January 2020 : A New Quilting Decade

Bylaws

At our first meeting of the new decade we spoke at length about the proposed changes. Three changes are under discussion:

• Change wording so that just two officers (president and treasurer) need to approve reimbursements
• All workshops will have a signed contract; they will be jointly and severably signed off by each participating guild.
• Marylee also suggested changing bylaws approving co-presidents for the guild (in the future); the group decided to discuss this at a future meeting rather than to rush into anything by voting on this topic today. We want to have a thoughtful discussion about this.

Please think these items over, and come to next meeting prepared to vote on them.  We need a quorum to vote, and we need the bylaws updated to move forward on contracts discussed last year.

Also under discussion are activities for 2020 :

Membership Survey:   ( Please email your program ideas to Diane)

• A project working with Spoon flower, digital printing
• Electric Quilting software
• Road trips
• Create your own shop hop
• Day and night quilt by Eleanor Burns,  9 minute preview U Tube
• 100 Blocks
• Slow stitching
• Japanese bunka, a traditional punch needle type embroidery
• NYC fabric district — Quilters Take Manhattan by Quilters Alliance
• Leni Levenson Wiener, in particular her book Photo Inspired Art Quilts

We also spoke about Membership and Publicity, and March is Bring a New Member!   See the Join Us tab for more info!

AAAAAnd last discussion, but certainly not the least, Diane introduced the 100 Blocks Project. She distributed the pattern books ordered, and provided a free pattern for those not ordering the book.  Please see Current blocks and Challenges tab for details!

After snacks, coordinated by our new Hospitalty chair, Carol we settled in for Sew And Tell:

Stellar Finish

Bethany's Birdbath at Sunset 

Bethany started this quilt in 2014, from an Elizabeth Hartman's Birdbath pattern and has just finished it.  She has taken classes at Portsmouth Fabric on using their longarm quilt machines, and reports that after a bit of a learning curve she is quilting very quickly! 

❅❆❄❅❆❄❆❅❆❄❅❆❄❅❆❄❅❆❄❅❆❄❅❆

Improv Curves Ahead!

Haley's Curved Improv

Lovely Binding and backing

Haley Has not forgotten anything learned in our Rapid Curves workshop from last spring.  Complete with pieced binding and a lovely floral background!  In fact she has gone past the hanging and into a lap quilt! And isn't the black an eye catcher?







                                                                      ❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅❅

Measure out

Oh Snap!

Marylee showed us the Snap Bag.   Tutorial on U Tube

A piece of old tape measure, and 11 minute tutorial,  dare you to make Just One!

🎄🎄🎄 From our new member🎄🎄🎄

Tree Skirt

Our newest member Carol showed us her tree skirt.  According to her she now knows something to do with her machine other that turn it on and off.  (since I have never made anything round, she is ahead of me!)  And what a fun backing!

🍬Another New Pattern🍬

Kate holds up her second Christmas quilt, inspired by our show at the Urban Forestry Center in December.  She was also inspired by a quilt from Eye Candy on Instagram.  IG  is totally absorbing, and full of dynamic quilting. 

                                                       ⇚⇛

Beautiful Bags

Ever industrious Nancy showed us a trio of bags in wonderful colors, and stellar workmanship.

A Charm Tote in fabulous selection of colors and prints, and two Sew Together Bags complete with double zippers and rainbow interiors!

                                       

📚📚📚📚📚📚📚

Storyteller

And the last member in the circle, Diane showed us an auction piece based on the tale of Baba Yaga, a tale from slavic folk lore.  Her house stands on chicken legs!

Next, a piece for a SAQA challenge "Visionary".  It is full of quotes from Margaret Atwood

Flutterbye Challenge

And just to finish off with a flutter, a photo print of a moth.  By the way, this lovely modern moth is what the woolly bear caterpillars turn into if you don't step on them!

🦋🦋🦋

Festive December

Patterns, handmade pouches, quilting books, marking pens, and Dresden rulers were some of the items exchanged at our holiday party swap. Congrats to Lou, who drew the lowest number and had the chance to walk away with exactly the gift she wanted.

We have a NEW PROJECT in mind for the new year -- “100 Days, 100 Blocks” (see this link and the pattern image above for an idea of the finished quilt). We intend to use this pattern to make quilts for our Strawbery Banke show in the fall.

Lou is organizing a picnic with the Maine Modern Quilt Guild. We anticipate this being held in June at Fort Williams in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

Preparations are ongoing for our Retreat in 2020 (April 30-May 3).

SEW AND TELL:

Our Bright Birch Trees quilt (above) has been quilted and bound. We will donate it to charity.

When Sasha attended last year's retreat, she was introduced to the fabulous fabric selection at Marden's. Above is a quilt she made entirely out of fabric from their Sanford store.

  

Sue brought a Halloween quilt made out of blocks she won in a guild block-of-the-month contest.
The quilting features a bat, owl, and Frankenstein.

Kate brought in a Christmas quilt as well as the second in her series of house quilts (above).

Mary showed these eye-catching works (above and below).

We closed the meeting with a sincere "thank you" to Mary for serving as president in 2019. Below are some of the wonky log cabin blocks that we made for her.

Happy holidays and a healthy New Year to all our SMQG members and friends!

Join Us at our December Meeting

If you love Christmas, you've come to the right place.


Our holiday party will be held on Saturday, December 7, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham, N.H. 

Come with a gently used quilting book or tool for our Yankee Swap.

We will play a few rounds of Left-Right-Center, so bring some fat quarters or quarter yards to participate.

Images in this post are from our recent display of holiday-themed quilts at the Urban Forestry Center in Portsmouth, N.H.

November Meeting

Our November meeting featured a workshop by Massachusetts quilt artist Sue Bleiweiss.

One of Diane's quilts on display at Strawbery Banke

We are opening this month's blog post with observations from Robin, the organizer of our recent show at Strawbery Banke Museum in Portsmouth, N.H. She notes that despite the less-than-perfect weather, there were many visitors, some of whom came to examine the structure of an old house and were surprised to see all the colorful quilts.

The Patriots quilt that Patty exhibited was especially well-liked, as was the Strawbery Banke House quilt that we exhibited last year. (This year we had a pillow to go with it.) The exhibit featured over 50 items from 13 members, including quilts, bags, pieces made in "round robin" challenges, painted “barn quilts” and improv pieces.

The guild extends its special thanks to Lou for providing a quilting activity for children, to MaryLee for coordinating volunteers, and to SueAnn for keeping all of the quilts at her house and transporting them to Strawbery Banke.

Notes from the November Meeting:

Members may want to check out these upcoming workshops at the New England Quilt Museum:

Nov. 9 — Westalee Sample Workshop

Nov. 17 — Sashiko Workshop for Beginners

On Sunday, Nov. 10, Diane will hold a book-making workshop at the East Kingston, N.H. Public Library.

We will display Christmas-themed quilts at the Urban Forestry Center's Festival of Trees. The show runs Fri, Sat, and Sun., Nov. 15-17.

Our next guild meeting is Saturday, Dec. 7. This is our holiday party at the Wiggin Memorial Library in Stratham N.H. We will have a quilting swap, so bring a gently used quilting book or tool if you’d like to participate.

Mark your calendars for our Jan. 4 and Feb. 1 meetings.

Preparations are underway for our annual retreat at the Franciscan Guest House in Kennebunk, Maine. It will be held April 30-May 3, 2020.

In June 2020, we are planning a picnic in coastal Maine with the Maine Modern Quilt Guild. We will hold a workshop with Kathy Doughty of Material Obsession in summer 2020, also in conjunction with the Maine Modern Quilt Guild.

Finally, here are a few images from our workshop with Sue Bleiweiss.

Plenty of fun was had by all.

See you next month!

October Meeting

Join us on Saturday, October 12 for our quilt show at Strawbery Banke's Fall Festival in Portsmouth, N.H. We will display our quilts at the Sherburn House from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival includes dozens of traditional craftspeople and heritage livestock breeders. The NH Wheelmen will show antique bicycles and Slow Food Seacoast will have an heirloom food share. 

Our other show involves Christmas-themed quilts at the Urban Forestry Center in Portsmouth from November 15-17.

In Other Business:

On October 20, Diane will present a free workshop at the East Kingston, N.H. Public Library. Participants will receive the pattern for a Hollow Star table runner (below) and will learn about Y seams, templates, and 60-degree rulers.

Our November meeting will be held at the West Newbury, M.A., Town Annex. We will begin a half-hour earlier (at 9:30 a.m.) so as to hold elections for the 2020 officers. Then we will have a workshop with art quilter Sue Bleiweiss. Check the guild email for details on what to bring. A sample of Sue's work is below. 

Also at the November meeting, we will collect fabric, notions, and other quilting supplies to be donated to the Navajo Nation. More details of this Navajo Quilt Project can be found here.

Show and Tell

We had a number of striking quilts on display this month, including this diamond quilt (above) that was JoAnn's first-ever Kaffe Fassett quilt (both the front and the back are from his fabric collections).

JoAnne also shared the quilt at the top of this post. Finally, the quilt below is one that she just quilted with her new longarm machine!

Below, Robin is holding a baby quilt she created in the style of a Hudson Bay blanket. Our charity sewing this month was baby blankets and Robin had made one even before the rest of us sat down to sew!

Marilee was ahead of the curve, too. 

SueAnn showed us a tumbler quilt that she designed herself.

 Finally, Patty had this Patriots quilt to display...

....and this diamond quilt made with Free Spirit fabric. 

We look forward to seeing everyone soon!

September Meeting

We are excited for fall! Above is our Bright Birch Trees 
quilt that will be displayed at our show at Strawbery Banke 
on October 12. 

We're having a fabric printing workshop on September 18 at the East
Kingston Public Library, presented by Hayley. Below is a table runner
her mother made from Hayley's fabric.

Our October 5 meeting at the Brentwood Library will include time to
make baby quilts for an organization helping homeless mothers. 

The November 2 meeting at the West Newbury Town Annex will
feature elections and a workshop by Sue Bleiweiss from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
We will also we be collecting quilting books, notions, and fabrics for

the Navajo at this meeting.

Looking ahead to December, our holiday party will be on the 7th in
Stratham. We will have a Yankee Quilt Swap featuring quilting books,
sewing creations, notions, rulers, etc.

In other business, we decided to extend to October 
the "rickrack" block drawing. Several of these blocks 
are shown below.

For those with the time to go to Lowell, Diane has a quilt on display

at the Whistler House Museum of Art through the end of October.

SHOW AND TELL

Gayle displayed two stunning quilts: the first was from a pattern by

Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic. (Gayle did her own quilting on this one.)

       

and the second was a pattern by Amy Ellis:

Gayle's final item was a banner:

Marilee took Diane's workshop on shibori dyeing and made potato chip bags 
(so named because you can't make only one):

Haley showed two quilts she made as a result of our timed improv block activity in February:

Hayley also had a star quilt with an eye-catching green binding:

Nancy displayed a sports-themed quilt and a quilt made with shades of gray.

Lou showed a quilt she made for her grandaughter, a fan of all things feline and musical:

We ended show-and-tell with quilts from two ends of the spectrum--a miniature quilt by Kate.....

....and a king-size quilt by Mary (the first she ever made)!