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Sunday, December 18, 2016

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year...






A festive time to attend a tea with others who made Art Warrior Dolls. Making them has become quite a phenomena! I think you have not yet met Noelle, far right, posing with her pals Prima Donna and Charlene who have already appeared on this blog. All three were invited to an event dubbed an Un-Tea held at the lovely home of our instructor Celeste Beck of Goatfeathers Studio.



Every inch of her home was decorated for the holidays and for this event. We were treated to snacks, beverages, and a luncheon of soup, salad and decadent desserts.




Celeste made this nostalgic Santa using her father's flannel shirts. Santa's pack contains things found in her Dad's pockets like a hardware store receipt and pocket knife.


This nearly full-size angel greeted us in the entry. She's made from Celeste's wedding dress.


The angel stands next to the pink "bird" tree.





 Every place setting had a favor, made by Celeste and her equally creative sister Merri. The fiber creations are called "winged guardians."



And each chair had a vintage hat which we were encouraged to don. Mine had a dark rose that matched the one on Noelle's headband. Wearing her lace hose, she's a bit more dressed up than I am.




My setting is shown above, and Miss Sparkles is below, awaiting her soup.






Celeste has many interests and also raises chickens, so that's another theme that decorates her home.





Our gracious hostess starts the party wearing her art apron from a recent Fiber Art Bee challenge.




We were a good-size group- the classes have been wildly popular.




It was a challenge to get a group photo, but someone managed. You can get a good idea of the variety of hats provided. The food was delicious, and the holiday party was a one-of-a-kind fun time!

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Making Merry....






It's an apron. Thought I better say it right off, because you might wonder what you're looking at. Our Christmas party at the Fiber Art Bee featured the usual fun along with a challenge and a swap. The challenge was to make an art apron for a runway show at the December meeting. This is my entry. I took a number of pieces of fabric that I'd painted, stamped, dyed, gelli printed, and otherwise embellished and combined them in one project. I used a Vanilla House pattern and included a side pocket. Fun and useful, too!



Nearly 20 members made their versions of aprons for the challenge employing painting, Angelina fiber, stenciling, and many more techniques.




Our Art Warrior Doll instructors, sisters Merri and Celeste, both added an Art Warrior doll to their aprons and embellished them to a fare-thee-well. Isn't that a great term?




A big piece of tie-dyed fabric and a hand-painted apple make this a colorful entry.



Kandace added a little of everything to her apron, from rust dyeing to doodling and stenciling. She stamped the words "I love this..." and "I love this, too..." all over the apron.



And Gretchen had a similar idea, incorporating bits from her many art quilt projects in her entry. The words say "Fiber art is my passion."



Then came the swap. All who participated made 5 pieces of fabrics that measure about 1/4 yard using a technique of their choice. Mine was ice-dyed and you can see it in the background of this photo and the first one above, behind the apron. In return I received, from the top, a bold cotton print with a glitzy sheer fused on top with Misty Fuse, a sponge-painted cotton using textile paints, and a stamped and foiled botanical print.


Of course we all wanted one of every fabric, but it was a random draw. I was especially pleased to get this discharge-dyed one. Sherry explained that she used a large stencil (like the ones used for walls), taped it to black cotton with painter's tape, and brushed on Soft Scrub white cleaning cream with a toothbrush. She allowed it to remove the black dye and then washed it in a de-chlorinator solution (she used a product from the pet store for fish tanks). The interesting part is that she used three different black fabrics, and this one discharged to orange while the others were more of a khaki/rust color.




And this lovely piece is Laura's discharge printed one. She was not happy with the clarity of the image she used, so she hand painted it to accent the design further with acrylic paints. It was fascinating to learn a bit about how each member made her pieces. This was a great start to the holidays! And we had a terrific pot-luck lunch, too.