May Meeting 2015 Part I: Show and Tell

Every time I sit down to write this blog, I am surprised by how many photos I have to post here. I know I spend most of the meeting clicking away with my camera, but I'm still shocked by how many pictures I have to edit. "People are never going to stick with me through to the end," I think, "this is going to be a veeeerrrrry long post!" And as our membership grows, and meeting attendance gets more and more enthusiastic, there are just so many gorgeous projects to take pictures of and share with the internet and quilting world. And so today it has finally come to this: I am going to have to split the post into two parts. This post (part one) will be the "Show and Tell" portion of our meeting, and then the next post will be the projects and results of our "Not Really President's Challenge." Alright? Here we go.

Kathryn kicked off the meeting by showing us her "second quilt ever". Her first was a t-shirt quilt, so this is a big step up in terms of piecing, and using fabric intended for quilting. I love her use of negative space, and how she offset the pieced area with a big off centre boarder.

You should have heard the gasps of awe when Valerie busted out this self-portrait. I asked her what the title was and she said either "Me, Made Modern" or "Thoroughly Modern Me". Either way, it is very impressive and a good likeness to boot. 

Jeannie brought in her latest Millefiori patch. These are just so eye swimmingly gorgeous, that many of us are tempted to get on the Millefiori bandwagon.

Samara brought in this poppy little block that she is making for a block challenge/quilt along type thing. I love the turquoise in there with the orange. 

And here's a project she finished for a Gnome themed swap. She drew the gnome panel and had it printed out on Spoonflower and then appliquéd the little presents, which are actually pockets. So cute! (my apologies for the less than flattering photo of you Samara, but that's what you get for mugging it up and making funny, but unpostable faces in all the other shots! ;)

Here is Steph's finished "Spoke-a-dot" quilt. 

And a sweet little baby quilt she made to demonstrate how to quilt with thicker thread (tutorial found at Pickled Herring Designs).

But here's her real piece de resistance. An amazing, exuberant Day of the Dead themed quilt. Look at that crazy, intricate, machine quilted skull in the middle there!

The back is just as amazing as the front! 

Sheila was a visitor to our meeting this month, having the good luck of being in Toronto on the right weekend to join our meeting. She is from a fledgling MQG in Waterloos, and came to see what we were all about. She also participates in Victorious Quilts which makes quilts for people living with cancer. The particular one will be for a young girl who loves horses. She just happened to have the horse printed fleece that she is going to back it with, and pieced a top to co-ordinate. I love how it references the fields and fences of horse country. 

Emily, our trusty treasurer brought in this cute little pouch organizer where she keeps all thing TMQG related. 

Lots of handy pockets on the inside. We all were very impressed by her facility with inset zippers. 

Catherine brought in a small quilted hanging that she made for her other guild's Spring themed challenge. Its called "Flower Fraction"

She also brought in this amazing top, that she pieced in 2006 while she was taking a class at the Haliburton School of the Arts. She used John Willard's Radiating Strip Piece Technique to make this 

This was a first meeting with us for Gunnel Hag. She prints and dyes all her fabric herself, which results in completely unique quilted items. The one in the picture above is called "Secret Layers"

And this one is called "Texture"

And here is some fabric that she dyed recently, waiting to be made into something fabulous. I hope that you can see her work in person someday because my camera really does not do justice to the colours. 

The lovely Julie brought in some sweet little zippered pouches, which sparked much conversation on the topic of the common fear of sewing zippers in. And also, we all agreed that the small mistakes that seem so glaring to us, are pretty much insignificant to everyone else. A good thing to remember as we worry over the small things. 

Lisa made a handy organizer for all her hand and paper piecing supplies. (I need one of these!)

The outside of it is made of paper pieced hexies of course!

And here we all are contemplating her Giant Chevron quilt, that she made as part of a quilt along on the Elven Garden Quilts blog. 

Adrienne showed us this panel, which is a work in progress. If you are a fan of 80's video games, you might recognize it as the opening sequence frame from the game "Monkey Island". That's a Chicken (or a Seagull maybe, now that I think of it) floating on the barrel in the foreground there. He needs a head, but you get the direction this is going. She's got a lot of amazing detail and appliqué going on here. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product. 

As a side note, have you been notching what beautiful smiles all our guild members are have in their pictures? Its because I've been encouraging them all to smile in the pictures, so that they do not look dour and grim on the blog here. Most are willing to smile, knowing where their picture will end up. 

But not everyone wants their face in the picture. And that's ok too! Marilou was feeling camera shy this month. 

But this little orphan block that had been turned into a zippered pouch was happy to have its picture taken!

Dia brought in this very modern block to show us. Its Carolyn Friedlander's "Austen House" block. I would love to do a whole quilt out of these. What a nice stripe effect you'd get. 

And Karen brought in this amazing, intense, colourful quilt, made from fabric she bought while she lived in Ghana. She calls it "Travels".

And here's the back. I love the black boarders she used to frame the blocks. 

And last, but certainly not least is Rebecca's impressive, optical illusion, recently finished quilt top. She plans to have it quilted in time to enter it into the Quilts at The Creek show. It will look gorgeous there among the old houses and barns. 

Phew! That's it for the Show and Tell portion of our meeting. Stay tuned for the results of our "Not Really the Presidents Challenge".