What a Meeting!!

Odyssey Coat- of felted wool, silk and bamboo, lined with Dupioni silk

What a fabulous February meeting we had! An awesome program with such creative pieces of art by an inspiring guest, some good tips/demos, a "blow you away" Show and Tell, and lots of laughter. What more could you want?

Detail of Odyssey coat lapel

Our sincere Thanks goes out to Sharon Riley of Whisper of Spirit. She shared many of her wonderful pieces of felted fiber art with us. Sharon has been working in a wide range of mediums for over 40 years, including clothing design, fiber art murals, quilting, vintage restoration, Liturgical and costume design, mixed media sculpture, screen printing and dyeing, hand felting, needle felting, leather craft and painting.  Sharon's creations are deeply influenced by nature. She uses a wide variety of materials, including Merino, Corriedale, silk, bamboo, angora, alpaca, tulle and silk chiffon. She embellishes with  novelty ribbons and yarns, embroidery and metallic threads, seed pearls, vintage prayer beads, seed beads and Swarovski crystals. She also incorporates found objects - "gifts from Mother Nature", such as stones, bone, feathers, moss, seed pods, shells and driftwood.
Sharon shared with us a number of her felted creations, including cuff bracelets, garments, wall hangings, vessels and art dolls. Although our "topic of the evening" was embellishment, we were all very interested in the felting processes she uses as well - both Nuno felting and wet felting. She kindly allowed me to photograph her work to share with you here.

You can view more of Sharon's creations at   http://www.whisperofspirit.com/index.html
Thank you Sharon for an inspiring program!!

Luscious Lavender Morning Cuff bracelet

Hummingbird's Garden  Cuff Bracelet

Metamorphosis - Rebirth of the Phoenix art doll

Felted vessel

Felted Vessel

Felted wallhanging Earth Sky - 14" x 36". A celebration of the dance between Mother Earth and Father Sky

Detail of Earth Sky

Detail of Earth Sky

February Meeting Reminders

It's that time again! Our February meeting is only a few short days away - this coming Tuesday, the 19th - hope you will be there! Don't forget to wear your nametag and bring your mug. I do hope we have a large Show and Tell this month - this is the LAST month I'll be asking you to add up the total perimeter measurements of your quilted pieces for the CQA Stitch Across Canada Challenge. We have almost made it to the west coast!! Please be prepared to give me your totals at our meeting.

Shore Birds by Diane Ramsey

In case you missed the recent show of hooked rugs by the Fredericton Heritage Rug Hookers Guild at Government House, I thought I'd share a few photos with you (in no particular order). A number of our FQG members are also very talented rug hookers so I couldn't resist photographing some of their pieces. I'm sure you'll enjoy seeing them and I do hope you'll pass on your kudos to our very talented members on Tuesday night. See you then!

This is the peacock  by Ann Price

 

 

 

 

 

Family Heritage  by Jean Ketch

Geometric  by Barbara Hart

Friars House  by Helen Steeves

Grenfell Style mat  by Barbara Hart

Froggy Dip by Diane Ramsey

Molly's Mat  by Jane Seabrook

Lily's Mat  by Jane Seabrook

Christmas Goose  by Helen Steeves

As It Was  by Carole Christie

Detail of As It Was  by Carole Christie

Detail of As It Was  by Carole Christie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Journey to India

At our January meeting we were whisked away on a magical journey to India. Well... not quite, but almost! Jean S shared with us some tales of her journies to India and best of all, showed us many of the wonderful silks and other fabrics she has purchased there. She kindly passed many of them around, allowing us all to indulge our "quilter's desire" to fondle and pat, and enjoy the luxurious textures. She also showed her sari and explained how it is wrapped and worn.

Besides fabrics, Jean has also collected numerous pieces of Indian embroidery and needlework.
Of course different regions of the country have different styles and patterns. In the north, in Rajastan they are famous for their mirror work and Jean told us just about everything is decorated with shisha mirrors stitched into patterns.



























 Beading and sequins are an art form and are used in many ways, on beautiful ornaments, clothes,
wall hangings and of course saris.

























 Block printing seems to be popular in northern Maharashtra where Jean visited this time.  The art of block printing is quite labor intensive with colors printed over each other and some beautiful saris have individual block printing  and are one of a kind.








Wedding Saris are usually in red and gold and have 5,000 threads running across the width of the fabric which is 5 meters long.  Kamchapuram silks in Tamil Nadu are the finest and people travel from miles to buy there; this is where Jean's sari is from.

It's always exciting to see fabrics and needlework from another part of the world. Thank you Jean, for this inspiring textile journey to India. It was a very special evening and we will be anxious to see what you create with these beautiful fabrics.

By the way, if you haven't been in to Government House yet to see the wonderful display of hooked rugs by the Fredericton Heritage Rug Hooking Guild, you only have a few days left! The display finishes this Friday, Feb. 1 at 4p.m. Better hurry! You'll be sorry if you miss it.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!! Our January meeting is only a few days away now - January 15th. It's a little early this month. I hope we will see you there. Have you been sewing lately? Now that winter is really here with its cold days and colder nights, I bet many of us are "hibernating" in our sewing areas... Bring along your Show and Tell to share with us. Don't forget to measure the perimeter of each piece for the Stitch Across Canada Challenge.
Speaking of challenges, have you started your Guild Challenge yet? Remember we've all been challenged to do something that's "out of the box" - in other words, out of our comfort zone... I have mine planned, but not yet started...
Many quilters start the New Year off with a tidying/sorting/cleaning of their sewing area. I came across a really interesting blog post the other day and thought you might like to see it too. It's from the Blog Sew Many Ways... She has a very well organized sewing and crafting room and I bet you will find more than a few ideas here you would like to try... Click here to read her blog post.  There are lots of photos and many great ideas! I bet you'll try at least one ...
See you Tuesday the 15th.

Christmas Meeting - 2012

Many thanks to our executive committee for organizing our Christmas Social.  We had special guests, heard stories of Christmas Past by two Lifetime Members, Joan W. and Helen S.  And our in-coming Coordinator told of unusual things from their family Christmases after moving to New Brunswick.

Marjorie Belzile, Director of Nursing from the White Rapids Manor
in Fredericton Junction  came to attend our Christmas Social.
She was so pleased to accept the beautiful bibs and placemats
made by our members for the use of the residents in the home.  

Marjorie told us how touched she was that we thought of her nursing home, when there were so many more local nursing homes. She told us how the residents, some quite young at heart, would love the patterns and whimsical fabrics.
She was so thankful and wished us all a very Merry Christmas

Each of the tables had delicious sweets with refreshments.  

Helen shared stories from her Christmas's past.
The memory of an unexpected gift from a neighbour friend,
will always have a special place in her heart.

Joan told us stories of hard times during the depression.
It wasn't only her family, all families made do with very little.
But they were all happy and small parcels from family from away always brought cheer.
But she remembers the warmth of her schoolroom during the holidays.
She loved that the teacher helped them make vegetable soup on the stove, while
the boys made sure to get wood to keep the stove going.  That was a very special treat.

Gail talked about their Christmases  in various parts of Canada and in England.
All very different but nice.  She also recalls putting bikes together and one year
shortly after moving to Fredericton, the weather was  unusually very warm on Christmas Eve.
After assembling bikes for the kids, she and her husband rode them home from a friend's house.
They love to recall the quirky things that surround their holidays.

And to top off our evening, we had a Christmas musical recital by a local ukelele orchestra.  

They invited us to sing along as they strummed and plucked out beautiful and fun Christmas songs.

                                                           Merry Christmas everyone!!

Christmas Social tonight!

Tonight is our Christmas Social! Just a reminder of the new location - remember it will be held at the Stepping Stones Centre on Saunders Street, across from the old YMCA. Start time is 6:30p.m. Although there is sufficient  parking, please consider car-pooling. Don't forget your Christmas projects to show us during Show and Tell and remember to add up your perimeter inches for the Quilt Across Canada Challenge. Also please bring along the Christmas  placemats you have made for Meals on Wheels.  Join in the fun tonight and enjoy some Christmas music, treats and fellowship with your FQG friends.

Fall Activities

Lois MacDonald and Postage Stamp quilt

How can it be the end of November already? The months are flying by! Back in October, a number of members had a tour of the Collections Centre at Kings Landing Historical Settlement. After Lois MacDonald spoke to us last spring and shared a number of quilts from their collection (you can read about that here), there was a good deal of interest in seeing more! So on a beautiful fall day in late October we ventured upriver for a two hour tour. I think for most of us it certainly exceeded our expectations. Not only did we see the quilts, table linens, coverlets, hooked mats and other textiles, we also viewed stitched samplers and other needlework, original clothing from the 1800's, furniture and household artifacts, dishes, glassware, and more. We learned how the quilts and other household linens are stored for the winter once they are removed from the "village" onsite. The freezing process was explained to us and we viewed the huge freezer that is used to get rid of any insects or larvae that might be in the textiles after the summer onsite. Many of us were amazed at the intricate documentation system used for every single

Donna examining the hand quilting

artifact in the Collections Centre. Kings Landing is very fortunate to have such knowledgeable experienced staff in their Collections Centre, as Lois MacDonald, Evelyn Fidler and Rhona Hoyt. Our thanks to them for a most enjoyable morning. Below are a number of photos from that visit.

Look at the fine hand quilting!

Beautiful!!

Red and white quilts- an old NB tradition

Quilts are rolled and tied for crease-free storage

More quilts!

An old Crazy Quilt- look at that hand done Feather stitch

Woven  coverlets

Postage Stamp quilts- all stitched by hand

Who doesn't love a Log Cabin quilt?

An old Signature quilt

Our Nov. workshop on Machine Quilting with Gail Mitchell is now past as well. I hear it was a great success. If anyone has photos from that day, I'd be happy to post them.

Next up is our Christmas Social. Remember it's Tues. Dec. 4th at 6:30pm, at the Stepping Stones Centre on Saunders St. Come and enjoy some Christmas music, treats, fellowship and don't forget to bring your Show and Tell items. Also we'll be collecting the Christmas placemats for Meals on Wheels. Come and join the fun!