March RAFA Meeting

The best part of our meetings of our local fiber artists is of course "show and tell".  Today was no exception.  This quilt is called Enigma and was designed and quilted by two of our members (Julie Brandon and Val Schultz).  They won a Judge's Choice award at the NJ Quilt Festival.  Julie also was recognized for her another of her quilts at the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Show.  Val does incredible machine quilting and Julie has been doing a lot of experimenting with manipulating photos and then having them printed on cloth.  


Our own Priscilla also got accepted into the Paducah show so can no longer officially say she is not a quilter.  

This quilt was part of a class project from a book called StrataVarious.  Bonnie Robinson shared it with the group as the authors offered the workshop and a lecture at her local guild.

This is a piece that Priscilla picked up in India on her last trip.  It is huge and supposedly for her walls (note:  there is NO space on her walls which I pointed out) but I was shushed!!  It is literally covered with little shisha mirrors and embroidery.  Pictures can't do this piece justice.

This is a closeup of one of the corners of this wall hanging.

Caris had this beautiful scarf and the following scarf to share with the group.  She does beautiful felting and her colors are just incredible.

This was a mostly finished vest felted by one of the other group members, whose name I have forgotten as she is a new member and I had not met her until today.  It is a beautiful example.


A lot of the members shared wools they had been dyeing with acid dyes, something I really am anxious to try.  They got some rich beautiful colors and used an oven to set the colors!


I would really like to thank the people that took the time  to comment on my quilt tops.  The consensus is definitely to take the borders off number 2 quilt (had the stripes) and to keep the borders on the third quilt.  There is no consensus on the first quilt but I am inclined to take the borders off this one as well.  I should comment that I really was doing these quilts to put on beds which is why I added the borders.  I didn't have a good design wall down at the beach so had to just try.  


I don't think I will  be putting borders on the huge brown quilt and will wait until it is together to decide what next.  I would really like a good sized quilt which is what drove the size and did have fun playing with all the different patterns.


I am still slogging through the clutter in my sewing room.  I will be having one heck of a large garage sale in the summer -- books, commercial fabrics and hand dyed fabrics -- all cheap.  Trying to come to grips with what to do with my 12 running feet of craft books, none of which I use anymore.  I think Freecycle is in my future!