Our October meeting took place on October 5 at the Stratham Fire Station. Thanks to Paula for nimbly arranging this alternate meeting place when she found out the Stratham Library's parking lot was due to be paved Saturday morning!
We opened the meeting with announcements and a few business items. Amy and Judy announced that the West Newbury bridge is open again! So, if the bridge construction was causing you travel issues, those issues should be resolved.
Amy also distributed the Riley Blake challenge fabrics. Here are the rules in a nutshell:
--can include solids
--you can include other prints, but the prints MUST be Riley Blake prints
--you don't have to use all the fabrics
--the finished item must be quilted
--photos must be posted on the MQG website by December
--our guild will share projects and vote on a guild winner (winner will receive a copy of Patchwork Please!) at our January meeting.
I'm so excited to see these Riley Blake fabrics in person!
Amy collected a first batch of log cabin blocks for Margaret's Hope Chest. (This is one of Judy's sunny yellow blocks pictured above.) You can find details about the project and a link to the tutorial
here; Amy will collect the blocks again at Victoria Findlay Wolfe's lecture on October 18.
Details about Victoria's lecture are
here; please remember that guild members will pay $5 at the door and any guests will pay $10. (Those manning the ticket table would greatly appreciate if you bring small bills.) Amy asks that SMQG members try to park in the back parking lot, behind the West Newbury Town Hall Annex, so that guests and people coming up from the BMQG can use the more visible front parking lot.
Our next meeting is our annual business meeting. We'll be voting in the new dues amount, but to help with cash flow, Amy asked that if you are willing to go ahead and pay dues for 2014, please bring a $50 check made out to the Seacoast Modern Quilt Guild.
We held officer nominations in anticipation of our November business meeting. The officer nominations are:
Peg: President
Judy: Vice President
Robin: Treasurer
Laura: Secretary
Amy also proposed that we consider accepting a majority vote at our business meeting rather than a 2/3 majority of the membership. Debbie seconded the motion, and we agreed via a unanimous show of hands to accept majority vote.
The final item of business was a fun one! Samantha and Amy have schemed up a fun way to let off steam after our serious business meeting next time--and a fun way to unload some WIPs or materials that need a new, loving home (and raise money for our SMQG kitty). Please bring any UFO's, unwanted fabric, or craft books/magazines that you're ready to unload (Amy even suggested scrap packs would be a fun item). Also bring some small cash (about $10, in small bills--or if you KNOW you're going to want to bid on a hot item, maybe a checkbook!). We'll have a live auction for the hottest ten or so items, and then do a mini garage sale for the rest. All proceeds will be donated to the SMQG bank account!
Robin started off Show and Tell by showing a postcard she got at a quilt exhibition at the Art Quilt Gallery in New York City. She also showed off three WIP quilts that she is making from scraps of clothes her three daughters wore when they were little.
She plans to give them to her daughters as Christmas gifts. I love how they are all such different designs, but Robin's improvisational style and color scheme unify the three quilts!
Samantha showed off her BMQG challenge mini. They were given a specified color scheme and were asked to make a mini quilt to show at the Lowell quilt show.
Samantha also showed off a big finish: a quilt she made for her sister! The front is DS Quilts fabrics, while the back is novelty fabrics and quotes that remind her of her sister and brother-in-law. What a beautiful gift!
Stephanie admitted that she'd been bitten by the MSBHQAL bug (that's the Molli Sparkles Broken Herringbone Quilt-a-long, an online quilt-along currently in progress), and had a big pile of blocks to show off:
She's the only one I've seen use black and white prints for the interior bricks, and brightly colored skinny sashing (Stephanie said she'd seen someone call those skinny sashings "grout"!). She had even more blocks finished than she laid out on the floor, so I bet we can look forward to seeing these be a quilt pretty soon.
Laura brought her spiderweb lottery blocks made into a quilt, combined with some improv log-cabin blocks.
her pattern-testing project for Owen's Olivia's Wonky Triangles pattern:
and her first quilt! This is a doll quilt she made for her daughter's American Girl doll. She hand-embroidered the little yellow x-es between the blocks.
Mary brought her scrappy rainbow QAYG quilt. She didn't cut into a single piece of stash! (What self-restraint!)
She also showed off a tote that she made while pattern-testing for Amanda Jean at Crazy Mom Quilts:
Jessica has started a not-so-scrappy Trip Along quilt in some peaceful blues and tans and creams:
and she also showed off a bit of piecing that she's doing as a gift for Mary's son. She chose some wild horse, cowboy, and Wild West-themed fabrics, and is hoping to grow this into something twin-sized:
After Show and Tell, Candace gave a really informative presentation of Thermoweb's products and how to use them for applique projects of all kinds.
She had lots of great ideas for using Thermoweb's fusible webs for T-shirts, the fusible vinyl for art smocks (or perhaps a tote bag lining, if your kids are apt to spill ice cream in your bag!), and all kinds of applique quilts. She explained the proper applications for each "strength" of Thermoweb product, and noted which products are no-sew and which can be sewn through. I haven't worked much with applique or fusible products, but I left the meeting feeling confident about trying something out!
Candace also brought a lot of amazing Thermoweb goodies to share. Each of us left with a yard of Amy's favorite Thermoweb product, which is Heat-n-Bond Fusible Fleece, as well as a dense roll of Thermoweb fusible web samples. Jessica won a big bundle of Thermoweb goodies to try (I saw ruler tape and some fusible binding tape in her haul) and Nancy won a DVD of a quilting show sponsored by Thermoweb.
Many thanks to Candace and to Thermoweb for our goodies and for the informative demonstration! Thanks to all of you who joined us for our October meeting.
