Pacific Piecemakers Quilt
Guild
Bits & Pieces
June 2004 -- Volume 9, Issue 7
Jackie Gardener, Editor
J . U . L . Y
P . I . C . N
. I . C
Friday, July 16, 12:30 PM
33601 Highway 1, Gualala
This
month, a picnic will
be held outdoors at the beautiful home
of Naida Mauthe. Members are requested
to bring two salad toppings. The greens, rolls and beverages will be
provided.
Since parking is
somewhat limited, carpooling is
recommended. Naida indicated that anyone wishing
to golf, should bring their own seven or eight
iron. Members are also reminded
to bring their Progressive Quilt Blocks.
Directions: From Gualala,
head
north on Highway
1. Look for Mile Marker
6.48. Naida's
driveway
is on the right, across
from AmeriGas.
Invisible
Angels
By
President Donna
Blum
Did you know that
it takes
more than
thirty quiet angels
to facilitate
our year-around
guild activities
and
keep our guild in compliance
with the requirements for non-profit organizations?
Many
members volunteer their time and
energy to provide the individual
activities,
workshops and
projects like our Comfort Quilt workshops, annual
Challenge
Show and
Art-In-The-Redwoods Scholarship
Quilt.
Every month all
members receive their newsletter beautifully
written, designed, edited and
mailed.
Wonderful Munchies appear
at
our Guild Meetings to be enjoyed during our “Social
time” before the meetings. Special
projects like Block of the Month and
Progressive Quilt are
organized
and
presented for your enjoyment and
education.
Fascinating
educational
workshops and
trips that
often take
months and
years
of planning
are
available
to guild members and
guests. Guild officers provide the structure and
guidance
to maintain
our financial
viability.
These are
our invisible angels
that
do the work that
make
our guild possible.
If you are
not currently active
as
a
volunteer in the guild, we ask
all
members to consider volunteering in some capacity.
Many
hands
make
light work. If you cannot
volunteer for a
full year
position or committee, consider helping out with some of the new
projects that
are
announced
and
seeking volunteers. Setting up and
putting away
for the meetings is an
ongoing need. If you (or your husband)
can
help, please
contact
the Hospitality
Committee. If you are
a
long distance
member, we are
delighted to have
you and
look forward
to your return visits to our meetings. Thank
you all
for your support.
Velda Newman
September 18-19, 2004
Layers, Form and Texture
There are still a few spaces left for
the Velda Newman workshop.
The Program Committee
will start promoting
her class to
neighboring guilds very shortly, so move quickly if you are thinking of
taking this
exciting workshop. Send your
check made out to PPQG
for $130 to:
Laurie Mueller
P.O.
Box
314
The Sea Ranch, CA 95497.
For a
look at
Velda's
work, check out her website at
www.veldanewman.com.
Call for Quilts
The Arts Center Theater is calling for
quilts to grace the auditiorium of
the Arts Center and to help baffle sound
during its upcoming production of Neil Simon's London Suite. Please deliver
your quilt(s) to Kathye Hitt or
Lynne Atkins on July 12 or July 13.
The show opens on July 16 with a Gala starting at 6:30 - and contunues
on July 17 at 7:30 and July 18 at 2:00. It runs again on July 25,
26 at 7:30 and 27 at 2:00.
Come see the quilts on display and stay for the
show, but be sure to purchase your
tickets early! The last Arts Center
Theater
productions have sold out! For tickets, call Gualala Arts at 884-1138.
Let’s Be
Progressive!
We have another chance to jump on
board for a wonderful adventure in
colors, shapes and fabrics. Just
bring your 12” or larger block to
the July 16th picnic and embark on a fun project
that will enhance your
quilting acumen and add to your
summer enjoyment.
It will be similar to being
online with your friends: each person
responds to the work they are given for
that month with
their own ideas, sewing in
their message rather than typing it.
Finally, at the November
unveiling, the original block owner
gets back a wonderful
quilt top that has blossomed
like a flower into a thing of beauty and wonder.
If you cannot make it to the
picnic, call Ellen Soule
at 785-2016, and she will
get your block there and see that you receive
your new block.
Membership News
Armer, Trudy 3435 Ocean
Pk.Bl.#112, Santa Monica 90405, Birthday
- June 10, phone
785-164 or 310-396-5984, email is tarmer1@aol.com
Covington,
Bette PO
Box 740, Gualala 95445 email
same, local phone same
Hock, Diane 1701 Latigo Lane,
Healdsburg 95448 Birthday - January
31, phone 431-2440, email is dphock@comcast.net
Young, Laurel PO Box 849, Gualala
95445, Birthday - December 12, phone 884-4721, email
is scylay@mindspring.com
One Last Fish
Story....
What an outstanding evening we all
enjoyed with the challenge show in the gallery and
the Olympic quilts in the auditorium!
Thanks to everyone who made the evening a
success! You are too numerous to mention here.
While attending Melody Johnson's class, I was
very pleased to see how many people came into the Art
Center during the week and saw the show.
Remember to pick up your quilts on Tuesday, July 6,
between 10am and 1pm. If that
time doesn't work for you, please contact one of us and
make other arrangements.
Mary Austin and Jan Sears
Bits of Trivia
Reva Basch wanted to share this
compelling bit of information with us
from a friend who
is living in Japan. The Shinto
religion, which is womven into many aspects of
everyday Japanese life,
includes a festival in which
needles that have given good
service to seamtresses and housewives are retired
with honor. People flock to the town of Asakusa to stick
their old needles into tofu and pray for
improvement in their skills for the following year.
Perhaps
this could become a
part
of our holiday
traditions
in December...
Guild Glimmers: Melody Johnson
& the
Fine Art of Fusing
by Reva Basch
Melody
Johnson
is no shrinking violet. Nor does she shrink from red, blue,
green, yellow, orange
or any
other color of the visible spectrum. In her June 18th
presentation
to PPQG members and
guests, she admitted
to having
been labeled the
“all
colors all
the time” quilter, but countered by showing examples
of work in which she managed
to restrict herself to shades
of yellow and
orange…
with a
touch of red… and,
of course, a
little bit of blue, green and
purple for contrast.
Melody began
as
a
painter
and
later
fell into quilting, applying
her painterly
techniques in a
succession of art
quilts that
became
less pictorial
and
more abstract
over time. With fellow-quilter Laura
Wasilowski,
she established
Artfabrik,
a
hand-dyed
fabric
business that
eventually
threatened
to take
over her life. Today,
Laura
runs Artfabrik
while Melody devotes herself to the pursuits she loves most
– creating
quilts, teaching
workshops, and
spreading
the gospel of the Chicago
School of Fusing (www.artfabrik.com/csof.html).
Melody and
three like-minded colleagues
established
this influential,
semi-fictitious institution to champion
the use of fusible web among
quilters, as
an
alternative
to traditional
piecing. Re-fuse-niks may
raise
their eyebrows at
the CSF’s no-sew approach,
but the prestigious shows in which Melody has
exhibited – including Visions, AQS, and
Quilt National
– and
the awards
that
she’s won, have
helped establish
the legitimacy
of her technique. Purists please
note that
Melody’s pieces are
beautifully
quilted, often with heavy,
lustrous pearl
cotton, by both hand
and
machine.
Some are
lavishly
embroidered as
well. One of her quilts graces
the cover of the current (Summer 2004) Quilting Arts magazine,
and
her painstaking
handwork
is clearly
visible there, as
well as
in the photographs
that
accompany
her article,
“Releasing
the Creative
Block.”
Guild meeting attendees
were treated
to a
sampler
of Melody’s creativity,
energy, and
wit. But workshop participants
earlier
that
week got three full days
of all
Melody, all
the time. It was
a
bonding experience. Most of us began
by investing in at
least
a
couple of lengths of the rainbow
fabrics,
in light, medium or dark
values,
that
this colorful woman
still dyes for workshops and
her own use. The rainbow
gradient
on each
piece made
it easy
to blend colors and
create
subtle, watercolor-y
effects as
well as
dramatic
contrasts.
Is this the secret to Melody’s multi-chromatic
success — when you use all
colors, everything goes with everything else?
As an
artist,
Melody pointed out, one way
to build up a
body of work with a
unified and
characteristic
“look” is to create
a
series of related
pieces. One way
to accomplish
that
is
to cue off a
single, simple design, a
basic
block such as
the “lollipop” featured
in her Quilting Arts story.
Try out the approach
she outlines there and
see how swiftly and
spontaneously
you can
create
your own innovative
designs. The possibilities abound.
Instead
of working on a
modest scale,
as
we did in the workshop, with signature
blocks roughly 2”, 3” and
4” on a
side, start
with larger
blocks, apply
the same
techniques, and
discover how quickly you can
come up with a
major,
eye-catching
wall
hanging.
Melody’s website, www.wowmelody.com,
shows the kind of work to which you might aspire.
(She came
up with that
domain
name
because
“Wow, Melody!” is what
she wants
people to say
when they see her quilts — and
you will.)
The results of our efforts, live from the design wall
at
Gualala
Arts, are
on display
at
www.pacificpiecemakers.org/MelodyJohnson/melody.htm.
Artist attributions
are
tentative
at
this point; if you recognize your work and
want
credit for it, please
send me email
identifying it by its position on the list and
in the individual
photo(s).
Melody generously shared
many
other practical
tips for creating
fabulous
fused quilts. For details,
see the complete text of this article
on our website: www.pacificpiecemakers.org/MelodyJohnson/glimmers.htm
Workshop members asked
Melody if she planned
to write a
book. “No,” she replied.
A book, by its very nature,
would feature
old stuff, work she’d moved beyond. Besides, like any
staunch
member of the Chicago
School of Fusing, she’d rather
spend her time on more “pressing” matters.