February West Michigan Art Quilters Group Meeting

I wish I could sew at night.  I am missing sewing so much and I really want to go downstairs and sew. But my eyes feel like they are falling out of my head.  So, I decided to get a blog post done instead.  (Doesn't help the eyes, but it makes me feel like I'm getting some vicarious sewing done.)

Tonight is the Kalamazoo Log Cabin Quilters guild meeting.  I was just too tired to go.  I decided to stay home and spend time with Sweet Pea and Papa Pea instead.

How about a recap of our Feburary West Michigan Art Quilters meeting?  Okay then!

One note:  If you life in the area, Angelica announced that there will be an event called "Fiber Art and Mixed Media--Putting It Together" at the Carnegie Center for the Arts in Three Rivers, Michigan.  The exhibit begins Sunday, March 11 and goes through April 14.  Of the fourteen featured artists in the show, eight are from our art quilters group!  Come and check it out!

Okay, on with the show.  Our theme for this month was "Bag."  The theme was contributed by Sweet Pea.  :-)

This first piece was made by Jane.  (You can tell Sweet Pea was thrilled to hold it up for me, can't you?!  She liked the bag but was not in the mood to be a helper.)  There is a great story behind this bag.  Before I joined this group, they had a denim challenge.  Jane used her denim to make this bag, and she also used some of June's scraps from another previous challenge on the bag.  (I blogged that challenge here.)

Here is the other side of the bag.  Jane said she makes lots of bags in this style and that she can make one in about 2 hours.  Wow!

Here is the neat part of the story.  See this pretty (Jane calls it "wild") fabric on the inside?  It used to belong to a friend of hers who died.  The friend's husband knew Jane sewed and gave it to her.  So, she incorporated it in this bag in her memory.  How fun.

Jackie didn't want to make a bag.  So, she googled the word bag and found so many different interesting meanings of the word.  It could be something "unpleasant."  It could be a cocoon.  With the cocoon in mind, she made this quilt, which she titled, "Out of the Bag."  I think she said these are some frayed edges from some of her hand-dyed fabrics.  (But I can't read my scribbles well in my notes, so I may have messed that up.)

Here is a close up of some of her frayed fabric, beads, and quilting.  Jackie is so clever to think of another way to interpret the word "bag."

Jackie brought other pieces for show and tell.  Here is one.  I think this piece might be the one that's going in the show I mentioned at the top of this post.   My notes are so scribbly from this meeting.  I must have been fried.  I'm having trouble making good sense of them.  But I wrote down that she used Two's Company acrylics to paint these pieces.

Each of these is a separate piece that she's satin stitched along the edge and then connected together.  In this photo, it is laying on the floor on a pale green sheet.  That is the sheet you see behind each part.  When it hangs, you won't see that pale green.

This is very sea-like, isn't it?

Here is another piece Jackie made.  I think she said this was called "Ripe."  This was also created with fabric paints that she put in squeeze bottles. 

I also wrote down that she used gelatin on a plate.  I'm so sorry.  My notes are so sketchy here again.  I was having a hard time keeping up with everything.  Maybe if Jackie reads this, she can leave a comment to tell us more about how she made this.

I really love Jackie's quilting.

Here is another piece from Jackie.  Maybe this is the one she calls "Ripe."  I am not sure becuase my notes are such a mess.  My apologies, Jackie!

Sweet Pea was really fascinated with how she made the shadows on this one.

Here is another piece from jackie.  I think she said this one was an experiment in layers of paint.  There is cheesecloth on this one.  Then, she added these strips.  I think Jackie wasn't entirely happy with this one, and she said she might cut it up and use it for something else.

Here is a close up, where maybe you can see the cheesecloth.  (Click on the photo to make it larger so you can see it if you need to.)

Here is another one from Jackie.  You have seen this before in earlier stages of completion.  She has finished it now.  This is the one where she shrank the Tyvek.

A close up of some of Jackie's hand quilting.

Next up was Kathy.  She brought this bag she made from a Sue Spargo kit she had laying around and needed to be made.  So, this challenge got her going on that.

Here is the back of the bag.  I love Sue Spargo's stuff.  I think it's all the colors and textures (wool, ribbon, velvet) and threads.

Even the lining is pretty.  I always have to peek inside!

Beautiful work, Kathy!

Kathy is embarking on a new project.  She is looking up vintage photos of some of her favorite buildings in Grand Rapids, and she plans to make a quilt of each building.  Here is the first photo she's working on.  This is a hardware store she loved when growing up.  She said she loved the smell of the hard wood floors in there.  (It made me think of a really cool hardware store we used to go to in Johnstown, Ohio when we lived there.  They had red pine floors that they oiled.  They were still the original floors. Never even refinished.  I loved that place.)

And here is her start on that building.  Again, that's the green sheet behind the piece.  So anywhere you see pale green is where she has cut away fabric.  Kathy has hand painted all the fabric for the brick and concrete.  She brought all this great stuff she's planning to put on this for the windows, doors, and awning.  Wait until you see this in farther stages of completion.  It's going to be amazing.

Look at all this amazing detail!  She has cut out and stitched down each individual brick!  WOW!

In her searching, she found this photo.  That's her dad talking to the attendant who is pumping gas!  I think she should definitely make a quilt from this photo!

Kathy also brought this book.  It looked really interesting.  It is from d4daisy books.  What was intriguing to me about these books is that if you buy the books, you also get some free on-line classes you can take on the same topic.  There are code words in the book that allow you to access the class.  How do you like that?  You have to be a little detective (Encyclopedia Brown?  Remember those books?) to find it and to access the class.  I love that idea.

Here is June's bag.  She uses it for carrying her yarn and knitting project.  Now, wait to see what she did.  You're going to love this.

Here is a close up of some of the quilting and piecing on the bag pocket.

Look what's behind/inside the pocket!  June has taken one of those nice canvas bags you get when you go to a quilt show or some other type of convention and prettied it up.  She said she liked the bag, itself, but she dind't like the big logo on it.  So, she sewed a pocket right over the logo!  How clever is that?!  I love it.

She said she makes these all the time for her grandchildren.  They carry their snowpants and snowboots to school in them.  What a great idea.

Mary was next.  She has the word "bag" embedded in her last name, so she sort of wanted to do something about that.  Instead, she ended up making some jewelry.  One piece she made was this bracelet.

Related to the bag theme, she made these little amulet bags.  I always love little amulet bags.  I don't know what it is about them that I love, but I do love them.

Here is a close up shot.  (Click on the photo to enlarge.)  Mary said she was considering "transitions" and had been reading about St. Francis' transition to sainthood.  So, she took some text from the book she was reading and incorporated it into her amulet bags.

Here is the back side of the bags.

She also made some pins.

And she made earrings.  Wow.  Sweet Pea was really enthralled with all this stuff!

Next was Sweet Pea's turn.  Sorry for the quality of the photo.  We are meeting in a different room these days, and it's a nice room, but it is very dark.  Sometimes it's challenging for me to get good photos.  Case in point.  Here is a bag Sweet Pea made.  One of my graduate students gave her a kit for Christmas.  The kit had this little bag in it, along with some stencils and paints.  Sweet Pea made this bag out of that kit.  She is quite proud of it and happy with it.

You might recall at our January meeting I showed you this piece of fabric that Jackie had made.  It wasn't her style, and she gave it to Sweet Pea when Sweet Pea complimented her on it.  We got home, and Sweet Pea wanted to quilt it.  So, we made a quilt sandwich, and she started quilting it with her new sewing machine.  She took some variegated thread and quilted a square around it.  Then, she took some blue thread and started quilting water.  Looks pretty good so far!  She said she still wants to quilt the sky and the sun.  So, she still has some work to do on it.  But I like her ideas.  (You can click this photo to make it bigger.)

The meeting was basically over at this point, and we all asked Kathy what she was working on--she had been stitching on a piece throughout the meeting.  She showed us this piece.  It is a couple layers of t-shirt knit fabric.  She is making a jacket in the style of Alabama Chanin.  Is that new to you?  It is to me.  I had never heard of her.

She has cut away some of the turquoise fabric and is stitching around it and adding some embellishment.  It's very pretty and looks like it will be oh, so comfortable.

Kathy said that she figured she'd never be able to afford a real Alabama Chanin, so she was going to make one for herself.  I can't wait to see this finished!

Well, there you have it.  That was our meeting.  Another awesome meeting.  I still didn't have anything to show and tell.  Maybe sometime soon.

I still feel like sewing.  Maybe I'll get a second wind.  I doubt it.  Yawn.

Until next time,

Mama Pea

 

Comments

[Florence]

Thank you to share this pictures with us !

[Roxanne Leder]

Stephanie, thank you so much for sharing all the photos of the meeting! It was like I was reliving a great hour of my life in February! And, I thought you had the info all correct, as I can be sketchy, too! I stand in awe of each and every one of these talented women, and am proud to call them
friend! Thanks again

[carolld]

Wonderful pictures. That group is sure talented. I loved seeing everything. Thanks for sharing.

[Allie]

Amazing, so amazing - really hard to pick a favorite piece, but that sea life really astounds me!

[Donna]

What a talented group of ladies you have! Love all the bags especially Sweet Pea's :)
All those little bricks stitched on is amazing! The shadows are so life like too with the sea pic.
Hugs,
Donna

[Jackie]

Oh my I have to meet that Jackie, super talented woman!

[Maggie Szafranski]

What a talented group of people! How lucky you are!

[jenclair]

More great ideas! Such creativity!

[Linda in Calif.]

Wow! That sure was fun. Isn't it nice to talk about quilting when we can't actually do it.

[Melissa]

Such great talent all in one room! Love the pics of Sweet Pea-they made me smile.

[Bobbie]

That is all so amazing.