Wednesday 13 December 2023

December, Happy Holidays!

' When the world doesn't make sense why make art that does?'  

                                                                  A paraphrase of a Pablo Picasso quote.


Welcome back to our final meeting of the year.  We were delighted to have Suzanne and Endy join us today.  I didn't get a picture of Suzanne's amazing piano quilt as it wasn't finished yet.  The quilting on it, done by Endy, is beautiful and we are looking forward to seeing the finished quilt in the future.

Brigitte let us know that the application to show our Whispers challenge pieces at the Armstrong Museum and Art Gallery has been submitted and will let us know when she hears more.

Gerry Marchand has offered to do a free workshop for us next year.  While he is a painter he has insite into creativity and allegorical composition.  We are considering when and if it would be a long or short workshop.  Some lovely paintings to look at on his website:http://www.gerrymarchand.art/en/html/index.html

The Village Gallery in Lumby has a call for entries into the January show, Patterns. 

Deadline is December 23.  

PATTERNS-SHOW-Application-online.pdf



By popular request here is Sandie's recipe for the very tasty Gingerbread Cookie Dip!





Show and Tell


Cathy started us off with a lovely thread wrapped wire necklace, some interesting books on embroidery stitches and shared some embroidery needles and those famous corn pads.  If you attach them to your fabric and then cover them in thread you get a perfect circle.





Joyce brought in a lovely flower quilt with folded petals.






Joan showed a Christmas themed lap quilt, her first pop up(somehow I missed getting a picture!), and the 3D tree she made with Shirley and Susan.  Joan and Shirley will be showing it and explaining the technique in next month's meeting.








Elisabeth had a variety of interesting things to share with us.  She has been exploring making chenille, playing with texture magic, tried a 3D pear, finished her metal piece and made a quilt using the paint pour of a few years ago.  Busy lady!








Linda showed us her progress on her scroll and brought along the monthly journals for October and November.  She plans on doing one more for December.  The Picasso quote came from one of her journals.







Lena has some lovely side table runners and her first quilt.  Very well done, Lena!








Judith made a pop up card for her 9 month old granddaughter who will be here all the way from Australia for Christmas.  






Jeanette made a macrame star.






Brigitte has been making ornaments for the Christmas trees at Gallery Vertigo. 






Christine has made a beautiful quilted jacket and some smart phone holders for gifts. She also finished her metal piece.

 








Embroidery Stitch

Elisabeth showed us two embroidery stitches for our scrolls.  


The first one was the Sheaf Stitch.





Lots of fun with this one as there are a variety of ways to play with it.  Linda made hers into a spider.





The next one was a Pekinese stitch, combining a back stitch with loops.  










Elisabeth also showed us her technique for presenting small art quilts as a matted piece of art ready for framing.
She buys Mega Mats at Scattered Goods in Vernon and after using them and a backing board to frame her work she slips them back in the protective plastic cover for a lovely professional presentation.  It is recommended that your backing board and any tape you use is acid free.  









Jeanette had challenged us to make angels to decorate our Christmas table.  We had a great variety and some went off to decorate the trees at Gallery Vertigo.









Sandie then showed us how to make twig ornaments.  A lot of fun and laughs was had in the process of playing with hot glue, sparkly pom poms and googly eyes to make a variety of ornaments.






Cathy made an origami tree for her tag









Cath briefly showed how to make a pop up Christmas card.                                                                       
                                                                



Here is a link to the YouTube instructions for it.   Have fun!  And Google Pop Up cards for more amazing intructions!

Thursday 16 November 2023

World Of Threads Festival 2023

 



I was delighted to have my quilt, Stone Sheep, accepted into this show.  There are 115 artists from around the world exhibiting here.  The variety of styles, techniques and fibres used is amazing.

Here are a small portion of the wonderful things shown.  I have mostly focused on 3D pieces as that is what we are exploring this year in QuArtz but a few others found their way in just because.

I have put the picture first and then the artist statement and the personal information.  


Stone Sheep







April

 Spring is here and we are back again. Gallery Vertigo is having it's Grand Opening on Thursday April 11, 6 to 8 pm at the new location...