November 2019 Phoebe Meeting at Marcela's

The highlight of the meeting was the enrichment session conducted by Harlene. We have been admiring the many beautiful vests she has constructed over the years and commented on how much we would like to know her techniques. She gave us that opportunity this month by agreeing to show us the step-by-step secrets to her success. Thank you so much Harlene. We are looking forward to our own attempts at creating beautiful one-of-kind vests like yours. 

Calendar of Events 

December—No meeting. Merry Christmas to all!

January 18, 2020 Meeting will be an All-Day Play Day at Christ Episcopal Church, 1700 Santa Clara Ave, Alameda. Come and participate in learning more about Gelli printing and die-cutting.

January 26, 2:30 to 4:30 P.M., Celebration of Life for Pamela Zanaib Nia Green will take place at the Deaf Community Center, 1550 San Leandro Blvd., San Leanadro. Come festive and ready for storytelling as we remember our dear sweet friend.

February 22, (Saturday), 1 to 4 P.M., Phoebe Meeting at Marcella's.

March 21, (Saturday), 1 to 4 P.M., Phoebe Meeting at Sally's.

Show and Tell

Next year we will once again return to the Castro Valley Library (by request) and conduct our doll make-it-and-take it free outreach project for library patrons. Phoebe members are asked to make a few more stump doll bodies like the one above (or similar shapes and sizes) out of any type of fabric you might have on hand. This completed doll was made by Harlene and features her always wonderful butterfly embellishments.

Sue has been getting ever more inspiration and ideas from the Curious Mondo web site. She decided to try the needle sculpting tutorial and created this wonderful leopard using Merino lamb's wool. What a great success he turned out to be. Can't wait to see more!

Geri signed up for a workshop that involved making collaged fabric squares. This beautiful example of her work features everything from fabric scraps and yoyos, trims, a tiny doll dress, crocheted flowers and more. A lovely idea.

And, Geri greatly impressed us with samples of painstakingly carved wooden dolls she has made in past years. A tremendous amount of patience and skill is obviously needed to end up with dolls like these!

Bonnie displayed some of the tiny dolls from her doll collection. The creator is unknown, but they are a great idea for a future doll challenge... maybe made from clothes pins?

Marcella shared with us some of the many pot holders she has been quilting featuring fantasy faces. Great work, Marcella!

Sue completed her doll/shoe challenge and what a lot of work she put into it! So many polymer figures beautifully sculpted represent the old lady who lived in a shoe and her many children. The shoe alone is an amazing assemblage and the little clothesline and tiny pantaloons a cute touch.

Jennifer is still going wild making the most amazing zippered pouches, purses and tote bags using all types of candy and food wrappers. She laminates the wrappers and sews zippers into many of them. Endless possibilities!

Marcella also brought a turkey doll she recently received as a gift from Christie Silacci. Very cute—lucky Marcella!

We were thinking of having a skeleton doll challenge next year, and Shawn just happened to bring this wonderful dressed skeleton doll to the meeting. A great inspiration for for the challenge.

Zanaib has been so busy both crocheting and knitting lap blankets using an assortment of donated yarn. She will send the blankets to her friend and Phoebe member Sherrye for donation to a Senior Center in Tennessee. 

A large work-in-progress quilt top brought by Kathy amused us with an accompanying story. She started it for her grandson back when he thought he would love to go camping. Then, after she started assembling suitable pieces, he did go camping and decided he did not want to do so again. So, Kathy has modified the theme to be travel destinations he might like to visit some day. It will definitely be an inspiration we hope he will follow.

Phoebes Celebrated Our 32nd Anniversary with Annual Potluck and Gift Exchange

This month the Phoebes celebrated 32 years of creativity and fellowship with a day of sharing—sharing wonderful potluck food and exchanging gifts that we had made for each other. It also included sharing our ideas and recent creations and beloved collections during show and tell. What a wonderful day! Above is one of Sharon's collage canvases featuring little houses all in a row. See more examples in the Show and Tell section of this post.

Calendar of Events 

October 26, (Saturday), 9 A.M. to 3 P.M., FabMo Arts Boutique, First Congregational Church, 1985 Louis Rd, Palo Alto.

November 9, (Saturday), 1 to 4 P.M., Phoebe Meeting at Marcella's.

December—No meeting. Merry Christmas to all!

Gift Exchange

Donna was absolutely thrilled to receive this lovely spoon doll from Sue.

Linda created this magical fairy doll especially for our "Butterfly Lady" Harlene. 

For Caroline's gift, Kathy used copper wire to make this tiny and very cute doll.

For Daisy's gift, Harlene considered Daisy's love for birds and gave her a pin cushion embellished with an adorable little owl.

Bonnie, our "Queen of Flat Dolls" made this wonderful blue fabric one for Kathy, who liked it so much she hung it around her neck and wore it for the remainder of the day.

Donna, who has made many different types of jewelry featuring fabric yoyos over the past few years, gave this yoyo necklace to President Jennifer. 

Jo is our "Quilting Queen" and she created a special fabric nametag just for Zanaib.

Zanaib is the "Card and Stuffed Envelope Queen" and she gave Marcella three packages of her beautiful one-of-a-kind greeting cards.

Paying homage to Jo's enjoyable "Nasty Woman" quilted square workshop, Marcella quilted a themed potholder for Jo.

Linda is one of our "Miniature Queens" and she created this tiny pitcher and sweet little mouse just for Daisy.

Geri also loves to make miniatures and shows her skill at it with this wee doll pin she created for Sue.

Jennifer put a lot of thought into her gift to Bonnie. First she made a necklace out of lettered Scrabble tiles, but she added touching photos of Bonnie's late husband on the back of each one. Then, she made a fabulous draw-string bag to put it in. Bonnie was so moved by Jennifer's gift.

Caroline made two cute little dolls from felt and then fashioned a tiny sleigh to put them in and gave them to Geri, whom as you remember, loves tiny dolls.

Show and Tell

Show and tell revealed even more wonderous things! Christofer colorfully dressed two dolls and seated them on a pair of amazing Lucite shoes with extremely high heels. They were made for the doll/shoe challenge last month but she wasn't able to attend the meeting.

Colleen is continuing to make amazing things from blown, melted and fused glass in her kiln. This looks like her new direction—a creative adventure in all things glass!

Daisy is still getting a great deal of pleasure making whimsical birds like this one, which features found items like the driftwood from her recent beachcombing adventure.

Anne's tin doll tutorial last month inspired Daisy to make this one with great graphics in an African theme. 

 During the meeting Geri was seen working on some of her miniature dolls. She uses shoe polish to achieve a vintage look.

 Marcella found these great little skeleton figures at the dollar store recently and has been busy costuming them for Halloween and Day of the Dead decorations. It's a wonderful project for using up some of those bits and pieces of things we all love to save. 

 And, Marcella continues to put her heart and soul into making quilted blankets for the packages of dolls, clothes and accessories that go to "Stitch'n for Kids" for children in long-term care in hospitals. This one is made from the little fabric samples we used to receive from suppliers when we ordered fabrics. 

 Sally shared a doll from her collections made by Susie Robbins—an angel with "bling."

Some of us visited Laurie in Portola recently and Sharon was so inspired with Laurie's polymer shrines she ended up making three. Two of them are shown above. Thank you, Laurie, for sharing your new craft room and generous supplies with us. It was so much fun!

Here are two more examples of Sharon's "little houses" series. She loves to make them and she plans to definitely make even more.

Kathy had a great time with her granddaughters making tiny faries. Really adorable, especially with those sparkly wings!