February 2018 Meeting Recap

Our February meeting took place on Saturday, Feb 3, 2018 from 10 am to 12 pm at the Kingston Community Library in Kingston NH. 25 people were in attendance.

Nancy presented Paula's Thank-you Churn Dash blocks. Diane made this lovely block!

General Business:
Judy opened the meeting by relaying thank-you messages from the Haverhill family to whom we donated quilts in January and Rosie's Place, which received a check representing our lottery block donations from 2017.

She reminded the group that Sewtopia registration takes place soon (Feb 12 7 pm EST); details can be found at the Sewtopia website. The event is in Waltham November 8-11 2018.

Registration for the MQG Riley Blake challenge has closed. One or two of our members signed up for that challenge; fabric will be coming to the guild and will be distributed as soon as we receive it.

Survey response was good and results will be made available to all this week.

Judy proposed that if a member of ours were to be willing to attend guild-related workshops at QuiltCon, that the guild should cover their expenses. Laura is attending QuiltCon at Pasadena later this month and will be attending the Leadership Breakfast and a panel discussion on Secrets of High-Powered Guilds. 22 people present voted to cover costs for Laura and for potential future guild representatives.

Barb presented the Treasurer's report, and noted that retreat registrations are going well. If you have not yet registered for retreat and would like to, please mail checks to the PO Box ASAP. Please consult the fee schedule to determine your payment. Please indicate who your roommate will be if you are choosing a double room.

Kelly thanked the group for making 18 Perikomen Valley blocks for those affected by the Thomas fires. We will need 24 more to make a quilt of the requested size. If you have not yet made blocks or would like to make more, please send your blocks to Kelly (see her mailing address in your email) by February 16. Blocks should be jewel-toned blue and green, like grass and sky.

Discussing potential layouts for the Perikomen Valley charity blocks

If you would like to participate in the 153 Pillowcases project for the Tewksbury State Hospital Mental Health Ward, please make pillowcases on your own throughout the year. These will be donated at the end of 2018. You may use your preferred pillowcase making method, or you can choose the Hot Dog Pillowcase Method.

The National Quilt Museum is showcasing modern quilters on Instagram. To have a chance to have your work featured, use the hashtag #nqmmodernquilter .

Lottery Blocks:
Colleen is taking leadership of the Lottery Block program for 2018.

For the March meeting, we will be making Economy Blocks. Please make any size economy block you like, paper-pieced or traditionally pieced.

For the center square, choose any fabric you like--fussy cuts are fun! The inner ring of triangles should be a dark solid OR reads-as-solid. The outermost frame of triangles should be low-volume.

If you prefer to piece traditionally, please see Colleen's block information HERE.

Amy has provided paper piecing templates for several sizes:
4 inch   5 inch    6 inch    8 inch    10 inch    12 inch
Please note that you will have to tape together the templates for blocks sized 8 inches and up.

Please plan to donate $1 per block. We are tentatively thinking that it would be good to donate our block lottery proceeds to an organization again this year, but we will put the matter up for a vote at the end of the year.

If you think you can't or don't like to paper piece, the economy block is a GREAT way to get your feet wet. Please feel free to email the google group if you get stuck or need advice or encouragement!

Education:

Judy used extra fabric to add interest to this quilt label.

Judy gave a demonstration on labeling quilts and on burying threads. If you would like, please see her handout from the meeting.

Barb shared her preferred Easy Threading Needle brand (see photo below) that makes burying threads less tiresome:

Barb uses these Easy Threading needles to bury her threads.

And I think we are all excited to try the product that Diane talked about for spraying regular fabric so that it can go through an inkjet printer to make printed quilt labels! It is called Terial Magic.

How many people are planning to try Diane's product for printing fabric labels?

Announcements: 

--Maureen announced that Victoria Findlay Wolfe will be teaching from her new book in Salem MA in April. Please check out her FLYER for more details if you are interested.

--Essex County Needlecraft Guild Event: Catherine announced this; check out her postcard FRONT and BACK (in case you lost yours like I did!)

Show and Tell:

Judy shared her Spring Buds Improv project from Sherri Lynn Wood's 2015 workshop.

Laura's quilted tote panels are both minimalist and improv.

Catherine teaches a unique method for constructing Lucy Boston blocks (so that your stitches don't show!) and made up this tote to show as a class sample.

Catherine is a graphic designer by training and collects text fabrics. She made this quilt to show off her collection!

Catherine backed her text fabric quilt in minky and quilted it with a text design that includes ampersands.

Patty made this mini quilt for a challenge. It is paper pieced--the pieces are quite tiny!--and even the negative space blocks are pieced with star points in the white fabric. She used only 13 fabrics, cleverly flipping one of the fabrics to the reverse side to get a different look.

Nancy showed off her minimal Flying Geese mini quilt.

Barbara bought Nancy this cute felted wool birdhouse for Christmas. 

Kali showed off her eye-vibrating improv quilt (the background color is Kona Pomegranate). She quilted it herself on her home machine.

Kali also showed off her improv quilt that she uses for free motion quilting practice. She mentioned the "rules" she used to piece it. 

Amy also used "rules" when she pieced her bright solids improv quilt, and noted that many of her favorite improv projects include a set of "rules" rather than being totally random.

Amy showed off her new quilt "Celebration." The pattern is already available for purchase!

Hildy shows off her nametag, and notes that sometimes improv piecing can get rather large rather quickly!

I'm sad that my photo of Paula's quilt turned out a bit blurry. Paula used elements of improv piecing to construct this quilt, which has been a lot of work for a lot of years!

Paula also used this quilt label to show us that you can stitch the label right into the binding when you attach the binding, for extra security.

Sue Ann took Amy's Improv Paper Piecing workshop with her Bedford Guild. She channeled Hildy a bit with her color scheme! (I almost attributed this work to Hildy, but then noted that the manicure is definitely very Sue Ann ;) )

Diane participated in a Dusk to Dawn themed competition. She has been doing a lot of work with indigo dyeing.

This is the back of Diane's first Dusk to Dawn piece and shows the label.

Diane notes that this piece was also for Dusk to Dawn, but she wanted to design a graphic representation of the concept.  If you are interested in the ombre fabrics she used, they are available at Craftsy.

Next Meeting:

--Saturday March 3 at the West Newbury Annex (381 Main Street, West Newbury), 10 am to 12 pm.

--Please bring lottery blocks.

--Demo of basting techniques

--Visit and pop-up shop by Stephanie of Crosscut Sewing Co.