November

 A slightly different meeting than planned as our presenter was unable to attend but an interesting and productive meeting.

We have two new members, Linda W. and Shirley P.  We will use initials to differentiate them from our members, Linda K. and Shirley W.  Welcome both of you.

We talked about the Whispers display at the Armstrong Museum and Art Gallery.  It has been beautifully presented by the hanging committee there and shows very well.  Joan's piece sold on opening night and we have since sold 3 of the Raising the Surface pieces as well.  

In our Challenge this year, Pioneering Women of BC, we have decided that starting in January we would give a small talk about the woman we chose for our inspiration.  A sign up sheet has been started and you can contact Christine to be added to the list.  These are short introductory talks so more than one can be done in a day.

Shirley W. shared a book called Gumption and Grit, Women of the Cariboo Chilcotin that could be inspirational for our challenge this year.

It had been requested that we have a few more sign ups for the Toolbox Tuesdays and a few more spots have been filled.

Show and Tell

Brigitte did some more of the feathers we looked at last month and covered a couple more rocks.

Feathers

Talisman stones

Sandie attached her feathers to a postcard and brought in a piece of wet felting she started several years ago and had mounted on canvas.

Talisman rock

Linda K. has been knitting again and  Linda W. had a picture of a quilt she had made with houses on it.

Bev started on a quilt for her daughter with leaves and birds as a result of attending the Quick Curve ruler class.  She also made a beautiful table runner.

Shirley W.  brought in a purse she made with a thread painted flower on it and some blue stars that she made using Heat & Bond instead of miles of satin stitch so there is no fraying.

Shirley P. showed a wall hanging she made to depict new grass growth.  Amazing work!

Elisabeth  tried our the feathers from last month as well and brought along some of the postcards she made.

Christine also made feathers.

Suzanne lined a picnic basket and made a blanket to go with it.  

 The activity today was taken from a lesson in the Sketchbook Revival 2024 workshops some of us participated in this year.  

Sandie demonstrated how to make a Modern Collage Bouquet by Lucie Duclos.  You can see more of Lucie's samples on her website  www.duclosdesign.com.

Our tables were covered with collage papers, stamps, pens, glue sticks, scissors and there are photos of some of our efforts.  A fun twist on fibre art!

October

 We had two visitors and possible new members today.  A warm welcome to Shirley and Cheryl.

The Whispers display and some of the Raising the Surface pieces will be at the Armstrong Museum and Art Gallery and the opening reception will be on November 1 from 6 to 8pm.  The show runs through November until the 23rd. 

A reminder that our scroll and 3D pieces will be displayed at the second VSSQ meeting in April.

Challenge for 2024/25 season

Sandie announced our challenge for the year, Pioneering Women of BC.   The inspiration for the prompt is the book:

Her Courage Rises: 50 Trailblazing Women of British Columbia and Yukon.   

These are the stories of 50 women who defied gender norms and societal expectations.

We will be making wall hangings of 3 layers quilted, 14" x 23" in portrait orientation with a rod pocket on the back.  There are no rules on what you use to make your quilt but the size and orientation must be correct.

Show and Tell

We started off with the Creating Talismans Jeanette showed us last month

Christine

Cathy had two rocks, one wrapped and stitched and one colored with alcohol inks.  Lovely!

Elisabeth had some pretty beads on hers, one of which she make herself.

Joan glued a complicated knot and some very intriguing purple things on her rock.

Shirley showed us 3 rocks and of course broke the rules by thread wrapping one and stitching one before she wrapped it.

Brigitte wrapped one of her father's collection of polished stones.

Show and Tell 

General

Linda has been busy as usual and showed us her beautiful knitted top, indigo dyed paper and silk scarves and her finished scroll with handmade twisted cording.

Cathy had a trip to the fishing tackle shop and decided to try and make a quilt from the lovely bits and pieces you can get for fly tying.  She says they are difficult to work with but still she had great results.

Judith brought in the sketchbook that Cath made her for the online group Sketchbook Revival.  Fabric front cover and sewn together by hand.

Joan had three beautiful 3D fabric flowers mounted on canvas.

Made with Fabric Magic to texturize 

Made with Fabric Magic to texturize 

Made with wash away stabilizer and thread work

Shirley brought along a pop up card she got for her recent birthday and some play with metallic thread.

Shirley ( our visitor today) showed us the wonderful scroll she made.

Lena has finished her scroll and used a lot of beads on it.  Amazing.

Sandie also had a finished scroll and some of her thickened dye pieces.  She hasn't taken all the wax out yet and the one piece she did boil is quite a lot lighter than it started.  It was suggested that soy wax might be a better option as it is easier to remove from the fabric.

Left: untouched, Middle: ironed to remove wax, Right : boiled and much lighter.

Christine finished her stamped batik piece and has stitched it with gold thread and bound.  

Christine gave us a short talk on making your own stencils.  

Some questions to consider first:

What do you want to use it for?

What medium are you going to use with it?

What are you going to use it on?  Paper or Fabric?

Some suggestions for materials are paper, thin plastic, freezer paper or card stock.  Paper works fine but will be damaged by too wet a medium and you can't clean it off to reuse.  Thin plastic from file dividers is easy to make fine cuts on and get good detail.  Freezer paper will lightly adhere to your fabric when you iron it on. Card stock it sturdy but thick and harder to cut.

You would need a cutting mat, exacto knife or stanley knife to make your stencils.

You can take a picture and in a photo editing app turn it into a line drawing that you can then trace on to your thin plastic to design your own stencil.  Here is one to try.

 https://online.rapidresizer.com/photograph-to-pattern.php

An old photo album was suggested as a good place to store your stencils after use.

A stencil was used for the poppy pods.

The birds were from a stencil.

Mat, Stanley knife and exacto knife

Thin plastic stencil

Use both the negative and positive stencils!

Feathers 

Shirley then showed us how to make feathers from a piece of denim.  She had sewing a strong centre line down the piece of fabric and then we carefully pulled out the light threads to leave the dark threads.  Trimmed into feather shapes.  If you sew in the oposite direction you can pull the dark threads to have a light feather.  This will work on other fabrics that are dyed fully through the fabric.  Those with a design just printed on one side will not work well.

Here is a link to a website with good instructions on the sewing:https://www.instructables.com/Upcycled-Denim-Feathers/

Half done

Light feather