Our March meeting was a mix of familiar favorites (show & tell, block lotto and raffle prizes) plus a review of the highlights from QuiltCon 2023.
Diana reminded everyone that our next guild retreat will be held at Mariandale on May 12-14. There's still time to sign up and day passes are available. The sign up form has been emailed to all guild members and we'll send out a reminder email shortly.
Barbara made an announcement about the Brooklyn Quilters Guild's upcoming show on April 29-30.
Jody made an announcement about the Northern Star Quilters Guild's upcoming show on May 6-7.
Eva reminded everyone that we're doing a quilt drive for girls living in a foster home in Honduras called 'Our Little Roses'. The foster home cares for girls from infancy up to the age of eighteen, so finished quilts - or quilt tops - of any size will be gladly accepted. The deadline for donations is June 3rd. A big thank you to everyone who has already donated a quilt to this very worthy cause!
Alyson floated the idea of getting some guild merchandise made (such as t-shirts and tote bags.) There was plenty of interest from the group, so Alyson very kindly volunteered to contact a supplier and look into our options.
We kicked off the Show & Tell session with a round robin project. Nanette added a layer to this quilt-in-progress before passing it on to Judith for its next addition.
Diana made this quilt - titled 'Candyland' - during an online class taught by Maria Shell (who Diana recently met in person at QuiltCon.)
Alyson made a snowflake quilt top at our January guild retreat using a mixture of batik scraps and yardage from her stash.
Jean showed a mini Kawandi quilt that she learned how to make at a recent guild workshop led by Deborah, Chris and Diane. After seeing Jean's mini quilt a lot of guild members had questions about the technique - so Deborah got called up to do an impromptu Q&A session. If anyone wants to learn more about Kawandi quilts, Deborah highly recommends the course taught by Sujata Shah as well as the work of Margaret Fabrizio.
Jean also showed an antique Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt top from the 1920s. The quilt top is hand pieced and it features a variety of authentic feedsack fabrics. Somebody donated this hidden gem to a local charity sale to raise money for a senior center, where Jean spotted it and snapped it up.
Jody won the guild's block lotto back in December and she turned the stack of blocks into a lap quilt.
The back of the quilt is a recycled tablecloth that Jody found on the guild's scrap table.
Jody also showed a pair of Japanese rice bags that she learned how to make at a Northern Star Guild workshop. (The red bag was swiftly claimed by Jody's daughter.)
Chris showed a decorative pillow that she made to donate to Our Little Roses.
Marie made a lap sized herringbone quilt out of a jelly roll. Instead of squaring up the quilt, she decided to keep the zig-zag shape at the edges.
Debbie made this hand appliquéd quilt during the pandemic. At the time, she didn't have a plan for what to do with the quilt once it was finished - so now she's donating it to Our Little Roses.
Vickeidy showed a new example of her 'BFF' quilt pattern, which is inspired by friendship necklaces. She recently learned how to match the seams on patterned fabric to create the illusion of a seamless pieced back.
Theresa won the guild's block lotto back in November and she turned the blocks into a quilt top. She carefully chose the placement of the light and dark pieces to create one long continuous line before adding a colorful border of flying geese.
Bruce donated this quilt top to Our Little Roses. He described it as an example of his "older quilting style" since it features a scrappy mix of vintage patterned fabrics from his stash. (It's always interesting to see how people's individual quilting style has evolved over time, isn't it?)
Judith was cleaning out her quilt closet when she came across this blast from the past: a mini quilt made out of recycled fabric sourced from FabScrap. (Who else remembers this project?)
Orlando likes to make difficult quilts. He's currently making the 'Tattoo' quilt pattern from Happy Sew Lucky. The entire quilt is foundation paper pieced and it's constructed out of fifteen intricately designed large blocks. This particular block is destined to be the centerpiece of the quilt.
We held an 'orphan block amnesty' at our last guild retreat and we ended up with enough blocks to make two quilt tops. Eva brought in the first one, which features an eclectic collection of geometric blocks, figurative blocks, improv blocks, batiks, bold prints and vintage fabrics. Eva proposed that we name it 'the Cool Cat Quilt' (because we're a bunch of cool cats, obviously.) Jody very kindly volunteered to quilt the first top and Eva will bring in the second quilt top when it's finished.
This month's block lotto featured a selection of cute and quirky novelty fabrics. Diane was the lucky winner who went home with all of the blocks.
Bruce showed us an example of the design for next month's block lotto: a green improv block based on the form of a tree. Bruce will email the instructions to all of our guild members soon.
We ended the guild meeting with a slideshow of photos from QuiltCon 2023. Many of our guild members traveled to Atlanta to take part in the event. They shared pictures of their favorite quilts and talked about the thoughts and impressions that they took away from the experience. Two of our guild members (Barbara and Anthony) had quilts juried in to the show. Barbara won a Judge's Choice award for her quilt 'Power Struggle' and we couldn't be more proud of her! Here's a photo of the award winning quilt...
Congratulations to Barbara and Anthony, and thank you to all of our guild members who took part in QuiltCon and brought back so many interesting and inspiring highlights to share with the rest of the guild.
We're already looking forward to next month's guild meeting! Leni Weiner will be visiting us as a guest speaker and we can't wait to see her beautiful artworks and learn more about her fabric collage technique.
That's it for this month. See you next time!
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