Toronto Modern Quilt Guild

This is for our exhibit at CQA Quilt Canada in June. Attendees to the show will vote to determine the winner. Prize will be announced soon. Requirements: 14" x 14" quilt using ONLY TWO OR THREE of the following Kona Cotton Solids: Storm School Bus Peridot Ash Berry Coal Pomegranate NO other fabrics may be used on visible portions. It is fine to use anything for the backing, facing or sleeve. You may use any colour of thread for quilting and piecing, but you may not embellish your work with anything else or change the fabrics in any way. That means no sequins, buttons, glitter, paint, ink, dyes, bleach, etc. Your quilt must have a faced binding. Here is a great tutorial if you are new to the technique. Don't sweat it, it's easy! Your quilt must have a 2" sleeve. Here is a tutorial for attaching sleeves, but keep in mind that this tutorial is for a large sleeve. You can start with a piece of fabric that is 4 1/2" wide instead of 8 1/2...

The only requirement for this year's challenge is that your entry is a quilted self-portrait. It can be any size, any shape, alternative materials, whatever you want! It doesn't even have to be literal, so you can be all artsy and quilt what you're feeling. These quilts are due at our June 26, 2016 guild meeting where we will all vote upon a winner. The winner will receive a fabulous a one year dual/family membership to the Textile Museum of Canada and bragging rights!

Just back from an amazing weekend up North for our second Quilting Retreat on Georgian Bay.  Once again we were hosted by our member Adrienne Van Halem, at the home of her lovely and generous parents Murray and Bayla. We had a big sunny room full of tables and art (paintings by Murray Van Halem) in which to sew and sew and talk and sew.  There was some really beautiful and creative work happening in that room.  And when we needed to lay some blocks out to see if it was working, we had lots of room for that too. And lots of other sets of eyes to see it anything "jumped out" and needed to be rearranged.  Oh, and did I mention there was food? I meant to take waaaaaay more pictures of food, but every time we sat down to eat, I just ended up, well, eating and forget to snap a few shots of the lovely meals that our members prepared. I only managed to get this picture of dessert on Saturday night. Julie made HOME MADE marshmallows, which were divine. Pi...

December is an odd month. There is so much going on and its just so darned busy that most people don't have time to make anything, except Christmas gifts perhaps. So here at the TMQG we don't have a regular meeting. But we do have a party! I must say, there were a lot of Christmas/Holiday parties in my December but this one was definitely the most fun. Everyone brought lovely treats and baked goods and there was even a bit of sherry. But the best part, of course, was the people.  We had a White Elephant swap, wherein everyone brought a home made gift, and then drew numbers and chose a gift to unwrap or STEAL! Lots of fun competition and laughs and even though there were some favourites that got stolen and passed around, I'm pretty sure everyone went home with something they loved. I know I did! We played games as well. Can't have a party without proper games! We each made a patchwork "bingo card". Which was fun in and of itself. And then we play...

Sorry to have been so long in putting up this blog post. I have no excuse except the usual ones, so I will spare you the details of my busy life. But it will have been worth the wait because look at the beautiful work our members have been doing!  Berene ran the Block Lotto for us again this month.   She designed the coolest block on the block for this one. All Hallowe'en-y for October! So great. If you want to make some blocks like this too, you can find the tutorial on Berene's Happy Sew Lucky blog.   Adrienne made this stunning Just Like Heaven quilt with a pattern by Libs Elliot .  And Dia brought in a quilt she made by doing the Row by Row Challenge in California. It was a shop-hop style challenge, where you drive from quilt shop to quilt shop (in this case all over California) to buy kits with patterns and fabric which you can then make into the finished quilt. And as a bonus you get a road trip and the chance to see a lot of fa...