Sept. meeting - Off to a great start!

What a great first meeting we had this past Tuesday evening. We were so fortunate to have with us the "Divine Stitchers of the Yo-Yo Sistahood" from Moncton. They really showed us how good it is to push yourself to try something new that's out of your usual "comfort zone". These gals are all members of the Greater Moncton Quilters' Guild, and feeling they needed a little "more" in their "quilty lives", formed this group to challenge themselves creatively. In the spring of 2007, they decided to join together and challenge themselves to "work outside their comfort zones" and "think outside the box". Their first project, called "Slice" was inspired by a painting by Newfoundland artist Virginia Houston, above, titled "A Kings Road Morning". After receiving copyright permission, they made a color copy of her painting and vertically divided it into 9 equal slices. After a random draw for the slices, and establishing some guidelines, they headed off to each repeat their slice in fabric. Here you see the finished results- the slices were not sewn together but are mounted on a "backing board". For their very first project together, I think the results are most impressive! We could see right away- this is one talented group of ladies!

Other projects and techniques explored include Journal quilts, paper quilts, artist trading cards (ATC's), trapunto, family trees and postcards. Above is Margaret (on right) showing her "journal" quilt- she included many old pieces of crochet and lace that her Mother had made, and Juanita shows her beautiful Trapunto work. "Sista Wany" took a lot of ribbing from her sistas that she got a little carried away and tried to trapunto everything she could get her hands on, for a while! She certainly turned some yard sale finds into beautiful pieces! (You can click on the photos for a closer look).

Another group project was "Let Me Introduce Myself": each member was to represent themselves in fabric. They were given prechosen fabric and a random pattern shape and were to create a self portrait incorporating 5 words to describe themselves. We had great fun trying to guess who was who. (They are identified on the back with real photos) I guess now would be a good time to tell you who these ladies are! Left to right on the piece are: Jennifer Vienneau, Betty Rice, Margaret Sawyer, Juanita Allain, Carolyn Mitton, Shirley Baillieul, Sue Berube and Nancy Elaschuk. Of course, we enjoyed hearing their "Sista" names as well : names like Sista Divinity (for the fudge, she SAID), Sista Futility, Sista Procrastinator and so on. These fiber artists clearly have lots of fun together!! We certainly enjoyed their humour!
Can you believe I did not get a good photo of the entire group? Now how stupid was that? Here are six of the Sistas, showing us their tree projects. Missing are Jennifer and Juanita. Sorry Sista Divinity and Sista Wany! L. to R. are Nancy, Shirley, Sue, Betty, Carolyn and Margaret, and Juanita's arm! How many of you figured out which Sistas are actually sisters? The answer is.....Nancy and Shirley are sisters (and sisters to Susan Dobson of FQG as well). Their most recent group project was unveiled at our meeting - it is called "Where the Wild Things Are." Again, some common fabrics were used and each participant was to depict an aspect of nature while hiding a "wild thing" somewhere on their piece - some were easy to spot and some were well hidden!

One thing for sure- the talent in this group is not hidden- it's very evident that these gals are very skilled and enjoy pursuing creative techniques to stretch their talents even further. We are so glad they came to FQG and shared their love of contemporary quilting with us. Thanks Yo-Yo Sistas!

Special thanks to Sue Berube for the use of her lovely Nikon camera, for sharing the photos with us and also thanks for providing me with info for this post.