Catching Up!

A lot has happened since the last post. The Leiser Gourd Festival has come and gone, as has the final Welburn Gourd Festival. We were well represented at the California Patch Leaders' Meeting and there is much to report on all of the above and more! But first ... the upcoming events. 

James Dollar takes home the prize at Welburn Gourd Festival. 

AUGUST MEETING - Our own East Bay Gourd Patch August Meeting will be Saturday, Aug. 20th from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m at the Caning Shop in Berkeley. Discussions about upcoming events including the Solano Stroll in North Berkeley on September 11 and the Davis Ranch Festival in Sloughhouse on  September 17 and 18. Also the ideas for our California Gourd Society Entry for the Fund Raising Raffle will be finalized. The meeting workshop will be exploring different methods of marking gourds that are a bit out of the box. Scraffito and resist have been explored and will be shared along with other exciting ideas. Join us. 

WELBURN GOURD FESTIVAL- California's East Bay Gourd Patch was well represented at Welburn's final Festival, as member James Dollar took a First Place Award in the Masters' Division of the California Gourd Society competition. Welburn celebrated it's 15th year by putting quite a show and as alway included classes and the competition. We'll miss this event.

Other award winners this year were: Jenn Norpchen, Judie Burge AND James Dollar at the Leiser Gourd Festival in May . 

 Going Native! Judie Burge's Leiser winner

Jenn's entry demanded an award!
Judges at Leiser thought so. Would you dare not?

  

Imagine this. Think seasons!

REPORT - Patch Leaders' Meeting -  Each Patch has been given a large gourd to make into a basket and each member is invited to decorate a small gourd to go into the patch basket which will be part of the raffle at the April 20, 2012 Conference in Visalia - "Gourds and Baskets, Containers of Our Culture IV". Members can be involved by embellishing a miniature gourd to go inside the gourd we were given to fill. Members then can sell raffle tickets for a chance to win any one of the resulting baskets that come from Patches all over California. Proceeds are divided 50/50 between the state gourd organization and each of the patches. Given the talent in our own patch we should do well. Our members have taken on this challenge and are considering doing four baskets, one for each season. Spring may be represented by a gourd fashioned into a bird's nest and filled with small bird gourds or decorated egg gourds or other egg connected themes. Summer possibly a Shell or Beach basket, Fall, well, leaves would be good and Winter could be a gourd tree that can be filled with ornament gourds. So start developing those ideas! Should be fantastic.