April Meeting

April was an exciting month for our guild. We have grown and expanded our membership over the last year or so, and as a result of having more members, have decided to change our meeting practices a bit. Instead of our usual big circle, we've changed to rows of chairs, and instead of our very, very long "show and share" we've decided to tighten it up a bit and only show finished works (no more WIPs) and have a limited number of slots for show and share. That way we will have time to do more workshop/demo type things. It went pretty well our first time out. We still saw lots of great work, but had time to learn new things too.

Things like this:

 Jeannie Jenkins gave us a great demo about block accuracy. She had all sorts of tips about cutting fabric. 

She showed us two quilts she had made with tiny Half Square Triangles. 

Same basic blocks/motifs, but a very different feeling to the two quilts. Colour/value choice makes such a difference. 

Also, Jeannie has the COOLEST TOOLS, including this little Lazy Susan/Cutting Mat Board that blew my mind. I must have one of these!

 Here are the adorable blocks made by our members for April's block swap. I really love this pattern. Its Raspberry Kiss and can be found at the Wooden Spoon Quilts blog, if you are interested in making some. Lucky Rebecca won the swap, and made them into a beautiful little quilt that she is selling to raise funds to help those in Fort MacMurray.

And now on to the Show and Share portion of our meeting:

 Sheila made this simple and beautiful classic with fabrics from her Grandmother's stash. Her Grandma is going to be 89 this year, and he piecing abilities are not what they used to be, so Sheila put this together for her. It's called "Nana's Barn Raising".

 One thing I love about our Guild is how into the quilts people are. There is such a great vibe of interest an appreciation as our members share their work. And of course, in this digital age, lots of people take pictures.

Valerie made this really interesting set of small quilts based on news photos of train crashes.

She was struck by the abstraction of these arial images. I think its a really interesting visual exploration of tragic events. The series is called "Off the Rails". The one that you can see in the picture above is called "Lac Megantique". If you want to see more of Valerie's work, you can check out her blog https://crayonpatch.wordpress.com

Gwen had a lot of amazing work to share with us. No less than THREE quilts to show. The first is this lovely double-bed sized star quilt. The central star was made with 5" x 5" charm packs. She used this particular quilt as a chance to practice her free motion quilting.

This buttery soft beauty was made for her neice's wedding.

And since Gwen is no slouch, the back is also beautifully pieced.

This last quilt was in spired by the quilts of Gees Bend.

And another beautifully pieced back. Also, I am in love with that stripy binding.

Catherine made this striking small quilt/wall hanging for the Northcott Chip Challenge. It really has a nice sense of flow to it.

Paul is a visitor to our guild. I believe that the Victoria Modern Quilt Guild is his home Guild, (or maybe it was the Vancouver MQG? Please forgive my forgetfulness!) but he's here in this part of the country to visit his relatives in Hamilton. And since he's friend with one of our members, he decided to come and join our meeting for the day and show these quilts to us before he gives them away forever. This first one is called "Big Wheel"

The back features some equally lovely improve pieced rectangles.

This stunner is called "Mom and Dad's Quilt". I'm actually jealous of the people who get to have this on their bed and I don't even know them! He cut the wedges that the hexagons are made of from striped fabric, which gives a really nice effect.

But look at the back. OH MY GOSH LOOK A THE BACK! I am gobsmacked by this quilt.

And this cute little number is called "Snips and Snails". I do love a quilt with text on it.

Also, how cute is this back? Adorable. I believe he said the little house fabric was from Ikea.

Christine had the quilt that she'd made for our mini quilt solids challenge to show. I am very, very impressed with those nice sharp points.

And look at Doris' lovely mini solids quilt! I adore those little slices, and the very dense linear quilting.

Wendy brought in this intensely ornate little piece that she calls "Effervescence". She made this piece with in an Al Cote workshop at the Etobicoke Quilt Guild, using a reverse appliqué technique that gives a lot of nice dimension to the piece.  

One of the great things about quilts is that they have the potential to be a three-dimensional artwork, because the back is can be as beautiful as the front, as is definitely the case with this work.