Guild Meeting on Tuesday, March 10, 2026

After a two-month winter break, we resumed our monthly meetings with a large turnout at C3. Our guest speaker, Jessica Hougen shared her knitting adventures with us. Being an avid knitter, she thought often of owning a yarn shop. The stars aligned when some funds became available at the same time that a space was available in downtown Corvallis. Opening in December, 2025, the Lonely Skein offers a lovely selection of yarns, most of which are sourced from small independent businesses. 

 We enjoyed circulating the yarn examples Jessica shared with us, ending up in Mary's lap.

Jessica is the Executive Director of both the Corvallis and Philomath museums. She shared some exciting events coming up at the Corvallis Museum. Check out:

https://bentoncountymuseums.org/events/

We concluded out meeting with Show and Tell. There were many terrific projects shared, but only a few were captured for the blog. Linda completed the crazy quilt top for a client, now ready for quilting. Linda added lots of the customary embroidery typical of crazy quilts.

Cheryl renovated a sweater with needle felted vines, enhancing it beautifully.

Mary took a 4 day workshop in Minneapolis from a Swedish weaving instructor. Two days were spent weaving and the subsequent two days were used to build the backpack.

Gwen brought a quilt she created from pieces of recycled cashmere sweaters. Heavenly to touch and even better to sleep under one of her bed quilts. Note the hand quilting.

It's great to be back to monthly meetings, second Tuesday from March through December.

Gallery talk by Niraja Lorenz at The Arts Center, January 3, 2026

 Our CFA guild hosted a gallery talk with the fiber artist Niraja Lorenz featuring her amazing art quilts now on exhibit at The Arts Center. Her art quilts have been in numerous national juried quilt exhibitions. 

Niraja shared a little about her background and the journey that brought her to creating art quilts. She shared her creative process in detail with us, and answered audience questions. 

Here are a few samples showing the intricate narrow strip piecing:

Our guild members thank Niraja and the staff of the Arts Center for offering us the opportunity of this wonderful, inspiring gallery talk. And thanks to all who attended.

 

 Guild meeting on Tuesday, December 9, 2025

For our December guild meeting, we gathered around tables as we created star ornaments. Members brought sweet treats to munch on while the glue dried. 

There are many possible variations of this type of paper star. As usual, the members were very creative! The star instructions can be found on page 120 of Stars and Snowflakes by Jennie Lantz and Cecilia Moller Kirchsteiger.

    

        

            Happy Holidays everyone!

Guild meeting on Tuesday, Novmeber 11 2025

 Our speaker for the November meeting was CFA Guild Jennifer Ayotte. She is an LBCC Community Education teacher. Her presentation, "Sketching with Fabric and Thread" described her textile journey and how she came to her process of creating hand-stitched fabric sketches. We were delighted with the many examples of her work. She shared her preferred types of threads and the types of backing fabrics, as well as some of her favorite mounting techniques.

Examples of Jenny's work:

              

Here are a few photos of members' Show and Tell:

Jennifer shared a recent piece

Here are several of Karen's recent works:

Karen taught a stencil cutting workshop for some of the guild members. Several of the participants brought their completed stencils to show. We look forward to seeing the printed fabrics produced by their stencils at a future guild meeting!

 Guild meeting on Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Our beautiful fall weather brought a full house for our guild meeting. The program was presented by member Jennifer Lommers. She shared her experience at Playa Summer Lake's 10-day workshop, taught by artist and poet Daniela Naomi Molnar. The workshop focused on exploring pigment, ink and dye making methods using rocks and botanicals gathered on location. We were informed about observing reciprocal foraging practices when we use materials from our lands. It was an inspiring presentation.

        

The last part of our meeting features members' Show and Tell. Below are photos I was able to snap during this segment of the meeting. Jane displayed a Sun Bonnet Sue vintage quilt that she embellished with political signs. It was quite a hit.

Barbara brought her latest knitted dragon - about 18 inches long with a big personality. 

Karen brought several fabrics she had printed as well as her art piece shown below that will be on exhibit shortly. Members of her art quilt group each drew a color for their piece. Karen drew the color cerulean, and the imagery she used  is of the allium plant.

Liz used a vintage quilt that was very well worn to create the tunic she modeled for a quick photo.

Guild meeting on Tuesday, September 9, 2025

 We had a full house at our first meeting of fall. Members were eager to gather and share our love of fiber arts. There was a cyber glitch in members' receiving the agenda and newsletter, so many were not aware of the  planned program. We were to bring a textile, apparel item or accessory that had special meaning to us and share its story with the group.  Members who knew about the program brought items and shared their stories. Below are a few photos.

   

                

Other members brought recently completed projects to complement a lovely evening of sharing. Photos of some of the recent projects follow.

June 10 CFA guild meeting

 

On June 10th guild members gathered for the final meeting of this season. We will resume meeting on September 9th. 

Our program focused on viewing the Studio Art Quilt Associates, Oregon Regional Group's trunk show, Common Threads: The Stitches that Unite Us.  Here is a little information about the Oregon Regional group of SAQA:

SAQA is dedicated to promoting the art quilt and the artists who create them. Whether you're an artist, a collector, or enthusiast, we can offer you inspiration and resources to support your passion for art quilts. Join our dynamic creative community and help make the art quilt universally recognized as a fine art medium! 

More information can be found at https://https://www.saqa.com.

For tonight's program, four members gathered at each table, studying 5 of the little 7" by 10" quilts. After viewing each set of 5 quilts, the quilt set was passed to the next table, rotating until all members had viewed all 30 of the quilts. It was fascinating to read the descriptions of the materials and techniques the artists used to create the quilts. The trunk show also included 5 of the SAQA Global Exhibition catalogs containing the work of themed international juried exhibitions. Catalogs of the global exhibitions can be purchased at https://www.saqa.com/online-store