January Pandoras meeting

Today was our January meeting of the Pandoras, my local fiber art group. It happened to fall on Grace’s birthday, so of course we had to have cake! Fluffy white cake with cream cheese frosting and lemon curd… yum! Grace’s husband interrupted our meeting every 10 minutes with a phone text message saying “Happy Birthday!” Very sweet, don’t you think? I love this photo of Grace, showing the cute little gap between her front teeth. She is very fun-loving and has the most amazing laugh. Happy Birthday, my dear friend!

Here is Grace in a more serious mode (below), working with watercolor pencils and Caran D’Ache Neocolor II Watersoluble Crayons crayons on fabric. She is experimenting with using them on one of her orchid pieces she is doing for our Fiber Art Options group exhibition next month. While we usually work on the same project (picked out by the host), this month we brought our own things and just worked side by side.



Michele worked on this lovely beaded fish piece. She’s done several of these beaded buttons, and they are to die for! Michele works in a very eclectic mix of needle arts… quilting, beading, needlepoint, doll-making…



Meanwhile, Alisan and I tried out Creative PaperClay for the first time, and followed instructions by Elaine Thomas in the January/February issue of Cloth Paper Scissors magazine to make folk art Valentines. (You can see Elaine’s wonderful work on her blog, her Flickr account, and her Etsy shop.)

Here’s how mine looked after I shaped the clay. The heart is built around molded aluminum foil, so it is very light. I’ll post photos of it once it is dry and painted so you can see how it turns out.



I really liked working with PaperClay. When I was in college, I made some pieces in porcelain clay while working at a YMCA camp during the summer. This has a similar feel, but has a little more spring or flexibility to it. It does not need to be fired, but simply air dries, and can then be sanded and smoothed before painting. It can even be wet again and re-worked somewhat.

I enjoy working three-dimensionally… guess I had forgotten how much. Must… resist… temptation… focus, focus!