modern BOM2 {from Sew, Mama, Sew!}

In March, Sew, Mama, Sew! introduced a new Block of the Month (BOM) series. The series is designed by Alyssa Lichner from Pile o' Fabric and will run for 6 months. (Thanks to Kris for bringing this series to our attention at the April guild meeting!)

The great thing about these blocks is they are huge at 24.5" so you can make a fairly quick quilt. Instructions for the March "Up From Here" block can be found here. Kris made this block and shared it at our April guild meeting.

Instructions for the April "Stained Glass" block have just been posted. . .find them here. If you make any of these blocks, please bring them to the May meeting to share!

April meeting recap

The exec members are trying to make sure the OMQG is meeting the needs and expectations of our members. First up at the April meeting, members were asked to complete a short survey. We want to know what other guilds members belong to and what you do/do not like about your other guilds. We also want to know what activities members are interested in (sewing day, overnight retreat, day-long demo) and if there are any charities your want the guild to consider making quilts for. If you were unable to attend the meeting, feel free to leave any comments on this post or you can e-mail your comments to info.omqg@gmail.com.

Once again we had a lot of great show-and-tell items. It's always inspiring and encouraging to see what everyone is working on so continue bringing your quilts to share.

There were also a few more Madrona Road projects to share. As a guild, we rocked this challenge!

The demo topic for this meeting was hexagons. Michelle showed her block from this Hexagon Rose Star Tutorial:

Michelle also showed several other hexi-inspired projects (click on the names/links below to be taken to the websites for more info).

• Hexagon baby quilt
• Patchwork Prism Quilt by Anna Maria Horner
• Graph paper generator (great for printing all sorts of graph paper to use when planning your projects!)
• Machine piecing pre-cut fabric hexagons (from Moda)

We will be starting a monthly block challenge! Up first is a paper-pieced star. Here is Michelle's beautiful sample block:

The templates can be found here. If you haven't tried paper-piecing before, there are some good tutorials here and here. ***When printing the templates, be sure scaling is turned off.  For the 12-inch block, the top side of section A should measure 4.5 inches (not including the seam allowance).***

We hope you were inspired at April's meeting. See you in May!

March meeting recap

Since it's almost time for the April meeting, I figured I'd better get a March meeting recap up on the blog! Sorry for the delay. . .

We started off with show-and-tell:

There were also more Madrona Road projects to share. Thanks to everyone who participated in the challenge and transformed their fabric into something beautiful! Hopefully we'll have more challenge opportunities in the future.

Lori gave a brief talk about her impressions of QuiltCon. It sounds like a good time was had by all and there was a pretty impressive turnout. The next QuiltCon will be held in 2015--start saving your money!

Michelle gave a scrappy trip around the world demo. You can find the free tutorial here and there are so many beautiful pictures. If you need some inspiration, just look at some of these on flickr.

The meeting ended with giveaways. Huge thanks to Jill Hanna for providing fabric prizes for the giveaways!

Our next meeting will be Tuesday, April 2 at 7pm at A Quilting Place (11019 I Street). Hope to see you there!

National Quilting Day 2013

National Quilting Day 2013 is Saturday, March 16 and the International Quilt Study Center & Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska is offering a free day at the museum from 9am to 4pm. There will be continuous lectures, demonstrations, and gallery tours.

Lectures:

• 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. - "Not Your Grandmother's String Piecing" by Shelly Burge, quilt designer and author
• 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. - "Indigo Dyeing" by Jay Rich, fiber artist
• 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. - "The Making of 'Posing with Patchwork'" by Marin Hanson, curator of exhibitions
• 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. - "Contemporary Quilted Textiles" by Molly Anderson, textile artist

Demonstrations (from 10am-3pm):

• "Document Your Quilts," "You Use THAT for Quilting?" and "Discover Nebraska" on the second floor
• Demonstrations by Handi Quilter and Bernina Sewing Studio of Lincoln
• "Let's Learn How to Piece a Quilt" and "Hand Work" demonstrations on the third floor

More information about these events can be found here.

February meeting recap

Our February meeting was held on Tuesday, February 5 at A Quilting Place. The meeting started off with some show and tell:

It's always nice to see what everybody has been working on. (And for me there is always that extra motivation to make progress or finish a project so I have something to bring in and show off!)

Members also brought Madrona Road projects to share. At the January meeting, participating members received fat eighth bundles of Violet Craft's Madrona Road fabric line from Michael Miller Fabrics.

Even though we all started with the same fabrics, there was a variety of creative and beautiful projects:

And a huge congratulations to Katie! Her "Here Comes the Sun" wall hanging (bottom row, second from the right) was one of only 8 projects chosen by Michael Miller to be displayed at their booth at QuiltCon. There were 262 amazing projects that were submitted so way to go, Katie!

Lori gave a great demo on improv piecing. We are lucky to have such talented group members, and if you are knowledgeable about a particular quilting topic or technique, please let us know. We'd love to have you share your expertise!

At the end of the meeting, we had a discussion of what members would like to see at future meetings.  English paper piecing, machine binding techniques/tutorials, sewing curves, free motion quilting, and color were some of the suggestions and we'll keep you posted about topics for upcoming meetings. A sewing day and a sewing retreat were also suggested. We concluded with a round of introductions since participation is increasing with every meeting.

Thanks for attending and we'll see you Tuesday, March 5!

January Meeting

Due to the first Tuesday of January falling on New Year's Day, our January meeting will be held on Wednesday, January 2 at 7pm. It's at our regular meeting location--A Quilting Place (11019 I Street). Items on the agenda include:

• Show & tell--bring your finished items or WIPs to share.
• Fabric for the Madrona Road Challenge will be handed out to those members who signed up to participate.
• There will be a quick demo on how to make converging corners quilt blocks. These are a modern take on traditional log cabin blocks. If you have any quilting examples of modern log cabin, please bring those to share.
• You can also see our completed Austin Children's Shelter quilt top!

Hope to see you there!

December meeting recap

The December meeting was a lot of fun and it was nice to see more new faces!

First up was show and tell:

We had a white elephant ugly fabric exchange.  (Of course I didn't get any pictures of this.) Members are encouraged to make something with the fabric they ended up with. There was a drawing with some great prizes donated by The Warm Company and Moda. We also had time to socialize and enjoy some wonderful holiday treats provided by Lori and Robin.

And a few announcements:

For those that signed up for the Madrona Road challenge, we expect to receive the fabric in December and it will be handed out at the January meeting. Participating members will have January and February to make their challenge projects.  There is a Madrona Road flickr group you can join and share pictures of your projects.

For those members interested in helping out with the Austin Children's Shelter charity quilt, we will be meeting on Saturday, December 29 at 10am at A Quilting Place (11019 I Street) to make the quilt top and back.  If you have fabric in the QuiltCon colors (plus white and gray) you would be willing to donate, please bring it along.

Since the first Tuesday in January falls on New Year's Day, we will be holding our January meeting on another day. When available, meeting information will be posted here on our blog and on our facebook page.

don't miss the December meeting!

Don't forget about our December meeting:

Tuesday, December 4 at 7pm

A Quilting Place (11019 I Street)

The agenda includes:

• Show-and-tell (of course!)--Bring your finished projects or WIPs to share
• Ugly fabric exchange--Bring one-half yard equivalent of your ugliest cotton quilting fabric to exchange.  Try to have no more than 3 to 4 pieces (that add up to one-half yard) and package it so nobody can see it!
• Time to relax and socialize

The group that is making the Austin Children's Shelter quilt will be getting started on this project very soon.  If you have any fabric scraps (solids or prints) or larger pieces in the QuiltCon colors (plus gray and white) you would be willing to donate, please bring them to the December meeting.

Hope to see you there!

QuiltCon quilt blocks

We received a set of 10 quilt blocks from The Modern Quilt Guild and they are beautiful!

Our job is to turn these 10 quilt blocks into a twin size quilt which will be donated to the Austin Children's Shelter.  We can do this by making additional quilt blocks, adding negative space, or a combination of the two.  The quilt must be machine quilted, bound, washed, and shipped to Austin before QuiltCon--the due date is February 1, 2013.

How can you help?

• Be a part of the group that will be piecing the top and backing.
• Donate your fabric scraps!  We need to provide all the materials to complete the quilt.  If you have solid scraps in the colors of the QuiltCon logo (plus gray and white) or larger pieces for the backing, we would love to put them to good use.

• Share your ideas for piecing the top by leaving a comment on this post, in our facebook group, or in our flickr group.  Nine of the blocks measure 12.5" square and one block is 12.5" x 5.75".  The completed quilt will need to be no smaller than 68" x 88" and no larger than 72" x 92".

In playing with some possible layouts I realized how bad I am at this!

Help us out with your suggestions!

November meeting recap!

Our November meeting was held Tuesday, November 6 at the new location of A Quilting Place (11019 I St).  There were some new faces so continue to spread the word about our group!

The meeting started off with show and tell.  It's always nice to see what everybody has been working on and it's a great way to get feedback and advice on our projects.  While pictures may have already been posted on member blogs, on our facebook page, and in our flickr group, it's nice to see these quilts and other projects up close and in person.

Michele presented two upcoming quilting opportunities:

1. Our guild will be making a twin-size quilt for the Austin Children's Shelter using quilt blocks we have received from The Modern Quilt Guild's QuiltCon Block Challenge. As a way of giving something back to QuiltCon’s host city of Austin, Texas, The Modern Quilt Guild is going to use the blocks that were not selected for the raffle quilt to make quilts for each of the 46 beds at the Austin Children’s Shelter. If you're interested in helping make our quilt, please comment on this post, comment on our facebook page, or send an e-mail to info.omqg@gmail.com.  (More info will be coming shortly including pictures of the amazing blocks we received.)
2. The Modern Quilt Guild is having a Winter 2012 Fabric Challenge with fabric from Modrona Road by Violet Craft for Michael Miller.  We don't have a lot of details now (more info will be given by The Modern Quilt Guild on December 1) but we have to turn in the number of people participating by November 23.  If you're interested in participating in this challenge, please comment on this post, on our facebook page, or send an email to info.omqg@gmail.com.

Members were able to vote for the November demo and the winner was machine applique. Robin gave an excellent explanation/demo of machine applique.  Thanks Robin!

We are planning the December meeting now and look forward to seeing everybody on Tuesday, December 4!