Toronto Modern Quilt Guild

Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum! Well, not quite. How about some tasty homemade kombucha tea? At November’s meeting, we fêted 2016 with a splash. Great turnout, awesome eats, and loads of fun. In case you missed it, read on and just imagine being there .

On the heels of our first successful showing at this year’s fall Creativ Festival, we gathered 'round on the eve of Hallowe'en. There’s much ground to cover so let’s get to it.

The TMQG is going to be showing at the Creativ Festival at the International Centre, October 27-29th. We're putting together a display and volunteers on short notice as we were invited just recently. We need your help!

With the change of seasons, September also brought us our first official meeting with the new TMQG Crew. The training wheels are off and we’re fuuuhh-lying!

August’s meeting at the TMQG was all about the transitioning of the Not-Really-Presidents leadership  to our recently elected guild board and leaders. A chorus of heartfelt thanks and appreciation went to Becky, Andrea and Sheila for their tireless work running our rudderless guild these past few years. That was soon followed by a hearty “Good luck with that!” slap on the back to the new crew. Becky took us through her last guild housekeeping items <sniff> and we moved onto our newly-formatted meeting.

Beginning in September we will have a new executive committee. We are so appreciative of Becky and Andrea for their almost 3 years of service to the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild.

We started our meeting off with an uplifting and positive message in the wake of an inexplicable tragedy. 

This past weekend, members of our guild packed up their sewing machines and headed North to this lovely home on the shores of Georgian Bay for a weekend of quilting and relaxing.

SPOOL BLOCKS BLOCK LOTTO Our next TMQG block lotto is all about thread!   This will make a fab sewing themed quilt when all pieced together. And you’re not tied down to one specific block so you can really have some fun with it. In fact you can use ANY spool pattern you want as long as you adjust the block size or add extra background fabric so that your blocks fit the dimensions below. RULES: 1.  BLOCK SIZES: Width: multiples of 4 (plus ½” seam allowance)  Height: multiples of 6 (plus ½” seam allowance) Eg:         4 ½” x 6 ½” (smallest size)              8 ½” x 12 ½”              4 ½” x 12 ½”             12 ½” x 12 ½”     etc There is no limit on how big you can go as long as you keep these proportions. 2.  FABRIC: SPOOL:  Textures or colours that look like spools (woodgrain, sketch, Aurifil orange etc) THREAD:  Striped, thread-textured or sewing-themed modern fabrics (as shown in samples) BACKGROUND:  Kona SNOW (no alternatives, please)

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, Jea

About a week ago I posted on the TMQG Facebook page that I had a quilt vision that I hoped my fellow guild members would help me realize, and here (finally!) is the tutorial for the blocks that I'm looking for. The idea is simple, because the way to accept one another is simple:  LOVE.  The most shocking thing to me about the hate expressed by the murderer in Orlando on June 12th is that his hate was for how people loved one another.  I hope this quilt, this small gesture in a very large world, will join with a million other small gestures to tip the balance on the side of love. I am asking for LOVE and IS blocks, in bold, bright colours.  No black, white, grey, etc.  It is also important that the letters be legible, so contrast between the letters and the background is important.  You can achieve this in different ways: using a cool background and warm letters (or vice versa) OR using a light background and dark letters (or vice versa).  Generally, prints that are on th

Hello TMQG'ers If you've been watching CNN lately you'll know it's election season. And the same applies here in our quilty community. Here are all the details that you need to know about our upcoming election. (Sorry, no Wolf Blitzer poling stats or snazzy John King 3D graphics.)  This email requires a good read, so make yourself a cup of tea and get comfy. TMQG ELECTION: SUNDAY JUNE 26 There have been lots of meetings, and discussions about how we would like to improve our guild, where we’d like it to go in the next few years and who the new leadership will be. Well now it’s time to put all that talk into action! The June meeting is your chance to vote on who you would like to run for president and other important roles. This is important info so PLEASE READ all the way to the bottom . HOW DOES IT WORK? • Nominees get put in the ballot • Deadline for nominees is 11am on Sunday, June 26, 2014. • Paper ballots will be cast at the June TMQG m