A Beautiful Day for Watercolors

 

The meeting on April 9 was a lovely sunny day on Marcella's patio, next to her beautiful garden of blooming roses. The highlight of the meeting was Sally's enrichment session—an introduction to watercolor painting. She generously supplied all of us with a miniature paint set and brush, and samples of various watercolor papers. We learned the basics of mixing colors and various painting techniques. Members, many who had not painted before, were excited and inspired by her non-intimidating presentation and looked forward to further experimentation on their own. Thank you, Sally, for your inspiration and exceptional demonstration.

Calendar 

May 14 (Saturday) at Marcella's. Drop-in Social Get-together 11:00 to 1:30, Business Meeting at 1:30 P.M. If you are participating in the "Bag Challenge," bring a sealed paper sandwich bag containing 6 items. These will be exchanged, and the recipient will have to make something using at least four of the items, due in September. 

  Challenge

The challenge for this month was to create something that represented "Woman's Work" from items found around the house and incorporating the colors of the Olympics logo. The amount of work that went into each item is so amazing. The Phoebes are certainly an impressive group of artists and crafters! 

Suzanne sewed two lovely potholders from indigo fabric and added decorative sashiko hand stitching. 

Harlene's doll displayed all the required colors in the fabric and the many embellishments are representative of women's sewing tasks. 

She also cleverly assembled this doll on a paintbrush, adding her signature butterfly. 

Marcella's very cute stump doll features a measuring tape and fabric flower.

These very creative fabric cards were also made by Marcella. They are beautifully decorated with fancy buttons, applique, bits of lace, and sashiko stitching. 

Geri created this lovely card using gold foil English paper die cuts and sewn fabric yoyos. 

Daisy proudly exhibited her challenge doll holding a baby. She had made it for a previous Hoffman fabric doll challenge. It was then chosen to be a part of an exhibit that traveled around the United States for 18 months.

Geri also totally amazed us with this "Woman's Work" piece that is comprised of hand sewn hexagons of fabric, each smaller than a penny. The number of tiny stitches used to assemble this piece is almost unbelievable. 

Show and Tell

Jennifer completed a kit for this cloth book that illustrates the animals in the stable celebrating the birth of Christ. 

What cute graphics!

Caroline shared the most amazing basketful of "Vegetable People" dolls that were made from a pattern our famous Sally once created. They were also made with patterned fabric Sally designed. Each doll was perfectly crafted and detailed. Very impressive.

It was thrilling to see Daisy's latest fabric bird. Each one just gets better and better. This one is so wonderful. Great job! 

Butterflies in March

As spring approaches, the beautiful butterflies will soon start migrating back to our area. What better way to welcome their arrival than making lovely butterflies to adorn our clothing and art projects? This is Harlene's speciality, and she graciously offered to show us her techniques for making them from fabric and paper for this month's enrichment session. Thank you, Harlene!

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Calendar

April 9 (Saturday) at Marcella's. Drop-in Social Get-together 11:00 to 1:30, Business Meeting at 1:30 P.M. Enrichment by Sally featuring watercolor painting. The "Women's Work" challenge item will be due. Make something from items found around the house and include the colors red, yellow, blue, green and black in celebration of the recent Olympics.

May 14 (Saturday) at Marcella's. Drop-in Social Get-together 11:00 to 1:30, Business Meeting at 1:30 P.M. If you are participating in the "Bag Challenge," bring a paper bag with 6 items in it. See the March minutes for details.

  Show and Tell 

This is one of the paper butterflies Harlene brought to the meeting. Her printed directions and demonstration make it a possibility for all.

Sally's acrylic, watercolor, ink and collage paintings like the ones above and below, continue to evolve to an ever-higher level. What an eye for composition. 

This is close-up of one of the two "Little Star scent blankets" Donna made to donate to Stone Mountain and Daughter's community outreach program. 

Above is a photo of the most generous and lovely quilt Suzanne's cousin recently made and sent to her. Lucky Suzanne—what an amazing gift. 

Suzanne also recently received this lovely birthday card from our former member, Kelly, who now resides in Washington state.

Kathy brought this very large quilt she is making for a family member. The pattern is somewhat similar to Suzanne's. Another labor of love.  

We were all thrilled to see Betts at the meeting and she brought so many beautiful things she has made in the past few years.

Each item, like the journal above, incorporates some of the many antique items she has collected in her world travels, including the vintage book. 

This shadowbox piece features some of her French antique silver flatware. 

An avid collector of buttons and charms, Betts cleverly chose a coin holder to display the charms shown above.  

Betts recently participated in a "Moth 
Challenge" with some of her artist friends and shown above is the Luna Moth she created and displayed in an exquisite antique frame.

Her keen eye for beauty also resulted in this beautiful fabric book cover. 

Bonnie is also an avid collector of buttons and decided to display some of her favorite antique ones on this fabric strip. 

Marcella was thrilled to receive a birthday card from Kelly. A clever composition of fabric, flowers and buttons. 

Together Again in February 2022 with Hearts and Flowers

 In celebration of Valentine's Day, Caroline led us in a fun enrichment session using heart-shaped fabric cut-outs. She supplied each of us with 4 hearts and led us in gathering them down the center to create two petals each and sewing the 4 pieces together to create a flower. She also supplied buttons to sew in the center. 

Sue gave us a double treat by bringing her paper cutouts and showing us how to weave them together to make paper hearts. They can be woven to make a paper envelope and she gave us each one that was filled with chocolate kisses.

Both Caroline and Sue deserve a big "Thank You" for their demonstrations and generosity.   

Calendar

March 12 (Saturday) at Marcella's. Drop-in Social Get-together 11:00 to 1:30, Business Meeting at 1:30 P.M. It's St. Patrick's Day! Let's all wear green to celebrate. Enrichment by Harlene featuring making 3D butterflies.

April 12 (Saturday) at Marcella's. Drop-in Social Get-together 11:00 to 1:30, Business Meeting at 1:30 P.M. Enrichment by Sally featuring watercolor painting. The "Women's Work" challenge item will be due. Make something from items found around the house and include the colors red, yellow, blue, green and black in celebration of the recent Olympics. 

  Show and Tell 

Geri brought this cute little bear to share with us. His name is "Smudge." She also shared the adorable little paper dolls she often uses on her beautiful cards.

(see below)

 

This is the beautiful 3D butterfly pin Harlene made to give Marcella as a birthday present. Looking forward to Harlene's butterfly enrichment session in March.

 Donna recently finished her padded heart project and will be giving these to family and friends on Valentine's Day. They are the last of around 20 or so she made. They have pin backs and also a tiny ring on the back for hanging.

 Harlene is the "Queen of Vests" as well as the "Queen of Butterflies." She has now made over 70 vests and every single one is as stunning as this one.

 Suzanne, our favorite Oakland Zoo docent, created these beautiful animal-themed greeting cards for a February card exchange. Great composition and design.

 This is one of the many fabric journals Sharon has made over the years. They have been all sizes, each unique, and filled with beautiful cloth, paper, vintage trims and ephemera. They are true labors of love and take untold hours to complete. She has successfully sold many at craft shows over the years. This one was a present to Donna at Christmas. 

 

 Colleen has been so inspired by Anne's ceramic, tin and found objects dolls that she wanted to make some of her own. So, in homage to Anne, here are five photos of just a few of Colleen's recent creations. 

 

 Caroline and Jennifer are constantly coming up with new and unique projects that they find online and in magazines. A recent project involved making cloth bird pin cushions and attaching them to stuffed tins. It is a Virginia Roberts pattern, "Spam Can Birds."   Very cute!

 Kathy has diligently been working on completing this Queen size ombre green quilt to give to a family member. A big project, indeed!

 She also shared these articulated unicorn/bear dolls she made for Christmas gifts. Grandchildren would surely love them.

 These tiny—1" tiny to be exact—patchwork squares were sewn by Marcella. The squares and the extremely small hand stitching are truly amazing!

 Rosie and Anne were recently having fun playing with alcohol inks. This is just one of the numerous beautiful results. 

 Sally never stops impressing us with the colorful journals she creates using bits and pieces of her paintings, along with other collage materials. She is a master of composition and color balance. Each page is definitely a work of art.

 This is the cover of one of Sally's journals. Her painting demonstration in April is something we look forward to.

Sue created this lovely face made entirely with clay. The thin clay around the face really looks like fabric, even up close. She's lovely!