Group of Eight Fibre Artists Show...

Our Group of Eight Fibre Artists show is now hanging at the Halton Hills Cultural Centre, in downtown Georgetown, 9 Church Street, Halton Hills, ON, L7G 2A3. We hope you have a chance to come and see our work. The show runs from today until September 20th.

Here's a peek of what you'll see. There is work from seven of the nine artists currently in our group.

Summer's Busy, But I'm Checking In...

Summer posts are just not happening this year, but I thought I'd pop in to share a couple of things I've finished.

 "Snakes and Ladders" is now finished and framed and will be showing at the Halton Hills Cultural Centre as part of our Group of Eight show, running from August 18th until September 20. If you're in the area, I hope you'll stop by to see our work.

"Stitch Meanderings" is also finished and mounted onto a stretched canvas. You can come and see it in person at the show too.


I've also been busy making an I Spy quilt. I'll post pictures of that when I get a chance. Until then, I hope you're having a wonderful August!

'Three Squared' is Finished...

Yesterday I shared with you the wonderful weekend workshop I participated in with Alice Vander Vennen (see it here). So I'm just quickly popping in to show you this piece, which I've called 'Three Squared', finished and framed.

The first shot shows it with the mat, and the second after it's signed and framed (but sadly with terrible reflections...how do you photograph art behind glass?).

Weekend Workshop with Alice Vander Vennen...

I just spent the most wonderful weekend with my Group of Eight friends and the incredibly talented Alice Vander Vennen. It was a fun filled workshop and the work that was produced was fabulous. Here are the pieces I have come away with...

We started with a couple of small exercises to get us warmed up. These were intended to be used for cards so we mounted them on card blanks.

The next exercise was a little larger, but we were still working quickly and loosely. I love the juxtaposition of the various fibres and textures combined with the minimal hand stitch.

This small square piece, framed in a 10" square frame, started out as a card, but I worked back into it a bit and decided to frame it.

These two photos are close ups of individual components of a larger piece. 

There is still a little more work that will go into this piece before it's ready to be framed.

This piece is the start of a work in progress. I honestly don't know where this will take me, but I love the relatively fast, intuitive manner in which it's coming together. Time will tell where it goes and what it becomes ;)

Wafer was a most wonderful companion during the weekend. Although she loves little silk scraps and thinks of them a bit like chewing gum, for a six month old (today's her half birthday) she did very well during the two day workshop. I'm proud of my silly girl!

Street Art Challenge...

The next challenge for our Group of Eight Fibre Arts group is 'Street Art'. It seems this is an especially challenging challenge for the members of our group! After several false starts, I have finally found something that is going to make me happy, and I've come to the conclusion that if every street artist first had to 'build a wall', there might be a lot less graffiti around. LOL

So far I have killed a few spools of thread in the making of this art quilt, from the brick wall to the lettering, there is a lot of thread sketching/doodling going on! 

The reveal for this challenge is at our June 10th meeting, so I've got to get busy finishing this piece before I head off for a week long workshop with Amanda McCavour next week. Fingers crossed (you cross yours for me please...I have a lot of hand stitching to do) I get finished!

I'll tell you about the Amanda McCavour workshop when I get back, but until then, enjoy visiting her website.

Ontario Network of Needleworkers (ONN) Conference

Yesterday I participated in the 2015 ONN conference, hosted by the Canadian Embroiderers' Guild, Guelph chapter. It was another well organized and productive meeting. Thank you to all who were involved in organizing the day!

In addition to the meeting itself, each guild attending sets up a display of of members' work to showcase what they have been doing, so I thought I'd share with you our display. There are only nine of us in our Group of Eight Fibre Artists group, but I am always awestruck by the incredible talent and versatility of our members!

For those of you keeping up on my foster puppies, that is 4 month old Wafer, practising her down-stay in the first photo.

The beautiful Miss Yoshi will be going off to puppy university in a couple of weeks to begin her formal training. She has been selected for the SSD program which means she will be working with an individual with a physical disability when she and her client graduate. I couldn't be more proud of her. She is an incredible puppy and will make someone's life so much better!

Seriously Behind...

My fibre art group, Group of Eight, has our next group challenge due November 12th. The challenge is "behind" and I am seriously there! Although I have ideas floating around, one after another is not panning out. And to make it worse, I've been finding lots of things to keep me busy and out of the studio (read procrastination...).

However, yesterday's distraction turned out very well so I thought I'd share these cupcake creations. I took them to our family Thanksgiving dinner and they were a hit.

There were two dozen, so I made two each of the various mums, nine pumpkins and the rest were the ones with the leave piles.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends and family!

Fibre Content 2014...

This promises to be an outstanding show!  I hope you have the opportunity to visit!

Adding Texture With Hand Stitch and Revamping the Group Of Eight's Blog...

Last week I posted about some inspiration I got from some wonderful threads my friend Heather gave me. Well, it would seem other art has been set aside and this has been my focus for the last couple of days.  I designed and pieced the components of this new piece, yet to be named, and I've been adding some texture with hand stitch.  I'm really enjoying using the Sorbello stitch (thanks again to Heather for teaching it to me!). I'm also adding other hand stitch to various areas before I move back to the machine to add some dense quilting.  I'm still amazed that this all started because my friend gave me a pretty skein of interesting thread! (Leah, I believe this is what you'd call a squirrel. LOL)

But, prior to working on this piece, the weekend was spent revamping the Group of Eight Fibre Artists blog.  Please pop by to see the new format, learn more about our fibre art group  and 'meet' the other artists in the group.  There are a few artists I'm still working with to get photos taken of their work, but most of the galleries are ready for viewing!

I'm linking to WIP Wednesday at Needle And Thread Network.

GOE is giving back...

I'm so exciting to share this fabulous collection of journals and bags made by the members of Group of Eight Fibre Artists.  For the second year, we have made a collection of journals, and this year some large tote bags, for donation to our local women's shelter.  It is our way of being able to give something back to the community.  There are seven tote bags and twenty-seven journals (with three four more journals to come!).

Update...the last of the beautiful journals have been delivered to me.  I'm now ready to take them to the shelter for donation!

Thank you to my wonderfully artistic friends...you've done another fabulous job this year!