We had a fabulous speaker for our June meeting.  Christine Barnes presented “Magic Fabrics/Special Effects,” using fabric to create light, and vitality, transparency, luminosity, and luster. Below are some of her fabulous quilts and wearable arts.

And as always, we had show & tell from some of our members.

 We had our first reveal of the year and it was a fabulous one as always.

A Place Visited

'Shades of Shard' by Carole Rossi
20.5" x 37"

This quilt is inspired by an iconic building in London called "The Shard".  I took numerous photos of this building when I was in London ("the place visited") in December 2022.  Its pyramid-like shape & jagged top story dominates the cityscape in a very dramatic way, particularly when the ski is pink at sunset.  I was inspired to create and abstract piece which suggests but does not realistically depict the Shard.  I used hand-dyed cotton overlaid with silkscreen printing; commercial cottons; various yarns, couched; batting-Quilters 100% Dream Cotton; machine quilted with Bernina 820 using several rayon threads.  I created a pattern for the design and worked from there.  I challenged myself to create an overall border that was not a simple rectangle.  I wanted the overall shape to be a bit "jagged" like the top of the building itself.

"Hay-on-Wye, Wales" by Karin Polli
22" x 29.5"

This was inspired by a visit in 2001 to Hay with a friend to visit the many bookstores.  The sky is hand dyed.  It's decorated with beads, buttons and.  My view of Hay is personalized.  The bookstore is named after a business I owned in Guatemala.  The pub is named for the Brewery owned by my daughter and son-in-law in Diamond Springs, CA.  The antique store is named for one owned by my mother and aunt.  The pins were owned by my mother.  The quilt & needlework stores are because of my interests.

"Le Petit Maison" by Michelle Peerson

I saw this little house near the Loire River in the Anjou region of France.  I imagined living there.  The quilt is fused on to a new product for me;  'Pattern Ease".  This is a non-woven stabilizer.  I also used it as my batting.  It tends to make the quilt crinkle, but I like the effect it created.  I used Steam-a-seam 2 lite as my fusible, a titanium needle and fused the facing...another first for me.

"Cathedral Rock, Yosemite Valley" by Sandra Mollon
32" x 25"

This is perhaps the most visited site in Northern California is Yosemite Valley.  Cathedral Rocks sits directly across from El Capitan, and glows in the late afternoon light.  Made from: Cotton batiks and hand dyed cottons (by artist), silk batting, various threads.  The challenge for me was capturing the late afternoon light.

 

"Sunset Sal, Beachcombing Gal" by Tracy Visher
18" x 20"

I took poetic license with the topic.  Rather than making a quilt about the place itself, I had a fictional character show it.  My family had a reunion at a beach house at Sunset Beach in Watsonville, CA in June 2022.  As we took early morning beach walks, I picked up shells, etc. and imagined a quilt incorporating them.  I used batik cotton, ribbon, wire, beads.  Shells, feathers, sand dollars from Sunset Beach.  Inktense pencils and blocks, pen, organza, glue and Modge Podge dimensional magic.  This quilt is a bit of fun and whimsy.  Rather than just doing a beach quilt, I made up a character so I could include all of the items I collected while roaming this beach every morning.  It was fun and challenging to figure out how to do her hair.

"Kitty Sunrise" by Sophia Day
17" x 20"

My kitties sit on the window sill every morning to watch the sunrise. This is 3 layers of fabric and 1 layer of batting. This is reverse applique.  Black batik is hard to come by, so I tried this black cotton that was touted to not fray.  Not true.  But I was far enough in when I realized that I didn’t want to start over.  I decided to heavily quilt the black and leave the color un-quilted.  This has mandalas for the sunrise and they create a kitty in the negative space.

"My Mandalas" by Pat Gillings
42.5" x 42.5"

Mandalas have been made for thousands of years to represent sacred forms in the world and have lately become popular for meditation and relaxation.  Technically, a mandal can be any design that has expanding circles or geometric shapes.  I created my mandalas using the I-ornament app which allows you to hand draw shapes that are converted into various symmetries.  The backgrounds for the mandalas were created using my hand dyed fabric & some watercolor and alcohol ink designs of mine which were photographed and enhanced on the computer.  I then took my mandala files that had been saved on transparent layers and layered them over the various backgrounds.  The files were then sent and were printed by Spoonflower.  I had them printed as 4 fat quarters; one large for the center and then 4 each on 3 fat quarters that were cut apart and surrounded with Moda grunge fabric.

 

 

 We had a fabulous program for our March meeting.  Our very own Robin Hart shared her quilts that she created for a collaboration with Amanda Lee Falkenberg who created a symphony for the International Association of Astronomical Artists (IAAA) 40th Anniversary 2022. The link is https://youtu.be/NziIS36x5Rk to view this wonderful work of art.  Please take a moment to also view the writeup.

These are the 7 moons in the video.

Robin also shared with us how she creates her works electronically, then has them printed on fabric where she then finishes them with thread paining. These are some of the photos of the works she has done.

Here is some of her other astronomical quilts.

 For our February meeting, we had a fabulous trunk show from one of our talented and prolific members, Stephanie Bennett-Strauss.  Enjoy photos of her quilts!

 We started 2023 strong with our first meeting!  We introduced 'getting to know you' as a way to learn more about our fellow members.  We also drew names for a new name tag exchange.

Our own Michelle Peerson led a thoughtful discussion on Creativity.

Several members had show & tell quilts:

'Against the Flames' by Robin Hart
26" x 39"

This was created for the July 2022 reveal.  Since it was accepted to the Houston show, we are just now able to share it.

This is a tribute to the wildland firefighters.  Robin was so alarmed by the number and severity of the wildland forest fires in 2021, and the ever pervasive smoke in Nevada County throughout the Summer that she thought about all of the firefighters that put themselves on the line to save lives, property and forest.  She created this quilt to honor the bravery of those firefighters fighting a forest inferno.  Robin created this using the digital surface design by painting in Adobe Photoshop and then she output it on whole cloth and thread painted to enhance the billowing smoke and fire.  

by Sophia Day

by Stephanie Bennett Strauss

by Tracy Visher