February RAFA Meeting

This was piece of surface design work from Donna Patrick who just can't keep her hands out of paints, bleaches and dyes for very long. Won't this look great in a jacket?

Well, it was lovely to be back for our meeting of Rochester Area Fiber Artists (RAFA) today!! We have a new place which is very cozy and well lit and although a number of people have left from last year, we had several new faces which is always fun! It was very exciting to see the exhibit catalog from our Arts and Cultural Council show here in Rochester which was very well attended and succeeded in raising $300 for the Arts Council from the sale of art postcards that were donated from the group. It was a thrill to see my Memories of California piece as part of their magazine article (The Metropolitan) as well as it having been used as the banner for the web site information about our show! I never did get to see the show but hopefully I will get a picture of the piece in context at the show.

We were a little lean on Show and Tell this month but certainly not lean on quality. A highlight was a piece by Marcia E which she hopefully will be lending to some important venues -- she requested no pictures because of that! Several of our friends as well as one of our members were featured in the book 500 Art Quilts so we got to see an early copy of that book. I will definitely be putting in a pre-order on Amazon. Nancy Murty's quilt (a major prize winner at Houston a few years ago) is featured on the cover and she has been a RAFA group member various times over the years of our growth.

Mary showed a number of pieces but with no flash, most of my pictures came out quite blurry. I had changed my camera to less sensitivity but guess I still needed the flash. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had changed the sensitivity when I went out to take pictures of some of the ducks I saw on Lake Ontario a little later so may try again tomorrow -- if not I will publish some slightly fuzzy pictures -- I did see a new duck!! (And you thought I was done with duck pictures....)


This was a quilt which will be in the Mancuso Mid-Atlantic show soon. I just love this one of Marcia's which she has worked and reworked. It was inspired by a rug she saw at Schweinfurth a couple of years ago.

This is one of Sarah's pieces. She incorporated metal pieces and actually blow torched them to get the color she wanted. A wonderful complementary color scheme (I think). It just sparkles!

This is a second piece by Sarah which incorporates a piece of her marbled fabric which she has profusely embellished with beads -- just beautiful!

Our own Priscilla Kibbee had another jacket workshop while I was gone (rats) and this is the front of the vest that Caris finished. The wonderful piece that inspired the vest was a hand-dyed linen she purchased from Elin Noble. Caris has such a wonderful subtle color sense.

This is the back of the vest showing a larger piece of the linen.

There has been a lot of chatter in my email group about the One Block Wonder quilts and there were two today begun in a workshop in one of the local guilds. This was Pat Faulkner's. These hexagons are all made using one fabric. Where you cut the triangles determines how the colors play.

This was a second and very stunning one block wonder quilt made by Karen. The focus fabric that she used was just multi-colored leaves. She did a wonderful job arranging the hexagons. I do LOVE hexagons!