Blog Posts - Michigan Gourd Society

Jackson Carnegie Library Patch

3/11/2014

The Michigan Gourd Society patch of Jackson Michigan meet March 8th at the Canegie Branch Jackson District Library. The gourd technique was Leather Braided rim taught by Tammy Braunscheidel. Took a little time to get used to the pattern but looks really good on a gourd rim. The patch had 6 members in attendance. They were Tammy Braunsheidel of Ann Arbor, Carrie Cervantes of Dimondale, Jan Rogers of Williamston, Bobbie Lee Smith of Covert, Julie Glair of Munith and my self, LuAnn Alexander of Jerome.
Discussion on April project lead to two choices and the members can choose which technique they want to do. This will be any gourd project they wish to work on or, Tammy Braunscheidel is going to teach basket weaving for beginners. Also we talked about a project for May and that will be making a Kalimba, which will be taught by Bobbie Lee Smith. Again for the months of June-July-August the patch takes a break from the library to work out of members homes, so we can do outside preparations and such on gourds. Again anyone interested in the Jackson Library meetings or our meetings for the summer at members homes, is more that welcome. Contact myself, or Tammy Braunscheidel for info and email to [email protected].
LuAnn Alexander, Director

Wisconsin Gourd Festival

3/8/2014

                    8th Annual Wisconsin Gourd Festival
                                Saturday, April 12, 2014,
                             Olbrich Botanical Gardens
                                Madison, Wisconsin
     This year's festival theme is "A Gourd's Guide to the Universe" and is expected to be yet another terrific gala event. The vendor spaces have filled, judges are renewing their vows at a refresher course at the end of March, competition categories have all been determined and everyone is dusting off their tools for workshops.
     Classes are listed on the Wisconsin Gourd Society website at www.wisconsingourdsociety.org under the Calendar or Festival tabs and registrations are now being taken for classes. Competition information is available online as well.
      Come join us!!
Doors open at 9am - there's music, a kid's make and take area, raw gourds, gourd artand supplies. Hope to see you there!
Thanks!
terri schmit
Wisconsin Gourd Society

HERB & GOURD FEST 2014

3/8/2014

The fliers are ready - as you see above - and you may print off as many as you wish to distribute at shows and events where you are participating. For a full page with two fliers to a page send an email to [email protected] and one will be sent out to you for you to copy.
Spread the word. Come and enjoy!

Jackson Library Patch

3/5/2014

March 8th
Jackson Carnegie Library
10:00am - 4:30pm.
Our project this month is a Braided Rim - and the technique will be taught by Tammy.
Supplies:
1/8 inch flat leather lace - you need 10 times the diameter of your rim. You can purchase it from Tandy Leather in GR or Westland;
2 prong flat lacing needle - that too can be ordered from Tandy; scissors, awl, drill (unless you have already drilled your gourd), painters tape, pen or marker to write on tape, needle nose pliers and your gourd. The gourd needs to have a hole at least large enough for your hand to fit inside and be able to move around. The gourd should be finished and sealed inside and out with cut edges finished the color of your leather (this part is optional but will look the best when you are all finished.)
Using 1/8" drill bit, drill holes 1/4" down and 1/4" apart (if you are using the leather lacing from Michaels you will have to drill a much larger hole because it is twice as thick as what is called for in the pattern. I am not sure what size holes you will need, but it will be enough for the lacing to go through with the needle, easily, two times. This supply list is from Tammy, if you have any questions, email Tammy at [email protected].
Please let me know if you are coming.
Thanks.
LuAnn Alexander
Patch Director

Gourds Coming to America

3/5/2014

Like Columbus, It Floated Here     Article in the New York Times
By RACHEL NUWER FEB. 24, 2014
Using a relatively new type of genetic analysis, researchers found that bottle gourds floated to the Americas from Africa. By the time Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492, bottle gourds had already conquered much of the globe. After evolving in Africa, one species, Lagenaria siceraria, made a break for East Asia around 11,000 years ago and eventually took up residence in Polynesia, China, Peru and beyond, earning the title of most widely distributed pre-Columbian domesticated plant.
The gourds have been supremely useful, too — not so much for nutrition (they taste bitter) but, when dried, as containers, medical and musical instruments, even decorative birdhouses. Despite their ubiquity, though, they have their secrets.
Archaeological evidence shows that ancient peoples living in Florida and Mexico began using them at least 10,000 years ago. Yet how they got to the Americas remained unknown.   Now scientists think they have an answer — and in the process may have resolved puzzling inconsistencies in earlier research.
Previously, researchers speculated that the gourds floated here from Africa, although they had no way to prove it. In 2005, a team of scientists challenged that notion. They analyzed short fragments of DNA taken from living and archaeological bottle gourds and found that ancient North American specimens shared more in common with Asian than with African gourds, so perhaps the colonizers who crossed the Bering land bridge more than 10,000 years ago took gourd seeds with them.   But that did not explain how the bottle gourd, a plant that prefers tropical climates, could have survived such harsh winters. Moreover, ancient American seeds more closely resemble the fatter, oddly shaped African seeds than the thinner, more symmetrical Asian ones.
Now, it seems, those questions have finally been answered. The founding bottle gourds did not come from Asia after all, but instead traveled to the Americas directly from Africa, a new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.   To arrive at this conclusion, researchers used a relatively new method of genetic analysis called high-throughput sequencing. “The technology has come an incredibly long way since the 2005 study, so now we can look at this question in a lot more detail,” said the lead author, Logan Kistler, a postdoctoral fellow in anthropological genomics at Penn State.   To recreate the plant’s family tree, the researchers isolated DNA taken from modern bottle gourds around the world and ancient ones found at nine archaeological sites throughout the Americas. The pre-Columbian artifacts from the New World, they found, were linked directly to African relatives. This means the gourds floated to the Americas on their own.
To double-check this conclusion, the team created a computer model of Atlantic Ocean currents. Simulations confirmed that a bottle gourd traveling from West Africa could make it to North or South America in nine months, on average. Once there, given the right conditions, the seeds could very likely take root. (A 1954 study found that bottle gourds could spend up to a year floating in saltwater without losing fertility.) The diversity of New World gourd populations suggests that there were several successful oceanic crossings throughout history.
Some mysteries remain, however. Scientists are not sure how the gourds managed to spread from New World shores across entire continents, or why wild bottle gourds no longer grow in the Americas. Dr. Kistler and his colleagues hypothesize that large animals might have spread the gourds’ seeds, and when those animals later went extinct, the wild bottle gourds did the same.   Changing climate could also have played a role. “The study is another step forward, but we are still far from understanding what really happened,” said Hanno Schäfer, a botanist at the Technical University of Munich who was not involved in the work. Further detailed studies “will probably be the only way to really answer the question without the need of storytelling,” he said.
Analyzing bottle gourds from archaeological sites elsewhere in the world could help fill in those details, as could examining genetic material found in the cells’ nuclei.
“At this point, I think we can say we’re confident that bottle gourds did travel from Africa, but that certainly isn’t the end of the story for the species,” Dr. Kistler said. “There’s always more to learn.”
A version of this article appears in print on February 25, 2014, on page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: Like Columbus, It Floated Here. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe

About the blog ..... where are you?

3/4/2014

Julie Glover posted asking what has been going on lately and commented that there were not many blogs recently. Well folks, it is really up to you as to what gets posted in here on the blog - pretty much if I don't get input from you and your patches then I don't have anything to put in the blog. Simple! SO - what have YOU been up to with gourds? What are YOU working on? What is your Patch doing these days? When you have a project scheduled how about sending in a photo of that project and after the meeting send in a report on what your Patch meeting covered, what you did for a project that day and photos of work in progress and finished projects. This is your Michigan Gourd Society so how about pitching in. We welcome tutorials on the projects you do, a list of supplies needed for that project and a photo of the completed project.

Sauble Points

2/11/2014

Will the storms ever go away? As much as we all probably would like to get out and do something, we are going to skip this coming Saturday. Unpredictable weather is reason enough, but, also, Lyn isn’t feeling her best and is trying to get into doctors in G.R. to get some concrete answers. SO>>> please put MARCH 8th down for our next gourd meeting. If you get your duck done at home before then, it will be fun to see how different they turn out. If not, we can work on them at the March meeting, and, Lyn suggested each of us find small gourds that may look like a bird, i.e. owl, and we can use our imaginations together about each one we bring. She has instructions on how to paint feathers, etc., so we’ll think on “birds” in March. P.S. - Let me know if you need a gourd for the ‘duck’.
(PS You can post comments in here for Sally

JACKSON LIBRARY GOURDING

1/29/2014

REMINDER NOTE FROM LUANN
Okay only a couple of weeks till our next gourding at the Jackson Carnegie Library on Feb. 8th same time and same room - McIntyre ... not much notice since we had a late gourding session earlier this month. I guess we are going to work on rain sticks again, and for those who didn't make it for Jan. you will have a chance for Bobbie to help putting one together. Also if you would like to work with air dry clay on warty gourds or any gourd, bring your supplies and Carrie will hopefully help with that technique - or you can bring something you want to work on or need help with. We will have to decide on something in March, which Bobbie has ask if we could make ... we will talk about that at the February 8th gourding. I do hope we will have the same people who came in January as well as new ones attending. Again it is all up in the air because of the storms we seem to be getting this winter ... maybe it will be a January thaw, but in February ... something has to break soon....:)
Please let me know if you can or can't attend. then we have an idea of how many we will have; so get out all your supplies from the last time and bring them with you. We will go out for lunch somewhere for those who would like to or else you can bring along a packed lunch. Take care, be safe, be warm, hopefully cold weather will pass soon.
LuAnn, Patch Director

Gourd Sightings

1/28/2014

If you see gourds in the news or some place you don't expect to be seeing them, take a photo and let us all see them! You would be surprised where they are spotted. These two were spotted Rome - one at a presentation by the President of Argentina and the other when he was out and about with the city homeless - apparently he gets out in plain clothes and feeds the homeless and visits with them! There are two different mate gourds in these two photos.
What have you seen and where?

price of stamps going up ...!

1/15/2014

I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out but in 11 days time the price of stamps is going to be going up! On a card I received from a gourder there was a delightful stamp - a Forever stamp - that was of a gingerbread house. Just adorable! If you are going to be doing some mailings or just want to get some cute stamps I'd suggest buying this one before the price goes up! I am including a photo of the 4 gingerbread houses so's you can see how sweet they are. I went to google and just typed in " USPS Forever stamps " (without the ""s) and saw some others there that are also very nice. I didn't see ANY with gourds on 'em - darn it! If they ever get those I will be loading up on those for certain!
Hope this info helps out your pocketbook, purse, bank account or vault! :)