Guilds – Page 7 – Artquiltmaker Blog

Another Great CQFA Meeting

I had a great time at the meeting yesterday and it really didn’t have anything to do with the actual meeting.

After the business and show and tell, we sat down to work on the picture I posted earlier this week as our workshop picture. We split up and added more tables so people had more space to work and I sat with Gerre and Rhonda. Gerre was doing work in her collage book (a giant board book she bought at a thrift store and then gessoed over. Great idea!!!) in colors vaguely related to the picture I posted. I would have taken the picture, but since it was in a book with beautiful collages, I thought it might be rude.;-)

I really didn’t know that Gerre was so talented with collage. I adore this piece and think it would make a great card.

Rhonda was doing her very precise improv piecing in the colors of the posted photo, tending towards the abstract. I was preparing a piece of white fabric for later painting with Tsukineko inks.

I finished my work pretty quickly. It really didn’t go as I intended and I didn’t want to work on it anymore, so I offered to press Rhonda’s strips. She sat and sewed her improv strips and I walked back and forth pressing them and getting more.

After some time I heard Bron talking about folded boxes. Rhonda said she needed some for her niece and nephew for Easter, so Bron and I sat down to make them, with Bron doing the teaching. It is amazing how they go together and I can see many of my wrapping problems evaporating.

Rhonda picked out the bird paper. We made two of the same and this box is about 3″ square.

I decided it would be great to make my MIL a box and put a small gift in it for Easter, so we grabbed some sheets of wallpaper and I made a larger box from a 15″ sheet while Bron made a slightly smaller box, perhaps from an 11″ sheet. I ended up taking both home and will give one to someone else soon. I stopped and got some nice soaps to include in them.

Nota bene: We meet at FabMo and we have, pretty much, the run of the materials they have available. We still put donations in their box; we just don’t have to wait until selection day. In addition to fabric, they had books of wallpaper from which we took the larger sheets for the gift boxes. They are nice, because the sheets coordinate, though they are not always large. Some are half sheets or 3/4s sheets, which is why Bron made her box smaller. I thought some wallpaper with stripes would look great, but we didn’t see any in the quick look.

I enjoyed pressing for Rhonda and making the boxes. It interested me more than my Workshop piece.

The meeting went well. We talked about dues. We will be kicking people off the list soon, so people need to pay up. The Retreat is on and full, which si great. I can’t wait to check in and get sewing. I am going to work on the Field Day Zipper (I know! Blast from the past, right?) and the next Food Quilt. I suspect you can believe I won’t be working on FOTY 2014, but it works better for me to take more time and that requires working at home. I really want to get these two quilts done and 36 hours of sewing may be just what the doctored ordered.

The Field Day Zipper will be a gift. The fabrics and partially sewn pieces are clogging up my cutting table and I would like to get it done. I like the colors, but they are not demanding my time or attention. Too muddy. You knew that right?

The Food Quilt 2 will be a gift as well. It will be for a friend of Y.M.’s. We are friends with his parents and every kid should have a quilt. I keep looking at the Y.M.’s Food Quilt and trying to decide if I have cut enough fabric for the blocks I have slated to be made. The pattern is a Disappearing 9 Patch and I have decided that I will make 16 blocks. That means I need 64 food fabric patches (have already cut them), 64 black and white print fabric patches (almost none cut) and 16 purple patches, almost all of which are cut.

If I finish both of these projects, I also have the Box Full of Letters quilt on which to work. That will take come kind of miracle.

Anyway, the Retreat will be fun and I will have a lot to tell you about when I return.

The SFPL show is almost over. I’ll write more about that later. Be sure and go see it.

Rhonda will lead a workshop in June concerned with embellishment and hand embroidery. I can’t wait for that. I used some Aurifil embroidery thread for my ATCs and loved it! I will definitely buy more of that stuff.

Marie chimed in that there is a Stitchery show up at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles right at the moment. Fitting, don’t you think?

Show and tell was fabulous. Everyone does such interesting work and they all said kind things to me about the two pieces I brought: FOTY 2013 and the Hawaiian Donation Quilt. I know I haven’t written about them yet. Stay tuned for upcoming posts on those finishes.

Dolores and Sonja are taking an online class with Elizabeth Barton. They are regularly bringing their pieces to show us and it is interesting to see the process through which they are working.

Sonja’s piece was a follow-up to a flower she finished a few years ago that took forever. This newest piece was finished within the month.

I love the curves and the lines. The color palette emphasizes the design and there is no distraction from color.

Caroline does amazing landscapes and she is nearly finished with another one in her series of Lone Cypresses (Monterey Coast).

She threadpainted the greenery, but a new member showed some cheesecloth she had dyed, which sparked a discussion on the merits of making the greenery with cheesecloth instead of all of that threadpainting. Definitely doable, though different looks would be emphasized, I think. It was an interesting discussion.

Valerie, one of the visitors does amazing work. I didn’t get to talk with her much, but she brought her dyed cheesecloth and embroidery floss as well as a bag she made from hand dyed fabric. I seriously thought about trying to slips some of her embroidery thread into my bag. I restrained myself and decided to make friends with her if she comes back. 😉 She also brought large covered buttons with beading work using seed beads, some fabric postcards and a fantastic name tag.

As I said, it was a great meeting. I learned something, got to see my friends and got something to write about for you. The perfect day. 😉

CQFA Meeting – Feb 2015

I finally made it back to a CQFA meeting! September was the last meeting I attended and it feels like an eternity.

We changed locations and the months in which we will meet. The crowd was quite large – about 25 people. Dues were collected. Retreat monies were collected (if you are not a member and would like to attend, the cost is $107 and there are a few spaces left. Leave a comment and I will hook you up). Lots of announcements were made.

I am in charge of the workshop next time. The title is “Same Design, Make it Mine”. I have to post a photo of the image to our private group before the meeting, then everyone will bring their supplies and ideas and work on their pieces during the meeting. We probably won’t finish, but it will be a good way to work together on our own thing. I had an image all picked out and then I got an different idea during the meeting. We’ll see what I choose.

Workshop

The first activity we did was to view the SAQA Trunk Show through the lens of a formal critique in order to learn about critiquing art. Maureen secured the SAQA Trunk show and Dolores made up a handout, then presented it, on how to critique a piece of art.

I have never done critiquing and I learned a lot, mostly because there are fact based tasks to perform in a critique before you get to the part where you say whether you like the piece or not.

The moniker we used to remember the steps in critiquing is:

DESCRIBE
E
M

ANALYZE
P
P
L
E
S

INTERPRET
S

JUDGE
U
I
C
Y

The first 3 aspects are essentially fact based: what do you see, what principles and elements of design do you see, what is the work about? The last one starts to get into opinion, but then the last aspect, Judge, is when you get to say whether you like the work and why.

I liked this way of critiquing, because it forces the viewer to stick to facts until nearly the end. By doing that, I found that my emotions about the piece were less important, because I was spending energy is really looking at the piece. There some things that I noticed:

Make an artwork that is appropriate to the size. Some of the pieces had too much going on for the format size (around 8.5″x11″). That is a small piece and you need to focus on using that space well instead of trying to get a complicated message across. We found that the ones that were most successful were the ones that fit the format. There was was one that was interesting, but got lost because of the size. It would have been great in a much larger format.
Knowing the basics of design was really helpful. The most successful pieces adhered to some of those principles and elements. Making a piece – the actual technique – is really fun, but in order for a viewer to get something out of a piece, having some structure is helpful.

Dolores did such a great job on the handout. She really should think about teaching art.

Challenges

Rhonda introduced a new challenge, which was inspired by the book Brave New Quilts by Kathreen Ricketson. We are to make a piece of art inspired by a particular art movement or artist. We will be having a challenge review at our December meeting so we are encouraged to bring past challenges as well as this one to that meeting. I am not really inspired, but I have a book called the Daily Book of Art which I will look at before I completely bail.

Some of the challenges we have had in the past are:

2 shapes
placemats
under the sea
fusible flowers
monochromatic

I have ideas and/or fabric for some of these. I really have a great idea for the placemat challenge and really want to do it. I just need to start designing the shapes, then cutting.

Show and Tell

Show and Tell is, of course, my favorite. I only brought the Pink T Quilt. I’ll post about the finished piece in a day or two. I brought it with the binding half on to the BAMQG Meeting, but Gerre wasn’t there so she got to see it at CQFA, which was great. It isn’t very arty, but people seemed to like it. They asked about the organizations to which BAMQG donates quilts. I didn’t have a great answer, but Rhonda helped out.

I also talked a little bit about the Tsukineko Inks class I took and showed the class samples. I really want to get back to that and do something. I just don’t know what.

Julie's Christmas Quilt — Julie’s Christmas Quilt

Julie brought her Christmas quilt, the one we picked up the other day from Colleen (post about that soon as well!). Her Christmas quilt uses a lot of different Christmas fabrics. I have to admire her for having the courage to put them all together. If I look at the fabrics separately, I wouldn’t think they would work, but somehow they do. Of course, the Four Patches are wonderful as well.

I love Diane’s silk pieces and she is always prolific, so she brings, what seems like, dozens. It is amazing how much work she does. I often think she has to have an assistant. My favorites are Diane’s aerial city images. She doesn’t call them that, but that is what I think they look like.

I love this one, because of the swirly quilting. There is also a kind of submarine shape, though I know it is not a submarine 😉 and for the little flecks of gold.

Of course, I also like the blues and greens.

Ann Brook's workshop piece — Ann Brook’s workshop piece

Ann Brook brought a finished piece that she started in a Sherri Lynn Wood class.

There were was lots of great work and people were talking about interesting things. So much more that my head is spinning. You should come sometime.

BAMQG Meeting

It was a good meeting last Saturday. Friend Julie and I had signed up for a design class with Joe Cunningham, but it was cancelled at the last minute. I didn’t really see any advertising for it and I wish they had let me know sooner so I could have rounded up people. The effect of that cancellation was that I got to attend the BAMQG meeting. I was really sad that I was going to miss it and was really wanting to be in 2 places at once.

Mike gave us a tour of one section of the MQG. The goal is to get us more familiar with the benefits of that site since our BAMQG membership includes an MQG membership.

Karen, the 2015 Challenge Coordinator, gave us a small lecture on “What is Modern?”. Stop with the eye rolling! It was interesting and a little off the beaten track. She took some principles of ‘modern quilting’ and showed us these elements in modern quilts as well as ‘non-modern’ quilts, including quilts from the 1980s and 1990s as well as vintage quilts. It was a cool presentation! Some of the elements she included were:

Improv
Pictorial
Graphic
Negative Space
Bright Colors
Alternative Grid (drop an element to mess up symmetry, space elements oddly, irregular spacing between element, etc)
I added in Text during the discussion.

The result of this fabulous presentation is a challenge quilt due in July (??) using an alternative grid.

Charity presented two completed quilts and a new charity block. You can download the Stair step piecing directions (PDF) or go to the guild website and look at the directions.

Some of the Hawaiian quilts are finished. Angela handed out binding and talked about the quilts. I think she got some other people who couldn’t attend the Sew Day to take some pieces and parts and finish them.

I got a colorful binding, though Gerre tells me the quilting is still in process. No problem. I am still working on the binding for the Pink T quilt, though I am nearly done.

Joy-Lily is the Swaps Coordinator and the first swap will be in April. We are each to bring a quilt book with which we have finished and trade with someone else for one. In the future, there will be a ‘Sew As You Go” bag swap.

Upcoming events:

Amish Exhibit at the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles ends 2/28/2015
Manteca Quilt Show, March 7-8, 2015
SCVQA Show-March 14-15, 2015
Playcrafts has a challenge going using the Pantone Color of the Year, Marsala

After the meeting ended, a bunch of us sat around finishing up the binding of the guild’s opportunity quilt. The quilt is a monster, but it is also an amazing monster.

Ruth designed it and it is a very unique design that will be appealing to modern quilters, at the very least. Marci Gore designed the quilting and stitched it out on her computerized longarm.

There was some discussion about what the guild would do if we were asked for a pattern. There is a lot of creativity in the guild so I suggested created a pattern and posting it on Craftsy. There are a lot of steps before we can do that, not the least of which is get our nonprofit status finalized, but it is in the idea hopper.

The first opportunity to buy raffle tickets will be at the Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association Show. It was fun. People would walk up and comment that it was just like an old fashioned quilting bee.

The next Sew Day will be at The Intrepid Thread, which will be dangerous. 😉

BAMQG Quilt Show

Peggy the Fantastic Energizer (TM) Bunny and pals hung the BAMQG quilt show on Monday and we were all able to view it at the meeting/Holiday Extravaganza on Saturday. Jim, one of our members, was kind enough to stand in as an interested viewer for me. 😉

The show is not your regular quilt show, which was nice as it really gets quilts out to the public.

No, I did not enter one. I think the patrons seem good about touching, but I wasn’t sure at the time and didn’t make the time. Maybe next year.

I thought it was a little strange that some of the quilts were hung so low, but then I realized what a great view I would get of them if I sat in the chairs. And I would get a sore neck. Win-win!

There certainly is a wide variety of quilts. I don’t know if they are all modern, but I guess they are now!

I really like Nicki’s quilt, which is the turquoise quilt on the left. Are you surprised? 😉

BAMQG Meeting – Holiday Extravaganza!

I am really scraping the bottom of the barrel for posts and I don’t know why. Too many demands on my time, perhaps? I suspect not enough sewing, but this means you get the BAMQG report ASAP! Aren’t you excited?

Claire told us that the 501(c)(3) paperwork has been put in. That is a ton of work and GREAT news.

Quilty Happenings

Amish Exhibit at San Jose Museum Quilts & Textiles. Reception is on 12/7/2014 from 2-4, though SJMQT members and the artists are welcome to a walk through starting at 1pm.
BAMQG members have a show up at the Los Altos Public Library through December 31, 2014. It is open during library hours
CQFA Members have a show at the Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library in the Wallace Stegner Environmental Center. I have 3 quilts there! Through April.
Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association show will be in March or April and the BAMQG will have a big presence, both in quilts and helping out.

Meetings

The meetings in 2015 are all scheduled to be at the Redwood City Public Library Community Room. The one that might change is the December Holiday Extravaganza because of the Redwood City parade that usually coincides with our meeting. Stay tuned on the BAMQG blog for updates.
Sew Day: January 3, 2015 at Los Altos Public Library
Charity Sew Day: February 2015 at Los Altos Public Library. Probably the first Saturday. Stay tuned on the BAMQG blog for updates.

Events

There will be three speakers next year, Stacy Lynn Wood, the lady from Peppermint Pinwheel and another, as yet to be named, national speaker. Buy or renew your membership to join that fun.

There was a prize drawing for the UFO Challenge and I won a spool of Aurifil thread! Yay! I can totally use that. There is a super prize in January and I can’t wait to see what that is. I hope I don’t have to be present to win as I can’t make that meeting.

The Holiday Swap was awesome. I didn’t participate beyond admiring all the gifties.

I didn’t take a picture of the food, but the committee did an awesome job. There are now five of us who eat a GF diet, so there were plenty of GF goodies of which to partake. I had some yummy chocolate thing that Claire made. Yay for chocolate!

After that I just chatted with people. I found out that Michelle S has a blog. I had never spent time talking with her, but we were sitting next to each other and just got to talking. She does a lot of handquilting and doesn’t have many UFOs, which is quite envious, I have to say. She is also using the Hoffman Challenge fabric to make her City Sampler/Tula Pink blocks. I have to say that Michelle’s blocks made mine look terrible. 🙁

I also had the chance to discuss bindings with Annemarie. She has a large hexie made from Kaffe Fassett (and friends) fabric. She was thinking of cutting off the outer hexies and I encouraged her to either fill in the edges with triangles to make them square a la the Eye Spy or to bind them around the outer hexies, leaving them in tact like I did, sort of, with Flower Sugar. I really wish these designers would stop telling people to cut off their hexies.

BAMQG Charity Sew Day

We finished 10 quilts and almost 11.

Peggy and Michelle did a great job organizing the Charity Day Race Game and 8 of the quilts we made were from the kits Michelle and Peggy put together before the event. They are awesome, dedicated and well organized.

We all got kits and set to work. Peggy had done a lot of the cutting already, so we all only had to cut backgrounds and sew.

Michelle and Jennifer worked on a red version of the T quilt with a lot of Joel Dewberry Notting Hill fabric.

I was on a team with Gerre and she took the first sewing shift. I wasn’t really paying attention to how other teams organized their sewing and cutting and pressing and pinning, but our organization worked very well.

Rhonda and Ruth worked on a turquoise version with some Pearl Bracelets and a lot of fish fabric.

Diana worked on a pastel version with some Aneela Hoey fabrics and Jennifer finished a second green top that really looked like light in a forest.

Karen and Joelle finished another red top with a lot of card game fabric that they joked they would give to Kenny Rogers. Peggy made a brown version that looked like candy and Michelle finished a second top with a blue solid background. Gerre and I finished a top with green Ts and a light background. the quilts all used the same pattern, but were so different and fun.

Gerre & Jaye's Bonus Quilt — Gerre & Jaye’s Bonus Quilt

After the T quilts were done many people worked on making postage stamp blocks, including Gerre and I. We made as many pink and white postage stamp blocks as we could, then we added in some yellow and white blocks in to bring the quilt up to size. We didn’t finish it. Gerre put me in the sewing driver’s seat and I kept screwing up when sewing the blocks together, so we pinned the blocks together and Gerre will finish the top at home.

September BAMQG Meeting

Every time I turn around, I am kind of shocked that it is September. Even in my journal, I keep starting to write June when I write the date. I don’t know why. I did that all through last year as well and had no good reason then either.

Anyway. Lots of BAMQG this week.

The meeting was awesome, as usual. The best part was the talk by Anne Sullivan of Play-Crafts.com. She gave us all a lecture on Color Theory. I know a couple of things about color theory, but I learned quite a few things. There are things called color models, which I have heard of before. One of the models is called Hue, Saturation & Value (HSV). It is a color model created to be more intuitive and show color relationships.

Anne also talked about the basics of color theory, contrast, and color schemes. Anne has the passion of someone who loves color. She has clearly done the research of a person dedicated to something she loves. I looked at her website and found nothing on color until I went to the patterns and tutorials section and there were some tutorials on color there.

We had some business as well.

Elections are next month.there will be a couple of new positions available: liaison with MQG and the Opportunity quilt coordinator
Charity will host a Sew Day on October 4. We will work in teams to create charity tops.
Amanda still has no reliable source for Cat Bed donations. She had a few that were already made, but not stuffed, so people took those. I gave in the neon orange bed. It got a few laughs. [BTW, I forgot to take a photo of that cat bed, but it was just neon orange, so nothing interesting. Also, I was able to cut a top and bottom, but not a gusset from the remaining Polartec. I hoped that Amanda would have a bit more fabric, not in neon orange from which to make the gusset]
The quilt display at the Los Altos Library will happen Dec 1-31 and Peggy has forms to fill out.
There were a few more packs of fabric for the 2014 Opportunity Quilt. The blocks are due at the October meeting.
PIQF is during the next meeting. 🙁 Poor planning on the Mancuso’s part IMO.
Retreat dates are still in process.
Amish exhibit – quilts are due. I didn’t do one, but people have to arrange for a dropoff with Kelly. People showed their quilts during show and tell, but no photos were taken as people were concerned that others wouldn’t attend the show if they had already seen the quilts.
I don’t know if the small groups met, because I was busy and missed mine.

CQFA September Meeting

As I mentioned, the CQFA Meeting was last Saturday. It was followed closely by the BAMQG Sew Day, which meant I didn’t get home until after 6 and dinner wasn’t on the table until 7:30. I thought a lot, afterwards, if I should have spent all day out of the house after working all week. I decided that, though I missed the Young Man, it was really good for me to see my quilt pals. Also, I got a lot done.

We have been having workshops first, but on that day the business meeting was held first as we had to wait for the sun to come out. It was pretty cloudy until after 10am or even 10:30.

During the business meeting, there was a lot of talk about the upcoming show. We are getting to crunch time as the opening day draws nearer. People when off to the other room at FabMo and got help recording their audio clips. The quilts for publicity have been selected (mine was not one of them). I recorded my audio files at home last weekend, so I didn’t have to do it during the meeting. I thought some readers might be interested in hearing what I said about the quilts so I will see about posting them to quilt page for each relevant quilt. I still have to make QR Codes for my quilts.

We had show and tell and there was so much great work. I love show and tell. Everyone was very complimentary about the Wonky 9 Patch. Angela, Ann B and Sonja took at SCVQA class on wonky piecing and two of them showed their quilts. Caroline did a landscape all in black and white and talked quite a bit about framing the piece.

Of course, we had the ATC swap. I got up at about 6:30 and made mine! I got an idea and even though I wasn’t going to, I realized that I would be really sad if I didn’t get to swap ATCs, so I made mine quickly. This is the shortest timeframe in which I have ever made ATCs. I hope not to go up against the deadline like this again.

They aren’t the best art ever, but people snapped them up, which made me really happy. I did use the charms I bought at Beverly’s when I was there with Maureen. I think the charms added interest. I definitely will try adding charms again. I also think that I will put together a bunch of backs, so I don’t have to do that when I am in crunch mode. Perhaps I can make 24 backs in advance and just have to worry about the fronts each month. I won’t be at the next meeting, so I have until January to make the backs and new ATCs. I will try and do them earlier!

The ATCs I selected are shown to the right. (From top left to bottom right, they are by Maureen, Sue, Angela and Nancy). Angela’s were on paper and she got the idea from a painting class she took recently. I thought about getting some paper blanks to use as a base, but haven’t done it yet. Sue used a technique that our former member Debbie did a lot of. It was a blast from the past seeing that chenille technique again.

When the sun finally showed its face, Rhonda and Angela taught us sunprinting. I didn’t participate; I sat and worked on the binding of the Wonky Nine Patch, watched and listened. I enjoyed watching everyone and talking to people while they worked. I also took a lot of photos for the CQFA Flickr group and Facebook page.

After the meeting I drove over the BAMQG Sew Day with Gerre. She is a new CQFA member, but I know her from BAMQG. She let me use her machine off and on at the last Sew Day where I forgot my machine’s foot pedal. We talked about art quilts and one thing I realized about CQFA is that people talk about their process. People are working through a process and they show the different quilts or surface design or bits and pieces of things on which they are working and they talk about it. The group is very process oriented, which I never realized until today and which I really appreciate.

BAMQG Charity Sew Day

It almost feels sinful to enjoy sewing for charity so much. Odd, I know.

I spent all afternoon on Saturday sewing at the Charity Sew Day. At first, since I don’t like lugging my sewing machine around, I thought I would run around and cut and press for people. Nobody responded to my forum post about that idea so I brought my back up machine. What a waste! I forgot the foot pedal so I ran around and used other people’s machines while I was doing an improv quilt top, then Gerre let me use hers pretty regularly when I started on the second top.

One of the great things was showing Gerre how to do leaders and enders. She was charmed and made 2.5 blocks at least in between her Dr. Seuss wonky log cabin blocks. That means another person knows how to do leaders and enders and more blocks will get made.

Michelle and Peggy were really well organized, as usual, and had a number of different solids to use with our scraps.

I took the ends of quilt backs, which Colleen cuts off and returns to me. They aren’t much good unless I want to cut them up into squares or something and I never seem to get around to that. It occurred to me that I could make some Improv quilt tops with them so I brought them along. Two birds, one stone: gets the ends out of my house, adds comfort and, hopefully, beauty to someone else’s house.

The first top I made was made from the leftover back pieces from the Flower Sugar hexagon quilt. Edge pieces were quite large and I sewed them together relatively quickly. This is not great work of art, but it isn’t completely boring either. I brought it home to make the back for it. I’ll use some of the leftover Flower Sugar fabrics. I still have a lot of them and I am happy to use them for a good a cause. I may also ad something to the bottom. It looks a bit unfinished.

Next, I took the edges from the Star Sampler and worked with those. Michelle had an idea to make a sort of easy log cabin, but I thought the pieces were too small and I made them into rectangles. I got pretty far – to putting on the sashing – but I wasn’t able to finish the top, which would have been my preference.

I still have trimming to do and the sashing to finish. I will have used all the green fabric, from the charity stash, before I get to the two outer borders, so I have to figure something out about that. I don’t know what, but something.

I have two long strips of Philip Jacobs Chrysanthemums that I will put on the outside. I’ll probably put another border on after that, but we will see. I pinned a lot of it together so I could just sew on Sunday.

It was also fun being there with other people. Gerre, Rhonda, Susan, Leanne and Lindalee, with our bosses, Michelle and Peggy, of course, were all there sewing and we were laughing quite a bit. Kelly stopped by, but couldn’t stay.

Rhonda's Improv Medallion — Rhonda’s Improv Medallion

Rhonda made a large house block quilt and then worked on an Improv medallion piece. The stripes were made by sewing 2 parallel straight lines the width of the black and white fabrics (right sides together) about an inch apart, then she cut 1/4″ away from the sewn line and had strips already sewn together. I want to try the idea.

We played around with the placement of the stripes – both width and direction. It was kind of a group activity and really fun to see how people interpreted the design.

That coffee cup fabric is really nice and in a colorway I haven’t seen. I have some with a teal background. This colorway goes well with Rhonda’s overall design.

Rhonda's House Block quilt — Rhonda’s House Block quilt

Rhonda has only been quilting for a few years and I am continually impressed with her design sensibility and what she chooses to tackle. The house block quilt reminded me of my house block quilt, mostly because of the placement of the house block.

In case you can’t tell, she made the door open, which is a really nice touch.

I also really liked the four patches she used as windows in the upper story.

Gerre was using Dr. Seuss fabrics to make wonky log cabin blocks. The red in that line of fabric is very primary, making the blocks really super bright. Working at her table made me feel very cheerful.

Leanne brought some fabrics that were not her style and she was trying to figure out what do with them. They felt as though they had never been washed even though she said they had.

Lindalee was making strip sets and ended up with two strip blocks, where the strips are on the diagonal. She does really nice and precise work.

Michelle was working on two really, really Improv quilts. One was blue and gold and had inset strips throughout the blocks. The other was a beige and purple piece with a lovely New York Beauty-like arc as part of the design.

Peggy's Brown & Turquoise Charity Project — Peggy’s Brown & Turquoise Charity Project

Peggy was working with brown and turquoise and she did an excellent job. I really love the color combination and know that my sister would love it as well.

there was a lot of discussion about layout and at one point the two shorter sections were down at the bottom, placed symmetrically. I’ll let your imagination consider what the visual symmetry could have symbolized. Someone suggested moving one up and filling in top and bottom and that solved the problem. It is really a nice looking quilt and a good use of color.

Even though I sewed steadily, I didn’t get as much done as I expected. I have high expectations, but am satisfied with what I got done.

CQFA -July 2014

Maureen's Show Piece — Maureen’s Show Piece

Last Saturday was the day of reckoning for Primal Green 2 (remember the first Primal Green show?), the show the group has coming up in the Fall at the San Francisco Public Library.

We all had to show the pieces (in progress ok) we were planning on entering. The work was amazing. Some of it came from the various challenges the guild has had and some is new. It was all very interesting and wonderful.

What a fantastic meeting, if for no other reason than the work alone.

ATCs

Angela wasn’t at the meeting, so Maureen led us in trading. A few more extras were collected for the show. I thought mine were pretty cool until I saw everyone else’s. I need to up my game. More embellishing, more stamping, more beading. More interesting.

Show and Tell

I showed the most quilts, all of which you have seen:

Disappearing Pinwheel
Scrapitude Carnivale (I might have shown this one at the May meeting, but I didn’t remember and everyone was very kind about not pointing out my error, if I did show it)
Star Sampler
Flower Sugar Hexagon

Everyone showed such great stuff. Jennifer is really having a lot of success sending materials to magazines. Maureen continues to try new dyeing techniques. Carolyn showed the most hilarious, but fantastic fish pillow. People encouraged her to enter it into the show. It would be a great piece for one of the tabletop cabinets.

After Sewing

I stayed again to work a little bit with friends like I did last week and got part of the second apron cut out as well as the Soft & Stable for another Petrillo Bag. I still didn’t tackle the notepad covers or the Day in the Park bag. I guess I need to rethink those projects and why I am not working on them.

Jan and Maureen stayed, too. Maureen took a beading class from Thom Atkins and worked on her sampler project while Jan sewed like a demon to finish her quilt for the show.

I think of this quilt as part of Jan’s “Flying over the Country” series, though I am not sure she agrees. She flies to the Midwest to visit her parents and I think she gets inspired by what she sees during the flights. She started a piece at a retreat a few years go with circles, but similar in construction to the piece above. I love that previous piece and egged her on a bit about finishing it. 😉 I was really glad to see her and see her sewing.

Orphan Block Lanyard

Back in December, I put a post up on the Bay Area Modern blog about making lanyards, which was a personal challenge that the president put out to the guild. I wanted to do it, but I haven’t done it for myself yet. It is on the list.

It took me some time to get around to making any kind of lanyard, but I finally did in response to the Orphan Block Challenge also put out by BAMQG. This one will be given in to a pool of small gifts and then I will get something back. I kind of like this lanyard, but am ok giving it away, too.The best part is that now I have a better idea about how to do it.

Supplies

2 orphan blocks, at least 10″x10″
Atkinson Designs Swivel Hook & D Ring Set

1 swivel hook and d ring set (See Atkinson Designs sample) OR a swivel hook and a ring. You can use any size that you have on hand as long as it is larger than 5/8″
1 ring (yes, another one)
Sewing machine
thread
Rotary cutter, mat and ruler
pins or WonderClips

First I took a look at the Two Peas in a Pod tutorial. There are several tutorials listed. I picked this one, because it was the first one I looked at and I could follow it easily. Frankly, I already had an idea of how I was going to make the lanyard, but I needed to see how someone else did a few of the parts.

Then, I squared up the blocks a little bit to make sure the blocks to make them easier to cut into strips.

Since this was an orphan block challenge, next, I cut the blocks into 2.5″ strips. The blocks were 9″ or 10″ blocks (I don’t know -I didn’t measure) and I got about 3 strips from each one with skinnier bits leftover. It doesn’t matter what size they are as you can use regular fabric or a Jelly Roll strip and discard the leftovers.

After cutting, I sewed the strips together until I had a piece that was long enough to go from my belly button, around my neck to right below my collarbone (about an inch below or so).

Sew another strip that is long enough to go from your collarbone to your belly button.

Take both strips, fold them in half and press. Open them up and fold the raw edges to the center and press.

Then I wanted to add a loop at the shoulder so my nametag would be at eye level or I could use it to keep track of my glasses. Cut this piece about 4″.

I took one of the leftover skinny strips (from the block above), folded it in quarters, top stitched both sides, slid the fabric piece through a ring and sewed that piece to the right side of a strip that had not yet been sewed. Once you slide the strip of fabric through the ring, you will have a U if you hold both of the raw edges, one in each hand. The ring will be dangling from the bottom of the U.

Nota bene: In the picture, the strip to which you have to sew is upside down. Make sure you sew the the loop with the ring in the bottom to the right side of the strip. Nota bene due: In a subsequent step, you will fold the whole piece in quarters and top stitch. You may want to measure and sew this loop to avoid the folds that will take place later.

After you have your extra loop added, you should sew the strip to the other strips and keep adding strips until the piece is long enough. You will need a bit of extra length to fold up to accommodate the Swivel hook and other loop, so don’t cut it off too short.

Now you have a long strip about 37″ long. This measurement is from the Two Peas in a Pod tutorial. I cut mine a little shorter to accommodate my height and torso length.

Fold your long strip in half and press. Yes, the glasses loop will be a pain. I haven’t figured out how not to make it a pain. If you know of a way to make it easier, let me know.

Open your piece and fold the raw edges towards the crease in the center. Once you have completed this the raw edges will be encased in the center.

Top stitch very close to the edges on both sides. If you want to be fancy, you can do a double line of stitching or a decorative stitch. Depending on the size of the ring holder, you may have to skip the area where the ring holder is, or go around it.

Now hang the strip around your neck. Trim the ends if you think they are too long.

Take the loop and thread one end of your strip through it. Pin in place. WonderClips work well, too.

Take the other end of the strip and thread the swivel hook through it. Pin in place or use WonderClips.

Now you are ready to finish off the ends. The different tutorials tell you to do it in different ways. I went with the the way the Two Peas in a Pod tutorial suggested. I hadn’t really thought about dual hardware on the bottom, but it works.

I staggered the placement of my loop and swivel hook so they wouldn’t clank together as I (or the user) walked around. This means that I had to adjust the placement of the two pieces. It took a little bit of trial and error, but, ultimately, I am happy with the placement. As an added bonus, I had fewer layers to sew over as I finished the lanyard. That step is optional.

Think about what you might hook on to your loop and swivel hook before you decide on placement.

Place the lanyard carefully around your neck. Make sure to smooth out the twists, if any, so the lanyard lays flat around the back of your neck and on your chest.

Once you are sure everything is smooth, pin (or WonderClip) the two ends together and sew. I made “thread boxes” (the same technique you use to reinforce areas of stress when making a bag) out of my sewing line in order to keep the lanyard together and looking nice.

Change your needle so you are using a new and very sharp needle. Sew two reinforcing boxes, the top one going through all layers. Move the swivel hook out of the way to sew the bottom box to finish the lanyard.

Pain and Suffering

There are a couple of places that will be difficult. Using orphan blocks or mosaic piecing means that there will be extra seam allowances. With these comes the possibility of really thick seams [See above where I refer to the glasses loop]. To mostly avoid these thick seams, use 3 unpieced lengths of fabric for the neck and loop pieces. 1 Jelly Roll strip (2.5″ wide strip) will work.

I am linking up to the Le Challenge #14-Small on the Le Challenge blog

BAMQG Retreat Projects

If you want to see how the retreat was set up, some in process and fun shots, check out the post I wrote a few days ago.

Mystery Quilt

I won’t tell you what mystery quilt we did, in case your guild does it. I don’t want to spoil the fun for you, but I will show you some of the examples of what came out of the blocks. Please note that most people basically threw the last two clues (after the blocks were made) out and did their own setting. They did great. All of the tops are really their own. The mystery quilt designer might have a heart attack, but I love the diversity and the creativity. The most of the mystery quilt was that everyone was working together on the same project.

The Boss took all of her blocks apart and rearranged them into this piece. She had to add fill-in pieces to complete the background.

They became the retreat twins in my mind. They sat across from each other (behind me) and it was fun to see them bounce off each other. Cheryl was the fantastic retreat coordinator and she actually got work done. I borrowed pins from her since I forgot my pincushion ALL THREE DAYS.

It was pretty amazing how Lynnette used different fabrics, but they are really cohesive. I didn’t think they were a line, but I could be wrong.

I am not sure Rhonda actually put hers together like the photo, but I wouldn’t be surprised. There was a quite a lot of hilarity going on and the above photo might have been part of the hilarity.

Ruth‘s piece is on top and she did a fabulous job with her final result. I wasn’t fast enough to get a photo.

I can’t even believe that Michelle made this quilt out of the mystery pieces.

Angela would not give me her quilt even though it is in my colors. I was mad at myself for not thinking of this color scheme. I love what she did and the photo doesn’t do it justice. The blues are more turquoise.

Gerre started and got this whole piece quilted. She only lacked a binding and a label. Amazing!

Diana was working on a couple of different projects and the ones I saw were made from Autumn-y colors. Isn’t this version cool?

Buff made this adorable baby quilt. I love the bunny peeking out of the top of the fabric strip.

Charity

People worked on donation blocks as well.

To the left is the only donation block I finished, but I had half of another parts of two others done as well. I’ll finish them this week.

My block is only one of a giant stack of blocks that piled up throughout the weekend. I was amazed that every time I went into the cutting room, more blocks were in the pile.

The great thing is that people just did them. There was no big drama; they just did them and the pile grew.

Peggy's donation top — Peggy’s donation top

Peggy is working on a series of half square triangle quilts. Her latest top was finished at the retreat. She said she is enamored with the diamond offset on the top. I am really glad she is playing with the blocks. It makes me happy to see people having fun.

I saw that a few fish blocks were made as well. There were a lot of kits available for those. I couldn’t make any as I didn’t bring any blue fabrics that would have been suitable.

Did you see the patterns for these blocks? If you want to make a small quilt and donate it, please do. The guild will be happy to accept it and I am happy to facilitate. They would make a fun baby quilt as well.

Personal Projects

In between the charity quilts and blocks and the mystery quilt, people worked on their own projects. There were finishes (Gerre, Bonnie, Angela, Diana, etc) and major progress that happened. It was fun to see all the projects where people made major progress.

Angela finished her mom’s Mother’s Day quilt. She did some lovely embroidery on the back as her label. You saw the quilt on the post where I talked about the BAMQG meeting.

Diana finished an auction quilt. It is a good thing as the auction already took place and she just needed to finish the quilt! What a hero for making such a big project for a school auction!

Diana's Auction Quilt -front — Diana’s Auction Quilt -front

Diana's Auction Quilt -back — Diana’s Auction Quilt -back

Rhonda's Round Robin — Rhonda’s Round Robin

Rhonda worked hard on quilting and binding her Round Robin piece. I love the spiky border on this one. The quilt is actually a lot brighter than the photo shows.

Cheryl's Giant Feather — Cheryl’s Giant Feather

Cheryl brought out a giant feather quilt. She said that she wondered what the Anna Maria Horner feather would look like super sized. If you were wondering that, too, now you know. Isn’t it cool? I almost want to make one of those feathers (in a much smaller size)!

Cheryl's Table Runner — Cheryl’s Table Runner

Finally, Kelly made a thank you for Cheryl while at the Retreat! It uses Cheryl’s favorite Tula Pink fabrics.

BAMQG Quilt Retreat

I am not sure if I will get through all of the retreat info in one post. It might just be too much. We’ll see.

The retreat started on Friday, but I didn’t get there until mid day on Saturday as we were traveling for the Native Sons back from Grand Parlor. I was a commuter, so I drove back and forth. It is about an hour each way, but after the intense people time of Grand Parlor, some quiet time in the car made me more human at home and at the retreat.

Two things that happened right as I got there, practically before I got set up, was that I got a bag of goodies and I won a prize! The CQFA Retreat does not include goodie bags or prizes (someone has to organize all that). It was fun.

People were working on the mystery quilt and I was 3 clues behind, but they had just gotten Clue 3 when I arrived, so I made those units and used Clue 1 as leaders and enders, so I had most of Clue 1 done as well by the time I got finished with Clue 3. I had my fabric and I had cut out all the pieces, thus I was ready to dive right into sewing, so I got busy on that.

I really liked all of the different fabric choices that people came up with for their mystery quilts. People admired mine, but by the end I wasn’t liking the combination very much. the funnest part of the mystery quilt was working on the same project as everyone else. I enjoyed that with Scrapitude as well.

I have only been on CQFA retreats, which are very basic. This retreat was kind of the deluxe edition!

There were 3 rooms we could work in. One room was set up as a cutting and ironing room. We also gathered there for Clues and prizes and the donation blocks were as well. People put their finished blocks there and kits for blocks needed were also available there.

It was great to have those high tables for cutting out large pieces. I used them when I was working on my bag.

There were 6 tables set up on each side of the two rooms (room were linked by a very large opening). Ruth set up a design wall at the end of the room (I believe the Steampunk blocks belong to Cheryl). My spot was the spot from where I am taking the photo. People were pretty diligent, but there was a lot of laughter as well. Some of the laughter was fairly crazy.

I sat across from Corky. I don’t think Corky and I had had a chance to talk at a meeting, but we were chatting and borrowing tools like old pals. It was nice to get to know her a little better.

Quilts and quilt parts were everywhere. Any open space was fair game and people just hopped over them and continued on their way. It was awesome, in a way, that people would just take it in stride that quilts were everywhere.

I had my mystery quilt on the floor for awhile while I laid it out.

The whiteboard was right across from my workstation. Right after I arrived, Kelly added me to her list of Instagram names. Somehow after that, the Instagram names morphed into IQ. I didn’t say anything about my IQ; I just watched the points increase.

I couldn’t sleep and got up at 5:30. After doing a few of my morning things, I got on the road and was at the retreat by about 8:30. Monday morning found us all a little more punchy than the previous 2-3 days. References to music started coming up and Amanda played songs for us on her phone. One got Peggy and Amanda up and rapping together.

Anyone who thinks that Modern Guilds are for young people only should meet Peggy. Peggy is the most ‘modern’ of anyone in the guild and she has only been quilting for about 5 years. She has a great and inspiring and practical attitude and is also the most prolific charity quilt maker. I would do well to take after Peggy.

We took a group shot. I am pretty sure not everyone was in it, as ‘everyone’ was hard to wrangle. It was a fun shot, especially that Kelly got herself, or part of herself in it. I stole this version from Kelly’s Instagram.

I am always on the lookout for inspiration and I have to say that I was overwhelmed by my choices. there are so many creative people in the group that everywhere I looked, there was something I wanted to try or make or know more about.

I’ll write about actual projects in another post. This one is long enough. I would love to hear about retreats you have attended.

JayeL on Guild UFO ChallengeThursday, January 8, 2026
Thanks! I am looking forward to making the Charisma. I just never look forward to cutting out the pieces. Such…
SherriD on Guild UFO ChallengeThursday, January 8, 2026
There ya go again! We're channeling each other. lol I am the challenge coordinator for our guild and just announced…
Erin M on Sew Day ProjectsTuesday, January 6, 2026
Looks like a lot was accomplished at sew day! Nice to see some in progress shots.
JayeL on 2025 Year in ReviewFriday, January 2, 2026
Thank you! It is gratifying to see them all together.
Erin M on 2025 Year in ReviewThursday, January 1, 2026
You number of finished projects is quite impressive!!