January 2026

 Happy New Year to all of you!  

We start the year with another inspiring quote:  

"Women need other women in their lives who think they are amazing.  No competition, no jealousy, no hate, only 'I love you'.  I'm here for you, believe in you, you got this 'kind of energy."   Sarcasm Maven  

We have been accepted into Gallery Vertigo for their Cloth-O display in September of this year.  I have  paperwork to read over and fill in.  If you would like to sell your work they do take a 30% commission.  Let me know by the next meeting if you would like to adjust anything about your piece.

Show and Tell

Brigitte enjoyed the Christmas craft we did and went home and made a couple more trees.  Love the little packages under them!

Linda W.  has knit a Sophie scarf for her mom.  She also showed her flower pounding combined with cheesecloth and a cheesecloth tree.  

Ellie had done some thread sketching in the past and brought in a lovely prairie scene for us to see.

Jan has made a start on her accordion book and showed two pages.  She did her cheesecloth tree and a lemon scorched fish.  She also brought in a Tumbling Blocks quilt she had started awhile ago for some advice on finishing.  

Lena had taken a class in encaustic art.  Using melted wax with pigments in it to paint your scene.  Very nice results and a bit of cheesecloth added for some texture along the bottom.

Bev did a beautiful butterfly for her thread painting page and played with feathers, the denim one we made a few real ones too.

Cathy has her paper fabric page done for her accordion book.

Cath followed a video she was gifted to make batik fabric with soy wax and Dynaflow fabric paints.  She also showed the progress on her accordion book and an interesting way of transferring writing to fabric.  There will be a Toolbox Tuesday on how to do this later in the year.

Linda K. had a great piece of fabric paper, maybe to cover a journal?  She also showed three other junk journals made with a napkin, dictionary pages and book pages to form the covers.

Christine did her thread painting on a lovely pink flower.  

Joan might not have been feeling great the last while but she certainly has been productive!  Her accordion book is coming along well.  She also has rediscovered embroidery and loves it!  She brought in a picture she embroidered 40 years ago and then some adorable mushrooms on wool that she is working on now. 

Embroidery from 40 years ago

Joan also showed two collage pieces she made as she is doing an online collage workshop right now.  There was a lot of interest in these and the workshop so you can find names and links below.

Debasree Dey Art - Mixed Media Journaling Online Art Classes  

https://debasreedeyart.com/?srsltid=AfmBOop04YOUomvRPz9trDVFOxvWOzhT345keRGNyZqciRfNlyEcyJ16

Catherine Rains - Intuitive Artist/ Create Inspire Awaken

https://catherinerains.com/

Robyn McClendon -https://robynmcclendon.com/

All of these artists have a large presence on YouTube, with many free videos to help you along.    Remember that paper is a fibre art as the base materials are usually plant fibres.  

Beads

We moved on to our Bead next.  Cathy brought in pre made felt balls with either a spiral or dots on them.  She showed us how to add beads to decorate them.  Very generous of her to supply the balls.

Toolbox Tuesday

We brought in our fun foam creations to bake and watch them shrink and puff up.  

The oven was set to 250 degrees F, the items placed on a cookie sheet and put in the oven.  It took at least 5 minutes for changes to be seen and you could take it out and manipulate it more if you wished.  Some items took longer if they had dense stitching on them.  If you let it cool and then later decide you would like more you can always redo.  

There will be show and tell next month.   Here are pictures of one of mine, before and after.  It is a bit hard to see how much the leaf curled and drew in.

Copyright

Brigitte led us in a very interesting talk about Copyright.  There was too much to cover here but she did give us information in two handouts.   She also referenced an article in Canadian Quilter Magazine by Kathleen Bissett,  How Copyright Affects the Quilter.   The last sentence says the article may be reproduced and shared, preferably in its entirety and with acknowledgment.

 http://www.kathleenbissett.com/How%20Copyright%20Affects%20the%20Quilter%20Updated.pdf