by and see it.

"Re-Focus"

I used to be in this wonderful fiber group when I lived in Marietta, Georgia...FSG also known as Focus Study Group. I remember my friend Pat started the group so many years ago. I had been a member for over 10 years when I left Marietta 8 years ago; it's still going strong. The group has seen many changes, new members, new directions - and I'm always impressed when I get to visit ....to see what everyone has been up to and their latest, newest work. This very talented group of 8 women have a show coming up. The postcard alone has me chomping at the bit to see it...up close and personal. I'm hoping to make it to the opening which is this Friday! I know their pieces will include lots of interesting surface design techniques as well as wonderful hand and machine work. The pictures on the card are in the same order as the artists listed. If you're in the area, I know they would love it if you dropped by (and you will too). The show runs for almost a month - Art center address and phone are on the card along with hours.

Will take lots of pictures to give a full report...signing off for now!

More Funky Houses

While at our PTA retreat, I worked on my "Funky Houses" quilt...it's been a lot of fun. The more I do, the more I want to do...keep thinking of new ideas. It's the type of quilt that lets your imagination go crazy and be as silly as possible. This little house used commercial fabric, 3 different roofs before I found the perfect one, a cement stovepipe-like chimney and an opening in a building (kind of spooky with no end to it) that became a mysterious door. I was debating as to whether or not to put a "pair of eyes" at the end....

I loved this brick wall which also became a roof...but didn't work on this particular house.

This grating became the roof I used...It worked well with the endless door. I realized I posted the wrong "final picture" of this house so will post the one I'm using with next set of houses.

This is one of my favorite houses (below) and uses a picture of icicles taken along the Blue Ridge Parkway along with mushrooms and cement for the chimney.

The door was from a rock building I photographed years ago.

The icicles and moss made a perfect roof.

and mushrooms photographed on a morning walk...look almost fake they are so "perfect"...can't beat Mother Nature.

Will post more houses as they come together....it's been big fun.

PTA Retreat Part 2

Just to continue with our wonderful adventure....here is Linda ready to go home....hitchhiking! And speaking of Linda...here are 2 of her wonderful quilts that she was working on at the retreat. She brought lots of handwork which is also conducive to socializing....Smart! Linda (Cantrell) has been known for years for both her "humorous" quilts and her beautiful hand appliqued quilts...this is a new direction for her ...which is also quite wonderful.

Linda does a lot of fusing but then treats the edge with an additional seam sealer type product and sews a straight stitch around the edge which produces a very clean finish.

One of the fun things this year was having other fiber groups (Fiber Fanatics and members of the Asheville Quilt Guild) sharing the grounds and dining hall with us. They used a different room for sewing which was a good excuse for us to visit our other quilting buddies. Here is Jean Karpen from Asheville Quilt Guild working on a split 9-patch. Not being a piecer, I wasn't familiar with this technique but I loved what I saw and she was happy to share it with me.

Jean started with a 9-patch...always using the same fabric in the center.

Then cut into 4 equal parts...so the center color is in each block.

and put together in this formation...thought this was very clever...can't wait to see it finished.

Another quilt we saw as we visited was this wonderful baby quilt...it just makes you smile as you look at it...what a great choice of fabrics to surround the dogs and cats in the center. It's simple but so effective.

Kate gave us a mini lesson in rusting fabric. Kate learned by watching the DVD made by Lois Jarvis...you can check it out on her website.

Kate brought bottles, wire, steel wool, fabric and everything we needed to do this...it was great fun.

We sprayed the fabric with water, sprinkled it with salt, laid steel wool and rusted little bits on top and wrapped it around a bottle. We secured both ends with a rubber band and then put copper wire around the middle to create a banding effect.

One thing I thought was interesting was that Kate got her copper wire from a broken appliance. It was a little bit of work to get to it, but it yielded lots and lots of wire for us to play with.

Here are some of Kates wonderful pieces....

Depending on how much steel wool you use, determines the depth of color.

Think we'll have to do something as a group with these wonderful fabrics....will post a picture of mine tomorrow...don't have my camera right now...but I'm very tickled at how it came out.