TMQG October Newsletter

Better late than never - news from the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild

October 2020 Newsletter Hello TMQG! Cooler weather is starting to settle in, and our thoughts are tending toward cozying up with quilts and pumpkin-spice-inspired colour palettes! Here's what's coming up from TMQG... October Zoom Meeting: Mary Elizabeth Kinch  Our October meeting on Sunday, October 25th, 3 - 5:30 PM will feature Mary Elizabeth Kinch with her lecture Random Acts of Quilting During the second half of the October meeting, we will be choosing a layout for Our QuiltCon Together 2021 Community Outreach Quilt (the one with the curves). Our October meeting is also our Annual General Meeting. The nominees for the executive election will make their statements, and details of the online election will be announced. This meeting will follow our "normal" Zoom format with WIP and Welcome, Show and Share, and a draw to a gift card for a local fabric store. Guests are welcome with the purchase of $10 Zoom Guest Lecture available in our online store. Submit a Quilt for Show and Share Volunteer needed! Do you love Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Keynote? We need a volunteer to pull together all the October show and share submissions into a slideshow. Email us if you can help! Workshop:  Saturday, October 24th Mary Elizabeth Kinch will be teaching a Zoom Workshop: Summerhill Quilt — The Joy of Small Pieces Sampler from 9:30 to 4:30. Jump in and learn the secrets to success in working with these tiny morsels. Precision machine piecing is actually easy and in this class you will learn about techniques, tips, and tools to achieving accuracy - all helpful skills that you can easily transfer to your other quilting projects. We finish off the day learning about a "knife edge" binding, one of Mary Elizabeth's favorite ways to finish a quilt. These persuasively addictive blocks will capture your heart and before you are finished you will be dreaming of your next small pieces project! Sign Up Coming up in November ... Our annual Holiday guild meeting will be held virtually as we have all year.  We will have an on-line Elfster gift exchange for small partner swaps, details to come.  This meeting will include the usual zoom activities of WIP and Welcome, Karen Brown's spotlight, and a fabric store gift card drawing.  Our Show and Share will include the winning quilt top design for the QuiltCon community challenge.  Volunteers for piecing, backing, quilting and binding are needed, details to follow.  Recap: Speed Date with Improv workshop The Speed Date with Improv workshop, taught by Krista Hennebury of Poppyprint, was held at the end of September.  We learned how to cut freehand, "Look Ma, No Rulers!", using her recommended techniques.  We were advised to add on to blocks when squaring up larger sections instead of trimming them down to match.  That forces extra creativity and creates improvisational surprises.  The limitation of only using one colour with black and white combined with the modern, freehand interpretation of traditional blocks proved that all of us have inner artists waiting to be inspired.  (This is Brandie's top, unquilted) Other Announcements This summer the Charity Committee has had 2 requests for help.  The first is from a nurse at St Josephs in the NICU. They are looking for incubator covers to replace the existing covers as they are in sad shape. The information and sign up sheet can be found here: INCUBATOR COVERS We will be having a Sew Together event on Sunday Nov 1st, 3 to 5 pm, to check in with those who signed up and go over any challenges that we may be facing. If you would like to join us to see what this project involves please contact me xandrashen@gmail.com so I can send you the link. We welcome all newcomers! The second request came from the Toronto Cat Rescue. They are looking for mini quilts to put in the cages for the kitties. The information and sign up sheet can be found here: KITTY QUILTS So far we have completed 30 kitty quilts which is amazing! However we still need 20 more. Please consider signing up to make a few of these mini projects. Please take a look and sign up for these worthwhile causes. The guild executive wishes to share with you our long term action plan for Anti-Racism. As a member guild of the MQG, we follow the MQG's Community Guidelines. We welcome the input of all our members as we examine our policies, learn, and develop plans going forward. We welcome our members to explore the Anti-Racism Resources curated by the MQG. Do you have an area of expertise to share with the guild? Sign up to give a Spotlight Presentation at one of our upcoming meetings! Click here to sign up, or to suggest a topic you would like to see included.