Party Time

I forgot I had Mary's quilt here at the house!! So this is a better picture then the one below! Due to the way 'blogger' works..if I move the pic down you can't click on it to see the detail. Hence, I'm leaving this pic here! You'll have to read further down about it!

Here's a picture of the CCC fiber group that met at our house for our annual Christmas Party! We were missing Karen who was sick with a cold and/or the flu and Lois Ann who is in Italy.

Back row: Debra, Joetta, Mary and Marty
Middle row: Joyce, Carol, Elsie
Floor ladies: Chris, Michelle, Judy and me (I'm holding the phone pretending it's LoisAnn..she called us from Italy!).

Yep, we meet in Nov. as it's so hard to ensure most can make the party with all of the get-to-gether's folks have in Dec. This seems to work out pretty well and gets us in the spirit. OK, maybe the 'spirits' get us in the spirit! Actually, we didn't have that much to drink! We really had a great time and I can't believe I didn't take a picture of the food table(s)! Yes, I said tables. I had the pool table covered for some other 'business' items but we had so much food on the main table we ended up putting all the desserts on the pool table. Yum!!! We do like to eat!

Here are some bookmarks I made for the ladies. I try to make a new bookmark each year. But I'm running out of ideas! I used a stamp my friend, Carol, from Florida gave me last year. I love the stamp! Thanks, Carol!

So here are some pictures from our 2009 construction/snow fencing challenge! We were each given a piece of this fencing and here are some of the creations. I'm missing one photo of a bookmark my friend Carol made but I'll upload as soon as she sends me the picture.

This is a 'dye bag' Michelle made! She's the one who gave us all the fencing last year at our party. How cool is this! We are just curious as to the size of the dye pot she's going to use! More pictures of that in the spring at the dye camp weekend. Should be interesting!

This is a quilted piece Chris made. She stenciled and stamped with the fencing. Clever and very appealing I think! Chris made another piece which is further down. She was ambitious.

This is a purse that Joyce made! How cool is that!! Joyce is our bargain finder lady! If there is a estate sale or bazaar, Joyce will find the 'finds'! Her lace she used came from one of those sales. Who would have thought of a bag!

Our international member, LoisAnn who is residing in Italy right now, sent a quilt she made. Actually, she made 3 or 4 of these pieces! Her husband thought this was the best one. She cut away some of the circles from the fencing. Clever and actually an art quit I'd hang somewhere!

Of course our Mary did one of her great art works. This is a journal size piece that she screen printed and stamped (I believe). She did machine and hand stitching on this. Click on the pic for a closeup. The pic is a little blurry but you'll get to see some of the work up close.

And this is my book cover I made from deconstructed screen printing with the fencing. Then the fabric was free motion quilted and beading added.

Our winner of the challenge was by Joetta! Congrats!!! She made a great book out of the fencing and used the fencing for stenciling onto paper. That's a closure for the book in the center! Joetta makes some of the best books around. I'm talking about leather bonded books! She also teaches bookmaking. Wonderful work and well deserved on the use of the fencing!

These are just some of the pages in her book.

Another page from the book.

This is Chris' 2n piece. It's mud cloth that she stamped with the fencing! I didn't get a picture of the entire piece which is too bad. It's a great piece! Chris taught mud cloth at one of our meeting last winter (of course I was in Fl. and didn't get to participate!).

This is the bottom for the support of a flag Debra made! Yes, she drilled a hole in the book; added the funnel and squash......

Then she wove dried weeds into the fencing! Clever!!!

So all in all we had a great time as I said. It was nice to just sit and talk and see all the show and tell everyone had. We didn't have to worry about rushing through show and tell so we could do a project which was refreshing for a change. Maybe we need to have Christmas in July! Just have a food night and show and tell...hmmmmmm Sounds like a discussion item for when I get back from Fl. It's 68 degrees out right now! Can you believe that! I have widows opened and Mandy and I already took a walk earlier. It's just beautiful outside! One of the last of the nice days I would think..but it's Michigan so who knows!

What's old is new...

Well, I have been busy working on the group slice piece but since I can't show pics until it's delivered to Tommy, I thought I'd show some 'old' stuff! 

So what do you do with this???  This is a picture of snow fencing that was one of our fiber group challenges a few years ago. 

I had a tough time thinking of something to do with it so I ended up screen printing a piece of fabric and making a book cover from the fabric.  You can see other pics that our group made on my old post here.

 

This was my finished book cover for one of my art journals I keep.  You can see the inside and a book mark I made using some of the snow fencing.
It was a fun project to work on and a good use for snow fencing! 
So today I'm going to get back to working on my group slice.  I've got a LONG way to go and a SHORT time to get there!  But I'll get it done!
Yes, we did go out with friends again last night.  We enjoy our dinners at Cody's Restaurant.  Bob had the pork chop dinner (as did one of our friends) and Kara had chopped steak w/onions and I had the herb crusted salmon which was fantastic!  YUM...I'm getting hungry all over again...but tonight I'll be cooking dinner but I will have my left over salmon for lunch!

 

Gelatin prints

First, Ian update..not new stats to post...due to rain outs but he does have a meet this week, I believe. We're pulling for you Ian!!

I did get lots accomplished yesterday. I finished my CCC Challenge using the snow fencing. I can't show the completed challenge until Nov. but here's a closeup! More to come on that. I also made two fiber postcards which I'll post tomorrow.
At our CCC fiber meeting this past Thursday, one of our ladies, Michelle, did the technique of monprinting on gelatin. This is a fun process that makes you feel like you are a kid again! I've done this type of printing a few years ago at a workshop by Deb Gash but we used paper rather then fabric. I like using the paper and pressing onto the gelatin!
So the process starts with you making up a gelatin mold (4tablespoons unflavored gelatin, 1 cup cold water, 1 cup hot/boiling water mixed into an 8"x8" pan).
After the mold sets up, you use fabric paints on top of the gelatin, use resists, draw, whatever you want to do in the paint then place your fabric on top. Easy and fun. Here are some of my pieces.

I used some leaves as resist.

I used a bath rubber shell matt and tile spacers.

Spacers and a feather

String

What I'm working on

This is a picture of Mandy's BFF, Cody! He was over for his weekend visit with 'grandma and grandpa' this past weekend. I just think it's a hoot how much Mandy plays with Cody! She's such a snob with other dogs!
With heading to Florida come December, I have to get my projects finished. So the first one I'm working on is the challenge for our CCC fiber group. We were each given a piece of snow fencing and the challenge is to make something using it. Of course, my piece would be quilted so I'm working on that.

I also started quilting one of my fabrics that I used my own cut stamp on for my natuare journal for Oct. This is the piece I did in Dijanne's online stamping class. I did start quilting it and I bought some beads yesterday. The quilting I did isn't showing up and I'm thinking of painting some areas to give it the contrast it needs.

On this same note of stamping, you have to check out Ruthie Powers Next Signal Designs web site and blog. She has some great stamps and I'm looking forward to reading more on her blog about her methods and ideas. She has some cool stamps on her web site as well.

Tonight is our CCC meeting and we're going to be doing some printing using gelatin and fabric paints. Should be a fun evening and of course we meet for dinner before hand! It's still been quite warm and muggy here in good old Michigan but beats the cold winter so that's fine with me!