Fiber Junkies - Where Do I Begin?

Fiber Junkies met yesterday at Gen's home for a very fun filled day of playing and chatting. We have decided to have our show and tell in the morning with our coffee to give us more time to play in the afternoon.

 Mary showed us a lovely plaid quilt she has been piecing with her new Janome foot which works like a dream. She has experienced so much frustration over sewing a good straight stitch and finally found the foot that works.

 Mary also showed us a house warming present for her son who will be moving into a new home shortly. Since he lives in San Francisco, how appropriate to make the Golden Gate Bridge.

 There is so much detail to this piece such as

 the beautiful and extensive stitching to create grass along the shoreline.

 The bird was a nice touch...and then my favorite...the bicycle!

 Her son who likes to ride his bike had to be featured...well, it took us a while to figure out how she did this very intricate bicycle. Mary printed it on a fusible backed fabric, using the same fabric as the background and then cut around the outside only. When fusing down, it blends perfectly with the background because they are the same fabric. Clever Girl!....

 And the binding...each section done in appropriate fabric to match that area...very effective.

 And the backing using the same color way and a ribbon motif which resembels the arches of the bridge.

 Denny has become quite the piecer and every meeting seems to have at least one new quilt to show. She did a beautiful job matching points which is always impressive to me.

 She has also been taking a 10 year Master class with Hollis Chatelaine. This group has stayed together to work on new challenges presented to them each year. The culmination of their efforts is a mini retreat where they share and present their work. One of the challenges was to recreate a piece they've done in neutrals and to keep the theme but distort it. Denny took an old time theme park and fast forwarded it to recreate it in a very run down state. It's quite clever and interesting to see. She used paint in areas to create shadows and also the refection of the moon on the water.

The old ferris wheel...

 and a delapidated roller coaster..

 This month we were exploring alchol based inks, markers, powdered pigments etc.   - lots of interesting information. Denny showed us her sample of inks and pens all labeled for referece.

 She also had some lovely samples with Sharpies using rubbing alcohol for blurring the edges.

 and more samples...

Val brought along a piece of watercolor paper she had rusted and was going to work on...this will probably become a book cover. There is so much to cover, this will be continued tomorrow and hope you come back...it gets better and better.