Buellwood Fall Retreat September 2019

Buellwood Fall Retreat September 21-22, 2019

We had another successful fall retreat at the Marsin Retreat House in Houghton, MI.
Some of us found a bunk in the house and others chose to camp out in tents and listen to the sea planes taking off and landing on the ship canal and were pleasantly awakened by the ducks.

Early Saturday morning our guild members began arriving with supplies for our workshops and food. We always do a pot luck and so far our luck has been good and we have not had all desserts. We have talented cooks in this group and we have an array of healthy items to choose from. Thankfully some not so healthy choices too.
Saturday am the coffee is on and Marilyn treated us to bacon and French toast with real maple syrup.

 ECO DYE workshop Saturday AM.

Plant materials gathered by Dawn

Dawn demonstrated the quick dye method

Dawn arrived early with her array of natural plant materials. Her steaming pots and all the pre mordant paper for our workshop.
By nine am the local members started arriving and we are all excited to try our hand at natural ECO dyed cards.

This year we had a great turn out 17 attended our guild retreat of which 3 are new members. A hardy welcome to our new members for $25 membership fee they were able to join us for this array of workshops and join us for our usual meetings the third Monday each month at Gloria Dei Church in Hancock, Mi.  We have a variety of presentations planned this year. Check out the schedule above under the topics heading.

plant material arranged on paper

two piles of paper and plant material to be steamed or

paper and plant material pressed between tiles

finished ECO dyed card

removing plant material after steaming

We all had two piles of 12 pre mordant paper in which we selected various plant materials from the beautiful table Dawn had prepared with items from her garden in Calumet. We arranged the materials how we wanted and placed another paper on top with more plant material until all twelve papers were used up. We then placed the pile on a ceramic tile and pressed it between the second tile which we tightly tied to secure it in the steamer. We each placed our name on a tie, important to help recognize the correct tile sandwich. Since we would like to know we actually made these beautiful cards. We had Madder powder and Iron water dips to assist the imprints from some of the leaves on the paper. 

Once securely tied, our tile sandwich was delivered to the steam pot. Then we waited for the hour to pass so we could open up the tile sandwich and enjoy the beauty that was inside. One tile sandwich went into the steam bath. The second one went into an immersion dye bath that contained some iron water for a different result. We then laid out the paper pieces and let them dry over night so that we could use them Sunday am for our printing.

Denise, Clare and Lynn washing off plant material

 

Melissa with her steamed dyed paper

Anita and Kathie cleaning their immersion dyed
papers of plant materials

Everyone had a fun and creative day with nice weather to keep us smiling. It is always fun to unwrap your masterpiece.

 After our lunch break and while we were waiting for our ECO Dyed papers to steam for an hour we had our next Workshop presented by Marilyn. 

Introduction to Tablet Weaving

Marilyn came prepared with a couple of tablet weaving patterns for us to choose from. She collected a number of inkle looms, vice clamps, and a tablet loom from members. 10/2 cotton yarn and various other weight yarns for us to try out. Warping the tablet loom took most of the time but since we had open time in the evening and Sunday afternoon a lot was accomplished and projects were well on the way to completion at the end of the retreat.

Even wool worked on this loom

very fine cotton yarn was uesd  here

black and white really popped with this pattern

Phyllis relaxed and enjoying weaving

Next

Carving our Design for Block Printing

which was presented by Lynn

We each transferred our design on a piece of rubber. Lynn gave us some tips on what kind of design to use and how to use the the carving tools. We used speed ball linoleum cutters and eraser like blocks for our very first carved design.

Everyone was quiet and busy working all afternoon as we had two projects that required some concentration. It was amazing how quickly the group got into these two mediums and progressed quickly to having a completed design to print and a woven project to finish at home.

Lynn showing the group some tips for a successful print block

block samples

Poppy and Melissa work on their blocks

Kathie and Anita carving their blocks

Plying demo

Phyllis arrived with her nalbinding hat.

In the evening we had a slide presentation by Phyllis from her visit to Finland. Thank you Phyllis for sharing these beautiful pictures and a brief tour of Finland and Finnish art with us.

We also worked on our projects from Saturday aka the tablet weaving! and some of us did a little spinning and tried to share our knowledge of spinning with non spinners in the group.

Early to bed so we can be fresh for Sunday's lineup.

Sunday AM Lynn presented a workshop on 

Block Printing 

With our beautiful printing blocks completed Lynn showed us how to apply paint to the blocks and practice on a group sheet of paper seen here below. Everyone was happy with the really great print designs they created. Lots of ideas came out of this project and some are going to make books with their papers or maybe use them as cards to send out. One suggestion was to embellish the Eco Dyed cards with stitching. I like that idea of 'Slow Stitching'.

test prints from our blocks

Lynn shows us how to apply the paint

Sample of a carved block

Anita and Maddie printing with their blocks

printed samples on paper and on Immersion dyed Eco Printed samples

 Show and Tell:

Melissa's punch needle projects

Melissa's punch needle work

Finally we had some great samples for a brief show and tell. Melissa brought in her punch needle samples. She has really been busy with these and expanding her projects from ornaments to pillows and purses.
She also had her 'Alternative Weaving Materials' projects from MLH  2018. But I did not get the pictures of these lovely wire and fish line woven pieces she created.

And how about this find 'a basket with a place to hold your yarn spools'. I really want one of these baskets.

great basket Poppy? can we make these?

 Phyllis shared her nalbinding hat (seen in picture above) and this tablet weaving loom made of clamps. We even had a table of free and forgotten items to share.

Tablet or Card weaving loom

Simple Card or Tablet loom

Coming this Fall in Hancock

We concluded our Sunday with a Guild meeting which we talked about the upcoming year. What we want to focus on and suggestions for meeting presentations. Our 'Buellwood Best' always a May presentation was suggested to be a 'Vessel' created out any fiber you wish. Think about keeping it in a 12 inch by 12 inch cube.

Our next meeting in Monday October 21st. at noon at Gloria Dei church in Hancock MI.  Bring your retreat projects for show and tell and something that inspires you to create.

See 'Topics for Meetings' above on this page for our schedule for 2019-2020.