Thursday, December 27, 2012

Paper Piecing Workshop


The next meeting of the Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild will be January 5th from 10:00-12:00 at the West Newbury Town Annex at 381 Main Street, West Newbury, MA.  The topic will be paper piecing, taught by Amy Friend.

I (Amy) was struggling to think of a block design for this meeting.  I settled on a sewing machine because I figured that everyone in a quilt guild should appreciate that subject!  I designed a block that is simple enough for the beginner with no curves or Y seams.  There are only 4 spots where seams need to meet.  But there is also enough detail to make the block interesting and to provide "teachable moments." 

I will send everyone in the guild the pattern. Please print it out and bring it to the meeting with you, along with your sewing machine, a size 90 needle, thread and your fabric selections.  You should also bring a couple of pins, a seam ripper and scissors.  It would be helpful to have multiple cutting mats, rotary cutters, irons and ironning boards.  If anyone is willing to bring theirs, it would be appreciated.

When you are selecting fabrics, look for prints that might have the name of a sewing machine that you could fussy cut. I didn't  have anything like that so I used stamps and printed "Janome" becuase that's what I own.

We will have refreshments at this meeting, coordinated by Robin Lent.

Also, bring your show and tell as usual!

Monday, December 3, 2012

Madrona Road Challenge


We had a nice time at the sew in meeting held Dec. 1st.  Thank you to everyone who came out and braved the first bit of weather this winter!

We distributed the fabric for the Madrona Road Challenge at the meeting.  Michael Miller provided enough for each of our 12 participants to receive a fat eighth of 6 prints and one coordinating solid.  Peg from Sew Fresh Fabrics provided a fat eighth of the farm and pick up truck print on the top of the stack to round out the collection.  Thank you Peg! For this challenge, we decided to limit ourselves to pillow covers. You may make a pillow cover of any size or shape using this collection. If you want to add more fabric, you may only use solids or other prints from the Madrona Road collection. Both Peg and Becca have these prints available in their shops if you would like to support your fellow guild members. The challenge ends January 31st. If you have a blog or Flickr account, please go ahead and share pictures of your project at that time. We will share the projects at our February 2nd meeting and will take pictures at that time to share for those who do not have blogs.

We will vote on our favorite pillow at the meeting in February and award a prize!