20 April 2013 Sit & Sew

It was a very wet and wuthering day today...to the five brave souls who ventured out to the Sit & Sew, well done! I know I got drenched getting my coffee on the way to Greta's, and the little shop was buffeted by winds and rain all morning. Phew!

But we gals were hard at work. Due to the adverse weather, we all brought hand sewing, and had a lovely relaxing morning finishing up projects or beginning anew.

Lois brought in her gorgeous broken dishes block- aren't those colours brilliant?

Robyn was putting the finishing touches on a quilt for her daughter's 21st, and then she moved on to crafts for the Eastwood Patchwork Quilters exhibition! 

Louise was also working hard on crafts for the Eastwood Patchwork Quilters.

Jill had brought her Scquilters challenge quilt - love those colours!!

And here is the start of a star quilt. Louise won these blocks and added the sashing. They really pop!

Lois was searching for the perfect pinks today too!

FINALLY - the group quilt is QUILTED!!! HOORAY! Sel spent six hours on her feet doing a fantastic FMQ pattern for our massive quilt - 112" square - and doesn't it look DIVINE?

Bit of a close up of the quilting (I promise the quilt is square, that funny "dent" is because it is hanging on two separate design walls on wheels!)

And the pieced backing. Our white/cream fabric was donated but the rainbow squares and hexes are all from our contributors' stash. The purple hexie block was a spare of Claire's and there is just enough room either side to write all our names and date the quilt!

Marilyn has generously offered to bind it for us and I will be making the hanging sleeve tomorrow afternoon during naptime. It's all happening!

All in all it was a very productive rainy Saturday!

Our next meeting is 18 May 2013 at Greta's in Lindfield. I will be a week out from my due date so hopefully I will be there, otherwise I am sure I will be doing something else that requires my full attention! At any rate we look forward to seeing the group quilt all finished and gorgeous and ready to send in to the show!

Cheers :)

Jenn xx

Sit & Sew Day!

Long time no blogging! We can confidently say we have been way too busy sewing to get behind our keyboards. So much has happened!

First order of business: we have a Sit & Sew on Saturday 20th April - please send us an email if you'd like to be added to our list. Places are limited so email quick! :) You can find info about our Sit & Sews here.

Last month we had a great turnout and lots of new faces - welcome Robyn, Louise, and Bronny! We love seeing new sewists and it was great to have some of the girls from the Eastwood Patchwork Quilters there too. They are putting on a beautiful exhibition from 3rd-5th May this year, well worth stopping in. The raffle quilts are gorgeous. You can read more about it here. :)

We had a conversation about the Modern Quilt Guild's change to their definition of modern quilting. The consensus is that it is quite a personal thing. (If you think you're a modern quilter, you are!) The new definition is quite inclusive and simply gives a bit of framework for explaining the evolving aesthetic. It was interesting to see what we defined as modern and what we thought of as "traditional" quilting, too.

We did have some show and tell from last month!

Claire's gorgeous colour wheel. It's exactly the same on the back, except the background is cream. AMAZING!

Look at this BEAUTY by Robyn. Don't you love the string corners to tie it all together??

Bronny made Avalon from Material Obsession book 1 out of some beloved prints and was just finishing up the binding. STUNNING!

Finally - we laid out all our group quilt blocks and rearranged until they were perfect. We had some extra special help from Ruby, who climbed all over our blocks and stuck the labels back on in the right places! She also made sure no one walked on it as we took up the whole floor at Greta's. Thank you Ruby!!

The group quilt top is FINISHED -- rows joined, sashed, borders on, and the backing is done! It is being quilted by Selina this weekend (thank you Selina)! Soon we will have a picture of our gorgeous quilt to show you. We are all so proud of it!

Meeting this weekend!

Lovely quilters!

We are on again this week at Greta's, from 10am onward! We've sent out an email but if you were missed, please email us (sydneymodernquiltguild at gmail dot com) and we'll add you to the group so you get notified next time! The details are up there on the 2013 dates page (see tabs at the top)!

Hopefully this time Jenn will remember to take photos instead of leaving her camera buried in her bag, so there will be a blog post with show and tell and lots of pictures of everyone's gorgeous work! :)

If you're interested, please shoot us an email and let us know, and RSVPs need to be in by Wednesday!

Cheers, hope to see you Saturday!! xx

Rainbow Kit Assembly Post

Hello our faithful quilters!

Hopefully you are all coping in the summer heat - for those of you in Australia, that is! :) We are of the opinion that this is the perfect time of year for paper piecing. No hot, steamy irons. No heavy quilts on laps! Just tiny little perfect shapes in portable packages!

By now everyone has been allocated their Rainbow Quilt Assembly Kits and should be piecing away. We've run across a few questions and decided a blog post is the best place to explain exactly what to send back! :)

A "completed" block is NOT FULLY ASSEMBLED. The reason for this is because we didn't have the white fabric organised before the kits went out. (It is a donation!) Not our fault, not the fault of the donor, and not a big deal. This makes it a little easier for everyone, though. All you have to do it put the hexagons together and include the rest of the coloured pieces.

Here is what we should be getting back from you! Remember these are due the end of January, which is only three weeks away! Please let us know if you're struggling or cannot make the blocks work - we will organise them to be sorted out on your behalf. Email us at sydneymodernquiltguild at gmail dot com. :)


The above picture is the entire "block": the hexagon blob, the two 4.5" squares, the two 2.5" x 9.5" strips, the two 2.5"x12.5" strips, and three spare hexagons.


The above photo shows the two 4.5" squares.


The above photo shows the 2.5"x9.5" strips (lower set) and the 2.5"x12.5" strips (upper set).


This photo is a finished hexie block - six columns of alternating 5 and 6 hexagon strips.


This is what the back should look like. Notice how the edge papers have been left inside, and the middles have been taken out. You can take the middles out or leave them, but please leave the edges for us. :)


These are three spare hexagons. For the above block, they didn't really work out. If you are super confident of your colours/patterns, by all means, don't worry so much about making the extra 3 hexies!


This is an image of the template and the upper corner of the block. It is marked for placement.


Finally, this is the guide you would have received (although with many different colours). You can see how this block takes a lead from the colour map but isn't too strict. See the coloured framing strips, and the squares? They are all there, measurements explained, and no assembly required -- just the hexie blob! :)

We hope this helps everyone. Let us know how you're going with the blocks - we are individually on Instagram using the hashtag #sydmqg, and feel free to upload to our Flickr page, too!

Cheers!

Swap Day 2012!

Swap Day, hosted every year by Material Obsession, was a lot of fun! Thanks so much to Kathy & Co who set us up with a little shady spot down the corner of the garden and helped us to feel right at home.  It was an amazing experience and we got to connect with lots of other quilters, modern, traditional, young, not-so-young, experienced, emerging...it was absolutely lovely!

There are no pictures of Jenn, but there is a gorgeous one of Claire with our pretty little table...


and one of Selina and her extraordinary Eternity quilt!


Our work was all over the shop. Sel had another top just "hanging out":


Jenn's Honeycomb quilt made an appearance on the balcony:


And Claire's lovely Sunset Plus shaded us all afternoon - what a treat for those upstairs!!


Again, thank you so much to Kathy for having us - it was wonderful and exciting and very fun! We look forward to working with Material Obsession in 2013!

Cheers!

Last meeting of 2012

Hoo boy, this post is late! Sorry everyone!

We had a killer turnout and it was a true celebration - a few new members, some excellent news from one of our gals, and then the loveliest chatting and sewing possible!

Of course, there was also Show and Tell!!

Look at Di J's quilt. Oh how we loved this one! So many fantastic colours. Especially loved that scalloped binding. Beautiful!



It was so big Di J needed Di B to help hold it up! But that's okay, Team Di is a well-known dynamic duo!


Claire had her beautiful Sunset Plus quilt to display. Isn't that quilting beautiful? She did that herself!


And this Australiana quilt of Di B's was absolutely beautiful. Do you spy the little platypus in the corner? :)


We all had a great time and have been so blessed this year. Here's to 2013 and all we may accomplish as a group!

Guild Quilts!

Business first: we have a Thursday evening Sit & Sew this week at City Extra, Circular Quay. We generally filter in from about 5:30pm and wander out around 7:30pm. Please join us - we love the company and the milkshakes are second to none. :)

All right, now we can get on to the fun part. We've decided on the patterns for our Guild quilts. I am very pleased to announce that we have secured permission from C&T Publishing (and the block authors) to make a guild sampler quilt of blocks from the book Modern Blocks. (If your LQS doesn't have a copy, request it! Otherwise C&T Publishing will sell it to you here.) Modern Blocks was compiled by Susanne Woods and features blocks from many of the modern quilters who have made a name for themselves redefining quilting! The blocks are all 12" finished so based on interest we will calculate how large our quilt will be.

Here is a picture of the cover of the book, for reference!



Our second quilt (and the one we are super excited about) is from the excellent book Hexa-Go-Go by Tacha Bruecher. Tacha is one of the founding members of the e-zine Fat Quarterly and she has really championed the English Paper Piecing resurgence in recent times! The entire book is well worth picking up, and again, if your local quilt shop doesn't have it, C&T Publishing does and it can be bought here. The way we will do this quilt is if you are interested, please send us an email (sydneymodernquiltguild at gmail dot com) and we will send you a kit. From your stash, you will paper-piece a block to a color map and you will send along a certain amount of color-mapped scrap squares too. Here is a picture of the book...



....and a sneak peek of the quilt we are making!



This picture is shamelessly stolen from the book! I don't want to give the whole game away so please come to the meeting or get your hands on a copy ASAP. :) The quilt we're making is on page 107. JUST A NOTE - we will NOT be sending out whole copies of the pattern, just a color map for YOUR block. All major assembly will be done as a GROUP so unless you buy the book you won't get a whole copy of the pattern.

Now, the best part is that Tacha Bruecher herself has offered to contribute a block! WOW! There was a lot of squealing and jumping up and down at SydMQG Headquarters when that email came through. It is a great reminder not only of how warm and wonderful the modern quilting community is, but how giving and generous they are as well! Thank you Tacha!

Now, onto how we are passing on the generosity: our beautiful quilts, once completed and exhibited, will be raffled or auctioned off at the end of 2013. We are planning on donating the proceeds to a charity that supports displaced women: women who are victims of domestic violence or who need shelter. It's hard to haul a quilt around if you're trying to cobble together a life, so we've decided to support that aspect of the community through monetary means, which is why we have elected to sell our quilts. We have still not chosen a shelter or program yet - we are well open to suggestions! Please send us an email or even leave a comment here and we will investigate. Lots of quilters do fantastic charity work and we really believe in community building - it's a core tenet of our Guild Principles - so this is how we can give back, while still expanding our skills and growing together as a guild!

Anyway it goes without saying - we're excited to be getting started on our first guild quilts! Hooray! We hope to see you all soon down at City Extra and STAY TUNED - there will be a list of the 2013 dates up very soon!

Cheers!