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! 

September 2019 Phoebe Meeting and Enrichment Playday

A Special Thanks to Jennifer, Anne and Kathy!

Our get-together this month was much more than the usual business meeting and show and tell segment—it was an all-day event during which three members also gave presentations and demonstrations. First, Jennifer handed everyone a packet which included all the materials, tools and instructions to make a bound book. The amount of time she obviously devoted to making and assembling the kit was amazing. She then patiently walked us through the whole process of putting together our books. The peek-a-boo lace and stitching on the spine was a special touch and each of us proudly went home with a little book to cherish.

Secondly, Anne explained in detail her basic steps and techniques for creating her very popular figures made using her wonderful ceramic heads, various types of tins for bodies, and beads, springs, dominoes, etc. for arms and legs. She shared with us many tips and tricks she has developed for assembling these components over the years. It was such a generous thing to do and she inspired us to make one on our own. They will be due in November.

Kathy led us in an exercise in fabric origami. She brought a grand assortment of brightly colored cotton fabrics and detailed instructions to create a curved-petal hexagon, a diamond-petal hexagon, a pentagon flower, an octagon flower, and a twelve-petal sunflower. The possibilities are amazing. 

Again, thank you ladies for and intense but greatly rewarding day when we learned so many new techniques and went home immensely inspired to try new and different things. We must do an event like this more often!

Calendar of Events 

September 22, (Sunday), 11 A.M. to 5 P.M., Art in the Vineyard at Wente Vineyard's Estate Winery, 5565 Tesla Rd., Livermore.

September 26-28 (Saturday), 1 to 4 P.M., 8th Annual Pleasanton Quilt, Craft and Sewing Festival, Alameda County Fairgrounds, Pleasanton. Free Admission.

September 28, (Saturday), Artistry in Fashion, Canada College,  4200 Farm Hill Rd., Redwood City. artistryinfashion.com/events/openhouse

October 12, (Saturday), 1 to 6 P.M., Phoebe Meeting and Annual Potluck and Gift Exchange at Christ Episcopal Church, 1700 Santa Clara Avenue, Alameda. This year we are celebrating the Phoebes' 32nd anniversary. Bring a sweet or savory dish to share and your gift for the exchange if you participated. 

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!

The Shoe Challenge


This month's challenge was to make something with a "shoe" theme. Some of the dollmakers found the perfect solution would be a doll in a shoe. Just in time for Halloween, Suzanne covered a real shoe with mosaic tiles and placed those famous witch legs from The Wizard of Oz into it. Fantastic idea! 

For this challenge Colleen sculpted felt to form this jolly elfin face—or perhaps a court jester? He fits perfectly in a whimsical ceramic shoe.

Daisy created the famous "old woman in a shoe" who had so many children she didn't know what to do. She does look perplexed! Very cute! 

This colorful lady was sculpted from flowery fabric by Harlene and is comfortably seated on a shoe. Her bright orange yarn coif is the perfect addition.

Donna fashioned an elegant paper shoe, a la Marie Antionette. 

And Linda created not one, but three beautiful paper shoes, complete with regal jeweled embellishments. 

This antique child's shoe from Marcella's wonderful collections features an adorable mouse. Marcella used felt, beads and fabric to make this cute little guy.

Show and Tell

Colleen and members of her family had great fun collecting driftwood on the beach recently. Such unusual and inspiring pieces such as these led to this "driftwood babies" piece which features some of Colleen's sculpted ceramic heads. found sea glass, and a starfish. So original!

This sweet petite witch was made by Geri from a clever assortment of materials. Such a cute little face!

Jo, our wonderful quilter, has been making many, many of these "fire birds" in response the wildfires that have decimated so many nearby areas in California. What a colorful and happy way to brighten the spirits of those who have been affected.

Marjorie recently took an on-line class from famous doll-maker Marlene Verhelst and this is the amazing result. So much sculpting involved, including the fish-head body, but what a wonderful piece of art! 

This lovely island mermaid is Sue's almost completed entry in the annual "Treasures of the Gypsy" challenge which Pamela Aramas conducts at the huge Houston, Texas quilt show. Everyone uses the same fabric chosen by Pamela, but Sue has cut out motifs and added colorful paints to make hers really unique. We wish Sue great success and hope she wins a prize!

Besides the wonderful witch legs in a shoe at the top of this post, Suzanne, who excels at mosaics (among many other things) just completed this great skull. She is definitely all set for a spooky Halloween!