Fiber Junkies - Girlfriends

 Fiber Junkies had its March meeting at my house - our plans for the day - to work on printing with fugitive materials. You know what they say about the best laid plans......our gathering went from working/playing to celebrating and I might add, one of our happiest meetings ever.

 Even though we had lots of our stuff out...

 and ready to jump in...

We just had to celebrate the return of our 3 gals - Val, Gen and Denny. Val spends 2 months in the winter in Florida....we miss her so much and are thrilled she is back with us for the next 10 months.

 Gen (on left) has been gone due to family medical issues. Her dear hubby Ralph who was 92, passed away recently; he lived a very long, happy and healthy life. He lived by the rule - "A donut a day keeps the doctor away" and a donut a day he always had. He never had to take medicine, played golf up until the end and best of all had a wonderful marriage. A life worth celebrating and celebrate we did with our Gen...back with us.

 And Denny (left) who we've missed so much and haven't seen in months is still dealing with serious family medical issues but she did stop by for a short visit and we were so happy to see her. She has been cleaning out her studio and passing along some wonderful treasures to our group which you can see on the table.

 We also had a quick show and tell - Mary brought this lovely quilt with such a unique color combo.

 It's so striking in person.

 Kate has been experimenting with dry bleach which has some great effects.

Denny brought boxes and boxes of this stuff for all of us to try which we will do at the next meeting.

 And here...more treasures from Denny which we had a great time going through

So we never did get to printing but did go home with some nice treasures and best part got to be with dear girlfriends again - what a happy time.

And still more fun

To continue our adventures in dyeing, we had such a full day and tried so many things. One of my favorite techniques was the scrunch dyeing.

 We soaked fabric in a soda ash solution, wrung it out and visually divided it into thirds. The first third was placed in a bowl and dye mixture poured on top.

 We then scrunched the first part up the side of the bowl so the second area could have dye added.

The third and last part of the fabric had the dye added and as each color was added, you could see the wicking of colors into each other. After it rested a while under clear wrap, it was nuked in the microwave for 1 minute...and now the fun - to see what you get.

Kates fabric on left (as seen in the bowl) and mine on the right. We also had some burlap which took the dye really well. We were unsure as to the fiber content as it had a sheen to it, but doing a burn test assured us it would work and it did beautifully.

 Gauze was also a good candidate - turned out beautiful.

 AND to top off the day, we did some ice dyeing - my favorite.

The results are always so beautiful and I'm never disappointed.

The close ups look so incredible, lots of energy;  it will be a challenge to use them. I also did some over-dyeing of deconstructive prints I wasn't happy with - You can see the mushroom in the fabric on the right, much prettier now.

 We had special non-spill glasses for sipping champagne, Heaven forbid we spill a drop.

 Beautiful beaches when we took a break...

 and we even saw a "sand shark"

 The grasses are amazing and I plan to turn this into a silk screen...

 And when we ran out of fabric to dye, not to worry...there's always underwear!

Our days ended like this. Does it get any better?....Absolutely not!

Girlfriend Fun

It's always great fun to have an escape weekend with girlfriends for a play day. This little adventure involved dyeing fabric using numerous techniques. 

 Our car was packed to the brim, couldn't fit a bobbin pin in, we were off and running(or riding).

 One of the first techniques we were to do was tray dyeing using pleated fabric.  We had to construct a 3 sided tray which we did using 1 x 6" boards.

 Some of the boards were warped but it didn't matter as they were lined with plastic.

 The plastic was used to make "end" pieces and wrapped around the sides and held in place with a staple.

 Next we had to fold our fabric accordian style, making it a little wider than the width of the tray.

 This was done so the sides of the fabric would come up a little on each side.

 It was easier when 2 people lowered the fabric into the tray.

 We had 2 big trays and 1 little tray. Dye solution was poured into the bottom...just enough to cover the tray.

 The fabric was laid on top....

 and a little squishing to help the dye penetrate.

 You can see on this bigger tray, after the middle color was laid on the bottom, the tray was tilted so a second color could be laid in the "crook" of the tray. The fabric was temporarily lifted up slightly to do this...then laid down on the second color.  You can see the wicking of the red into the yellow.

 On the other side, we did the same thing. You have to be conscious of what colors you'll get when they melt together, sometimes hard to do when you're excited and caught up in the process.

 Kate did 2 pieces and this is her second piece....beautiful!

I did just the one piece and decided at the last minute to add the Robins Egg blue which it so needed.
We did many other things and I'll have lots to show and share in the next couple of days.

Our 5th Annual PTA Retreat

I was away this week at our annual PTA retreat - 5 years and going strong.  It was even more fun than last year if that's possible. We arrived around 9:30 on tuesday morning and set up our stations.

 Some of us like to do the same thing so we decide on a quilt, all contribute fabric and pre-cut pieces.

 We also have a snack table with "healthy snacks"  ( - :  Right.....!

 Back at the house for happy hour, we forgot our glass markers so got very creative with ways to identify our glass.

 A carrot secured with a rubber band wins my vote for most creative!

 Our wonderful Mary Berry couldn't join us this year so every chance to toast her with champagne, we did!  We missed you Mary!

 Back at the community room where we sew, eat, laugh and do all kinds of silly things, there actually were some wonderful quilts being made.  Barbara was working on a beautiful blue log cabin.

 Leigh Anne was working on a Kaleidoscope quilt - think she said it was to be Queen size - wow!

 Janice had a beautiful Christmas quilt in the works.

 And 4 of us - Mary, Kate, Gen and myself were making a black and white with bright squares "scrappy" quilt which we all finished!

 This was definitely a no-brainer which you want for retreat. You don't want to think too much or you'll miss all the fun going on.

And at long last, we said good-bye to an old friend - better known as the bird.  This ceramic bird has been part of this group forever. He finds his way into such places as our closets, suitcases and under pillows to name a few.  Those with the great fortune of getting him, embrace him with a groan and half smile. It becomes their job to re-locate him without anyone being the wiser, so we felt it was time he retired.  We found a good home for him in a basket in the living room of our retreat house....Bet your bottom dollar, he'll be there next year when we return.
It was the greatest of fun with the nicest of people - as always