February Meeting

We had a lovely meeting at the end of February. That one always sneaks up on me, with the month being so short. A number of our group were away at QuiltCon in Austin, but those of us who were still suffering through the winter in Canada made the best of with good company and beautiful quilts. 

Here's Stephanie's most recent, mostly finished project. An adorable kids quilt called "Spoke-A-Dot".

I'm always impressed by Stephanie's quilting ability. Note the quilted signature. Such a nice solution to the problem of labelling a quilt. 

Lisa made these nice little placemats so that she could test her free motion skills. 

I love her fabric choice! Small projects are so good fro testing out skills and playing with a fun/intense fabric that you might not want to make a full sized quilt out of. 

Carol brought in a top that she's been working on for a long time, and was very pleased to finish. 

Its called Eastern Sunrise. So gorgeous!

Mary Lou was very prolific this month and had TWO quilts to show us. 

This one is intended as a gift for a little boy (I think, my memory is failing me a bit this month). 

I love a nicely pieced back.

And this is one that she has all pin-basted and ready to go, but has not yet been quilted. Here we all are discussing possible quilting options. 

I really love this one. The scale of it is just so great, and the combination of neutrals/white and pops of pink is really great. 

Dana brought in the top that she finished and showed to us at the January meeting, all quilted and bound, for feedback on her technique. And our assessment was that it was lovely. 

A few of our members brought in other handiwork, not necessarily quilt-based, to show the group. Lisa had brought some very nicely mended socks that she'd been working on, which I sadly neglected to photograph. 

Jenna had been to a workshop on natural dying techniques and brought in some of the fabric that she'd dyed there. Such beautiful subtle colours. And look at that indigo blue!

Debra made a very cute tea-cozy (which we were all very tempted to wear as a hat).

Andrea (that's me) brought in two mini quilts, one machine quilted and one in the process of hand quilting. 

And Sue won the "Squeals of Delight" award. You should have heard the audible oohs and aaaahs when she unveiled these adorable blocks. 

Because seriously, these blocks are adorable. You can make them too, as the pattern is available on the Sew Fresh Quilts blog.

Laura was a new face at the guild, but brought a very pretty (and quite impressive) block along to show us. 

Once we wrapped up all the showing and sharing we moved on to a tutorial from Sheila. 

She showed us how to cut and piece things in order to get patterns to line up. In the example above she is showing us how to make a chevron stripe. Its a very nice little technique that you can read about here on her blog. 

And in this one she's showing us how to match up prints perfectly. Very useful for scrappers like me.

A guild meeting is always the perfect, fun end to the rather dreary month of February. But never fear, March is coming. And with it another guild Sew Down! If you are a paying member of the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild feel free to join us on Saturday the 7th of March, from 12-3 at the Fort York Library at 190 Fort York Blvd in Toronto. Bring your machines and projects and get ready to sew!