October Meeting Recap

Happy Sunday, Quilters!

Our October meeting was held last Saturday, the 17th at StitchCraft. Thank you to all members and guests who joined us.

Monthly Topic:
The monthly topic for October was Handwork, specifically English Paper Piecing (EPP) and Big Stitch Hand Quilting.

Nicole started off with a presentation on EPP, and a demonstration to show how she finished her EPP Hexagon Table Runner.

Kate gave a presentation on Big Stitch, followed by an interactive lesson in hand quilting.

We are excited to see our members try these new techniques! They're great projects to have for our Sewcials, or sewing on-the-go.

BOM:

Our block of the month for October was Eastern Sunrise, in the Tequila Sunrise Color Palette. The winner of the drawing was Penny Stern.

Our next block of the month (for November 21st) is the Checker block from Elven Garden Quilts.

Sneak Peak of our Upcoming BOMs for November and December.

QAL:
Our Quilt Along is in month 5. We'll bring out final blocks (#6) to the November meeting, where we'll also talk about how to put the blocks together. Some of our members have started working ahead, and have been putting their quilt tops together. It has been fun to see these quilts progress, and we can't wait to see the finished quilts!

Workshop Recap: 
In September, Patti gave us all a presentation on Modern Traditional piecing and quilting. She gave members 9-patch blocks to take home and "make modern." The results were fantastic, and will be assembled into a charity quilt top.

We also got to see some of the beautiful results from Patti's Modern Traditional workshop at the beginning of the month. These quilts and quilt tops are beautiful, and we hope to see them in our upcoming exhibits!

Here is LoriAnn's finished quilt top from the Workshop.

Marianne (who wasn't able to attend) also finished her quilt top.

Marilyn also brought in her (nearly finished) quilt top from the workshop.

Patti's finished quilt, made from her blocks from the workshop.

Projects:
Allison gave us an inspiring presentation on our QuiltCon Charity Quilt, to hang in QuiltCon in Pasadena. The colors and inspiration photos are beautiful, this is sure to be an amazing quilt! This will be a great opportunity for all of us to come together and put the techniques we've been learning to good use. We hope her presentation inspired you to join us! If you want more details, please read this post. WE CAN DO THIS!

Charlotte did a "progress check" on our Negative Space Challenge. The Challenge isn't due until July 2016, but it doesn't hurt to get a head start. Many of our guild projects (QAL, BOM, Workshop Quilts) could be turned into quilts that use negative space. This is a great way to finish up one of your WIPs and enter the challenge! Please share your progress on facebook and instagram with us. As an incentive to use social media about your Negative Space Challenge entry, each time you post to Facebook or Instagram or Flicker about your progress using hashtag #sfmqgnegchallenge you will get an entry to win something. We all want to hear about what you are doing and share the fun!

Don't Forget! We also have our holiday swap coming up at the November meeting. These tutorials are fun and easy to make. This is also a great opportunity to get ideas for your other holiday gifts!

Show and Tell:
We started our show and tell with some examples of EPP and hand quilting:

Debby's EPP in Progress

Patti's StitchCraft Challenge, with big stitch accents

Penny's StitchCraft challenge, made with EPP Hexagons

Close-up of Swig's big stitch hand quilting

An example of Big Stitch hand quilting from Swig.

One of Swig's WIPs with big stitch hexagons.

Wanda's Kaffe EPP bolster.

General Show and Tell:

Marilyn's Shadow Quilt

Monica's Audrey Hepburn mini-quilt

Monica's Tolkein inspired quilt.

Pam's Trees quilt (made from Carolyn Friedlander pattern)

Pam's finished quilt from the Improv Round Robin workshop in September.

Patti's improv with curves quilt.

Meryll brought in two finished BOM Sampler quilts!

Lisa showed a quilt where she used glue basting to finish the binding.

Other News and Reminders:
We have quite a few quilt events and exhibits coming up. Charlotte gave us a reminder and additional details on some of our upcoming exhibits. More details can be found on the blog. We really hope to see our members submit quilts to our Modern Quilting exhibits next year! This is a fun way to show off your work! Many of your quilts made from the workshops, BOM, and QAL would be a great addition to our exhibits.

Elections! Our first elections are coming up in November (will be done at November meeting). Kate gave an update on the nominations, and the members who are standing for these positions in our elections:

• President: Allison Schnackenberg
• VP of Programs: Charlotte Noll
• VP of Projects: both Patti Auten and Rose Parsons are standing
• Secretary: Debby Schindall
• Treasurer: Abbie Bill

Voting will take place at our November meeting. Prior to the meeting, we will send out a final list, along with statements from those interested in running for a contested positions. Stay tuned! 

Thank you again for joining us last Saturday! We look forward to seeing you at our next meeting, November 21st!

September Meeting Recap

Greetings from the South Florida MQG! We hope everyone is enjoying the nice autumn weather in South Florida :)

Our September meeting was held on Saturday, September 19th at StitchCraft.

Another packed room for our general meeting.

QAL:

Patti and Kerrilyn talked about our Month 4 blocks from the Improv QAL. We love watching these blocks come together! It's fun to see everyone's different versions from the same tutorial.

Beautiful QAL blocks!

Monthly Topic : Modern Traditionalism

Patti gave a great presentation on Modern Traditionalism.

Part of Patti's talk on Modern Traditionalism

She also invited members to join her for a game of 9-patch password, where they got to try to make 9-patch blocks more modern.

Marilyn junps in to try out Patti's interactive demo.

Mini Challenge: Everyone got to take home a 9-patch block, and instructions to make it more modern. We'll bring in our new, modernized blocks to the October meeting to show off!

Patti showed how we can make a traditional block look more modern.

Patti will also be teaching a Modern - Traditional Workshop this weekend at StitchCraft. Those who join her will learn how to make a modern quilt top like this:

A sample of the Modern Traditional workshop methods.

Logo Competition:

Our members voted on the two finalists for our log competition. Congratulations to our winner, Alyson! (Alyson's logo is on the top). We had many wonderful submissions to vote on, thank you to all who participated, we're very excited to have a new logo!

Logos by Alyson and Charlotte made it to the final vote!

Block of the Month:

Our September block was the sunrise block in low volume prints. Diane Moss won the BOM lottery!

Lots of beautiful BOM blocks in our "Sunset" color palette this month.

We also got to see our upcoming BOMs for October and November. October's block will be paper pieced, in a beautiful, autumn color palette:

Upcoming BOM blocks for October and November.

Show and Tell:

This month, we had a lot of extra projects to show off in Show & Tell.
To start, the participants in our improv workshop showed off their progress on their improv round robin quilts.

yes, that is Patti on the left with a completely finished quilt!



Tonya also used LoriAnn's blocks to show us some ideas on how to piece them all together:

LoriAnn's blocks from the Improv Round Robin workshop



Many of our members brought in some of their Modern Traditional Quilting Projects for Show & Tell

Nicole showed off this modern EPP Hexi quilt

Patti brought in a Modern Traditional star quilt

Rose brought in this supersized log cabin quilt top

Rose also brought in this large star quilt top

Another beautiful quilt top by Rose

Pam brought her Michael Miller challenge quilt from last year

Pam brought this fun quilt, made from a charm pack!

Pam also showed off this quilt, made with improv pieced slabs.

Ivy brought in this modern tumbler quilt

Here's a photo of the back.

Monica made this mini Bee quilt

Kerrilyn brought in this paper pieced butterfly quilt

• Andrea, from the Nominations Council, gave us a progress update on the nominations leading up to our first election, this October.

• Allison announced our opportunity to make our first QuiltCon Charity quilt, as a guild, and enter it in QuiltCon next year. We'll be working on this together for the next few months.

• Charlotte announced 3 upcoming quilt shows (which we'll have exhibits in), more details will be sent via email.

• We are having a Holiday Swap in November, where members will make a small gift and swap during the meeting. Details were sent to members on the 20th, we hope to see you all participate in this fun swap!  
  

Sewcial:
We also had our monthly Sewcial, after the meeting. This is a great opportunity to socialize, get to know some other guild members, and enjoy some hand sewing!

Other News:
Thank you again to all who joined us, can't wait to see you again in October!

September BOM - Sunset

This month we are shifting our focus to a low volume block. Sherry McConnell defines low volume fabric and provides some hints when selecting low volume fabrics in her post on the  Craftsy blog.

Shelly's example block in the sunset palette.

We are using NY City Metro Mod Quilters' block pattern "Sunrise/Moonlight" and we are going to make it Sunset block by using these low volume sunset inspired hues.

Use this color palette as a guide when selecting your fabrics.

You can choose your own fabrics, or there is a fabric bundle available from Stitchcraft - four quarter yards for the guild discount price of $10 (normally $12).

SFMQG bundle available at Stitchcraft

We hope that we'll have a lot of participation as usual in our block lottery. If you use the fabric bundle please write your name on the back of your blocks (masking tape is good, or one of those erasable pens).

See you in September!