Meetings – Page 4 – Artquiltmaker Blog

BAMQG Meeting Report

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the BAMQG meeting was on Saturday. I can’t tell you how happy I was to attend the meeting. It was a surprise, because I thought the meeting was on the 8th. Angela told me that it was on the 14th and when I checked, I realized I could attend! I declined the invitations of several Christmas parties this year, because, as a friend aptly described, mustering merriment just wasn’t in me. I didn’t feel like I had to muster merriment to attend the quilt party. There were quilts! What more did a person need?

One of the show and tells was Cheryl’s quilt (above). She won the blocks and added the aqua/greeny-blue. I love the way this quilt looks. It isn’t stark like all-black and white quilts can be. The gold isn’t depressing. There is a lot of movement, which made my eyes move around the quilt and every time I looked at it, I saw something interesting. This is a fabulous quilt and one that makes me think, again, about the ratio of black to white in a black and white print.

See the full quilt on Flickr in the BAMQG pool.

One of the small groups that the president created this year were meeting with their round robin quilts.

This is a great shot – I wasn’t being diligent about taking photos.

Trust me when I say that their round robins LOOK fabulous. The one that really caught my attention has the pinky-red and green. the contrast of the two colors is wonderful.

This group has done a great job. Their centers started out interesting and a strong start clearly set them all off to do their best work.

Cheryl also finished a quilt for her nephew who will receive it as a Christmas gift. I took a close-up, because I missed my chance to take a full photo. Fortunately, there is a full photo on Flickr (say that 3 times really fast!).

She did a great job using mostly the same darks, but interspersing a few others in to add interest. I also liked the background.

BAMQG Gift

Yesterday was the BAMQG Holiday Party and Meeting. The meeting part was relatively short, then we had the gift exchange and Show & Tell.

I mentioned that I had made a gift for my Secret Santa and showed it a week early, which led to the realization that I was able to make the meeting. The recipient, Laura was really pleased with the tote bag and needle case I made. I really should have put pins and needles in it as I think she was a little confused about what should go where. I showed her and I think it ended up okay.

Jen was my Secret Santa and she made me this Iron Caddy. Didn’t she do a great job?

Iron Caddy - half open — Iron Caddy – half open

Jen said used a free pattern she found somewhere on Ning. She said she made two of them alongside each other so she could test the pattern. I thought that was really sweet; it made me feel like she really cared about the gift to me

The pattern she used didn’t sound like the same one Julie told me about that so frustrated her.

Jen did say that there was one measurement off — the 7″ measurement in the middle should be 6-1/2″. I haven’t tried it so, pay attention if you make this pattern.

I still have not yet made the Iron Caddy pattern I bought at Quiltin’ Cousins, so perhaps I am off the hook?

Thanks to Jen!

CQFA Meeting

The CQFA Meeting was last Saturday and it was great. As you know, I haven’t been in awhile and I was so glad to see my art quilt pals.

Julie, Dolores and Maureen did a presentation on color. The presentation was called “Why Your Stash Needs to Be Bigger.” 😉 I am not going to rant today about the low cost of fabric compared to other stress reducing activities.

They covered the science of color, color in culture and some color exercises. I am trying to get Dolores to do a guest blog post, but I will post some of my notes for your edification. I was too fascinated by what she was saying to take really good notes.

Science of Color

Color is the reflection of ambient light on to an object. Dolores referred to the Archimedes Lab’s information on color. I just Googled and found some pages that I would like to explore later.

gamut is a term used for the range of color that can be reproduced.

Your monitor is set to use RGB colors and your printer is set to use CMYK colors, which why we sometimes have problems printing what is on our screen

No device can reproduce as many colors as our eyes can see.

simultaneous contrast – our eye evaluates the color in relation to what is next what we are looking at. This affects the sense of what color we see. It isn’t a function of the color, but of the perception of the color. Dolores told us that Van Gogh used this technique (?) a lot in his work. Our other senses experience this also. If you are in the hot tub, then jump into a pool, the pool seems colder than it really is. If you drink orange juice with your pancakes and maple syrup, the acidity of the juice in enhanced as is the sweetness of the syrup. Fabrics next to each other talk to each other.

Culture of Color

Maureen present culture to us and it was an eye opener how much color is involved in our culture in ways not related to actually using color such as writing with a purple pen or playing with fabric.

Language uses color in metaphors and for metaphors. This is called cognitive metaphor. Part of it is associating colors with emotions (not a comprehensive list; just some examples):

red- passion, anger, danger
green – nature, recycling
blue – calm
etc.

We have been trained to have associations with certain colors. Colors telegraph a certain message. I think this might have to do with my comments about cheerful quilts. I see certain quilts as cheerful when they have warm colors, usually. [I haven’t thought of this before, so it isn’t a fully formed thought. The idea just came together as I was writing this.]

Having emotional associations with certain colors means that we might want to look at the colors we are using in our work and ask ourselves if we are trying to telegraph a certain message through our work via color?

We also use color a lot in our language:

silver lining
feeling blue
green with envy

etc.

Victoria Finlay wrote a book on color called Color: A Natural History of the Palette. It is a dense book, but has a lot of interesting information.

There is also an iPad app you might want to try out called Josef Albers.

Exercise your Color Muscle

Julie reminded us that we all have our own color palette that is defined by our lives, experiences, art to which we have been exposed, etc. Julie showed us some exercises that started in a book called Playing with Color by Richard Mehl.

She used some of what Dolores and Maureen said for the exercises, such as picking a color from two that was in the center of another color.

One exercise (green on red) was an effort to find a color that looked the same when laid on two different fabrics in the same color family.

You’d think that this was easy, but it isn’t. There were a couple of issues to work with. 1) we are working with fabric. With paint, you can mix a bit of white in or a bit of grey. In fabric, it doesn’t work that way. 2) we were working with pattern. Julie set up the exercise and she doesn’t have many solids (remember the title of the presentation?), so she has to work with patterned fabric. Because of the contrast that often exists in a patterned fabric, it made the exercise harder. Yes, she found as many tone-on-tones as she could, but it was still a challenge. a good challenge, but a challenge. 3) we have a very limited amount of fabric handy, but even with your own stash, this would be a challenging exercise, because of the nature of fabric – it already has color. Yes, you can dye it or discharge it, but you still may not get what you expected out of the dye/discharge bath.

This was a great example for me of “fabrics talking to each other.” It was really, really interesting and amazing to see the same fabric paired with two different fabrics and how different they can look. The green on green examples show this really well. One makes my eyes vibrate a little. The top combination has the center square looking much darker than the bottom center square even though they are the same fabric.

It was very interesting and fun to work with the whole group. I enjoyed hearing others’ thoughts and how they saw the fabric.

Business

The group is working on a second show at SF Public Library. The organizing group is new, though I have offered to still act as the liaison with the library. The piece I am thinking of making is too big and will take too long. I also don’t think I have thought through the making of the whole piece yet. Not sure. I think I will consider entering Beach Town. More info about the first show can be found in earlier posts.

The Retreat was discussed. It will be at the end of January as per usual.

I was glad I didn’t do the color challenge. My idea was LAME compared to the gorgeousness that others brought. I am so lucky to be in this group. The CQFA people do fantastic work. I need to up my art quilt game. I might be a little discouraged, but the pieces were inspiring and made me think of my color strip in a different way. I am not out of the game. Late, yes, out: NO! The collage above was created using Ribbet.com.

We are having another challenge with shapes. Everyone cut shapes, our personal symbols or what we have been doodling, out of black paper and trade them. Now we have to take the symbols and do something with them.

Show and Tell

Show and Tell always make me want to work harder and more to get better.

ATCs

We swapped ATCs (photos sprinkled throughout this post) and there were a lot of swappers this time, which was nice. My bridge ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) were very popular, which was nice. I took some photos as I crossed the new bridge last Sunday and may use those as the basis for my November set. It is hard to take good photos from a moving car, so we will see.

I picked a nice range of ATCs. I didn’t get one of each, because of all the swappers, but that is the nature of the beast. A couple people asked me for Bridge ATCs, so I might make some more of the historic bridge. We will see. I didn’t really enjoy the stitching I did on the photo. I felt like I had to do something in addition to just print a photo on fabric and edging it to the back to keep it together, but I wasn’t happy with the way the stitching came out. Not sure what to do.

Regardless, I need to get started on my ATCs for the next meeting. Not waiting until the last minute was fantastic.

Some of us stayed after and chatted and sewed. I started cutting out the next Petrillo Bag. Yes, I am making it with the changes I described in my previous post.

Thanks to Angela for the use of her photos of the ATCs.

ATCs

The Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge, a main artery between the East Bay and the City, closed on Wednesday August 28 at 8pm forever.

Well, sort of forever.

They replaced it and they had to reconfigure the onramps or interchanges or navigation whatevers.

I started ATCs months ago. I just wasn’t excited about it, but I wouldn’t face it.

Somehow, thinking about the Bay Bridge closure made me get excited about ATCs again. I found a historic photo of the Bay Bridge, adjusted the size and printed them on fabric.

I added some stitching, including testing out the Aurifil monofilament.

Voila!

While you read this, I will be at a CQFA meeting. I haven’t been able to attend a meeting in a while.

BAMQG Sew Day

I took the day off of work Thursday and went to a BAMQG Sew Day and Workshop. After some personal drama (locked myself out of the house), I got there at 12:30 only to be faced with more personal drama (I forgot the bag that includes my rulers, rotary cutters, mat, pins, etc). Fortunately, I sat down across from Peggy and next to Amanda. Between them and Claire, I was set up to rock and roll the sewing machine.

I WAY overestimated what I could get done. I brought a Chubby Charmer filled with fabric and batting for journal covers, fabric for napkins, flannel for receiving blankets. I brought enough to survive some kind of siege that included sewing.

I really only got to the journal covers and I made the parts of two and finished 3-4.

My problem with Sew Days is that I want to just walk around and talk to people and not sew. If i bring my sewing stuff (and why wouldn’t I since there I have a gene that makes me physically unable to bring sewing stuff with me to a Sew Day). I really should be quite ok with socializing. Socializing is good!

A number of people had just arrived when I got there, so, despite the lock problem, I wasn’t terribly late, but I am sure I could have gotten all of my projects done had I arrived at 10am. 😉

Still, it was great to be there. I hadn’t been to a Sew Day before and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t enjoy hauling all of my stuff, but once set up, I just plowed through [spoiler alert] journal covers. I am glad I got them done and I am well set up for journal covers now.

In the work photo, you can see my stuff bottom right, Peggy top right and several other sewing machines and people towards the back of the photo. It was a great little group in our area. Big bonus? We were right near the iron!

The first thing I did was make a cat bed. I figured that anything I made after would contain schnibbles and I could use the cat bed to contain them.

Also, I have four I need to make for Amanda and the homeless cats. I thought about bringing them all as they are quick to make, but decided on other projects.

Jennifer's Round Robin — Jennifer’s Round Robin

Jennifer, who usually photographs the projects at the BAMQG meetings, showed us this hexagon piece. It is a round robin for one of the BAMQG groups. I love the shape! Who would have thought of creating a hexagon?!? Obviously someone did, but it is fabulous. The whole piece looks like a mosaic floor to me.

I am lukewarm on round robins and this makes me rethink that.

Also, I have to give a tiny bit of credit to ‘modern sensibilities’ as I don’t think this would have shown up in other kinds of round robins. I think that if you don’t know you can’t or shouldn’t do something you just try it and there is a lot of that going on in BAMQG.

Yes, Journal Covers

What I really wanted to do with journal covers was use up the pieces trimmed from quilts that I made and had quilted. My quilter diligently saves the batting and the sides for me and one day (I talked about it in the last week or so) it occurred to me that I could use those pieces to make journal covers. This is a great use, actually, because the trimmings are often long enough so I don’t have to cut part of a 1/2 yard and then cut some more, so that I only have a large scrap left.

When I went to Sew Day, I had in mind that I would whip up several of them. What the exercise turned into, even though I did make 3 or 4 was an exercise in design. I learned a couple of things:

I don’t like just having strips of fabric for the journal covers. In the Yellow and Pink journal cover, that strip of pink that reads as a solid really bugs me. Not enough to rip apart the journal cover, but enough to put it on a journal I have already used and not carry it around for 2 months. The remedy is to cut those strips into a few pieces and pieces and piece them back together in a sort of checkerboard.
Batting doesn’t work for me. I took all the small pieces apart and they will go to Amanda’s cat bed project. I need to find something else that gives the cover a bit of body.
Green & Letters Journal

Either I need to do a moderate amount of piecing or just cut a piece of fabric, like my recent Philip Jacobs journal cover and make a cover out of one piece of fabric. I do think patterned fabric, like the green and letters journal cover works. I think it works because there are blocks of color. The blocks of color combined with a bit of piece make the piece interesting. I am not a big fan of that chocolate (though it is chocolate) brown and green and yellow, but I like the letters and thinking about writing letters, or just writing, in general.
Leaders and enders are great. This is old news, I know. I am a big fan of leaders and enders, as my faithful readers know and using leaders and enders in the middle of the journal covers project meant that I had most of a journal cover top done by the time I got home.

The last journal cover I made wasn’t finished at the retreat. I began using the leaders & enders technique to sew bits together as I made the other journal covers, but I only ended up with the piece you see in the photo by the time I left. I don’t need to make sure that the family is warm when I make pieced items, nor is there a shortage of fabric at my house, but I still can’t seem to throw fabric away.

We ended the day with pizza. Usually, not a good choice for me, but there are 5 people in the guild who eat GF diets, so we had the option of 3 gluten free pizzas! The Awesome Amanda went to Red Brick over in San Mateo and picked up pizza for us.

The crowning glory, though the Sew Day was pretty awesome, was participating in the Bill Kerr workshop. Stayed tuned for the notes on that.

All in all it was a good day.

May BAMQG Meeting

Description of May Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild meeting

The meeting was great. I had fun, people were nice, leadership is getting in the groove of really hard jobs. I got see my pals, pick up a new cat bed and BEST of all, be relieved of my blog duties. Everything seems to be slipping into place. I took several pages of notes even though I don’t have to write up the meeting for the blog.

The blog part is great news. I decided, for various reasons, that I didn’t want to do it anymore about two months ago. The President was finally able to get someone to volunteer for Social Media Chair and, though, I could have stayed on as Blog Manager, I decided a year was a good run and took the opportunity to step down. It is kind of sad that the blog will be used only for meeting notices, especially since I worked pretty hard at putting up good content and trying to build a readership. The new social media chair told me only 10 people were reading, which I find hard to believe, but have no other figures with which to argue. I can, now, spend more time here, if I need to. Lucky you! 😉

All good things have a dark side and the dark side of this is that I have to figure out why I am not getting the Ning notices. All the guild information will be posted there and I would like to keep up.

I really like the banner Kelly made, which is why I put it up again. This time she added to it by buying materials at OSH to make a stand. I love the quilt and library signs int he same photo. I may just photograph it at every meeting from different angles and put it up for you to admire. 😉 Perhaps I’ll sweet talk Kelly into making me one.

There was a lot of interesting discussion about the plan for local modern guilds to join the mothership. The MQG is proposing at $15 per person fee for guilds to be part of the MQG. The mothership will offer some technology solutions and hire staff. I can see the pros and cons of joining and not. I don’t think the value of what they are offering is convincing guilds to join, though. Guilds have until December 2014 to decide whether to join or not. The BAM group will wait until October or November to vote on the decision.

Color group

In the last notes on the April meeting, I talked about my Color group. That turned out to be one of the funnest parts of the month between the April and May meetings. I like the idea of a small group and am, kind of hoping, it will turn into something more than just a guild group. While I enjoyed thinking about about the possibilities, I ended up making the blocks at the last minute and I felt terrible while I was doing them (stomach issues). I am not sure they are my best work, but they were ready. I plowed through and really like the way they turned out.

I used the pattern I really liked, Chisholm Trail, from the blocks I made for Week 13 of the Star Sampler blocks. The bonus about that block was that I had everything I needed handy and the construction was fresh in my mind. I wasn’t so thrilled with the color choices I made. I don’t hate the blocks or anything, but I liked my blue version better.

Only Chris and I brought blocks for the charity quilt and 3 people from our group weren’t even there. Other members will bring them next time and we will still do the charity quilt. We decided that we would diverge from the color project and do a round robin. I haven’t done a joint project in an age, except with TFQ, so I am a little anxious. I stopped doing them, because I didn’t appreciate bad technique. I am willing to try again with people that I know. I am going to get a set group of fabrics and make a nice center. I need to figure that out soon, since I have very little time to sew and won’t be at the next meeting, so have to get it to someone in the group before the meeting. Eeeekkk!!!

Donations

I have to admit that I did the bulk of the work for the meeting on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. I couldn’t get to it sooner, apparently and felt I just had to get my charity projects done.

Friday night, I pinned the first bits of the Cat Bed together so I would be ready to sew first thing Saturday morning. I was able to sew it together relatively quickly. I stuffed it about 1/4 full of my scraps and that was done. It looks very similar to the one I made in April.

I had also FINALLY started to sew the Patchwork Wheel blocks together as leaders and enders. Before this last week, I hadn’t worked on them since January.

I wasn’t very organized about it and hadn’t made much progress. Yesterday morning I decided that there was no time like the present and whipped those babies into a top.

Because I was in a big rush, I didn’t put borders on the top and I didn’t make a back. I think it needs to be contained, so some borders would be helpful. I kind of wanted the piece out of my life.

It wasn’t all peaches and roses, though and I think the blocks look more like Sawtooth Stars than Patchwork Wheels. I think that there is too little organization in the fabric choices. Still, I like the idea of the pattern and I think this particular top will be very interesting to the Muggle, as Frances says, that will receive it.

I also think that the pattern has possibilities for future donation tops. I didn’t take another kit, because I think i will make this pattern again out of my own fabrics. If I make this pattern out of solids, it will look modern and viewers will be able to see the wheels better. I am thinking of making cool wheels – purples, blues and greens – and warm wheels – reds, pinks, yellows and oranges – and putting them all in the same quilt. I could even use prints, but make each wheel monochromatic or warm or cool so there was some organization. I would also like to try the Triangle Technique to make triangle squares. I know it means there wouldn’t be as much fabric variety overall, but I think it would be ok. Regardless it would be worth a try. If it isn’t perfect, I can try again.

Workshop

The most exciting news is that Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr are coming BAM! I signed up for their workshop, which is on creating palettes. I would sign up for almost anything they did.

Other Work

Leona's Angela Walters Challenge — Leona’s Angela Walters Challenge

Show and Tell is not as exciting as it was now that we have to bring finished pieces. I try to look around and see what people might be working on during the meeting.

One of the reason I enjoy the BAM meetings is that I hear about new things. Leona did show this quilt, which she made in response to Angela Walter’s panel challenge, Make It Right. I hadn’t heard of this challenge. I noticed her project because of the quilting. Leona has a longarm and she programs it using patterns she purchases. I love the combination of pebbles and spirals.

Leona's Star Block Quilt — Leona’s Star Block Quilt

Leona brought another quilt, which I noticed first. The spiral with the sun design within the spiral is very appealing for an all over design. I really like it and may show it to Colleen.

BAMQG Meeting Notes – April

I know it has been a week or so since the meeting, but I have had a couple of crazy weeks. At this moment, I am enjoying the benefits of a laptop by getting this post done while out of town.

We were back at our old location this time, which was a relief. I enjoyed the location of the last meeting. I thought it was a beautiful space, but felt like I was coming home this time. Everyone else was more relaxed and happy at this meeting, as well, for some reason. Or so it seemed.

BAMQG Banner

Last summer, the Modern Quilt Guild had a block challenge where they were making blocks for charity and for a banner that would be displayed at various events (I guess. Frankly, I don’t remember the details, but I wrote about it). At the same time the BAMQG leadership asked for blocks in the guild’s colors. Kelly has been working diligently on the banner and she revealed what she had so far. She has a bit more quilting to go, but the idea is to display it at the SCVQA show, which is this coming weekend.

Show & Tell

Everything that was shown was great. There wasn’t a lot, though. I showed the A-B-C Challenge. Jennifer has already posted the photos, so here is a slideshow from Flickr:

Color Group

One of the funnest parts of the meeting was the color group meeting. My group had Patti, Kelly, Suzi, Chris and Jennifer. This time Joan and Kathleen joined us, so our group is quite large and also enthusiastic.

At the last meeting, we met with our group and selected a group of colors from items that people brought. Our colors (see right) are purple, pink and chartreuse. This time we were to bring fabric scraps in these colors (I forgot) and decide what project we wanted to do. Others forgot, too, so we decided we would each make 2-8″ finished blocks from our own fabrics and bring them to the next meeting. One of the members, Jennifer, brought a large piece of a green wheel print and we will all use a piece of that in each of our blocks to help with continuity.We will create a charity quilt out of the resulting blocks.

I suppose the blocks have to be ‘modern’. Since I am in the groove of Sawtooth Stars, I may just make some Sawtooth Stars while work on the Star Sampler. I don’t know yet. The fabric is really stiff and I need to wash it before I do anything with it. I don’t think I have any of the fabric in my own fabric closet.

Another group is doing a round robin. Another group is making zipper pouches to exchange. It is an interesting exercise.

Destash Party

I didn’t bring anything to get rid of, but there was no shortage of stuff. I helped get everything out of bags and sort of organized before the contributors were let loose. “Organized” is a lot more generous a term than what we really did. We emptied the bags by dumping them on a big table in a giant mound. I couldn’t really believe how much stuff there was.

I was all for organizing things neatly, but was soundly vetoed. We did put all the patterns together, all the notions together, etc.

They made short work of most of the good stuff and the rest went to charity.

Someone brought 3 spools of Aurifil thread. I was tempted to slip one into my pocket before the frenzy started, but restrained myself.

There were patterns and tons and tons of fabric. Cynthia brought a box she had packed a year ago to send to a friend’s daughter in Japan. The cost turned out to be prohibitive, so she just had the box sitting on a shelf. She brought it sealed and everything. Jennifer A took a chance and got the premium fabric, charm packs and fat quarter bundles. I looked through it and it was a great haul.

San Mateo County Fair

Rhonda brought the applications for the fair for our group entry for the A-B-C Challenge. She was very organized, which was great. I helped her while she was a destashing/restashing by hunting down some of the members and getting their entry fee. I have to get my other entries in as well. I also have to finish the sleeve.

Bay Area Modern March Meeting

I hadn’t been to a BAMQG meeting since the meeting at the beginning of December. It felt like a thousand years ago. I was actually a little reluctant to go because it has been so long and I can’t decide if I am having a relapse of the dread illness. This was, pretty much, my first weekend outing since our trip to the North Coast. I promised I would do a sleeve demo, so that motivated me to go.

I was glad I did. I talked to a few people who were glad to see me, which was very nice. It is a different crowd than CQFA and there are different quiltmakers there I like. Ruth of Pippin Sequim is now the president and due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, sometimes we meet at a new location. I love the new location. the light and colors are gorgeous! There is a little space around with waving grasses and the Bay Trails are nearby. It is also a gorgeous branch library (YAY! Libraries!) with elements of the Monterey Bay Aquarium embedded in the decor. There are lots of rounded corners, sea colors and an overall feeling of calm. Loved it.

I was a little late today, so I sat in the back, but that was ok, because I felt safer (from being away) and Chris sat next to me. BTW, she showed the top from her 2/3 blog post at the meeting and it is great.

The meeting was jam packed.

Charity

Kits were available for the new blocks. There are two: scrappy Trip Around the World and postage stamp. April 20 is the Charity Sew Day. 10-5 will be charity sewing and after 5 people can work on their own projects. It will be held at the Los Altos Public Library.

Cat Bed kits were also available. Amanda had some with some really soft (and slippery and shed-y!) fabric. I had a big bag of scraps from the past 3 months of sewing, so I took two. Look for a post about the one I finished soon.

April Meeting

The April meeting will be back at the Main library and there will be a destash party. the information will be posted on the BAMQG blog closer to the meeting date. Everyone participating is supposed to bring stuff they don’t want and there will be a race to get the good stuff. People should bring fabric, notions, patterns, magazines, scraps (organized in ziplocs only). I have never seen it done quite like this, but people who are not participating will organize all of the bags of stuff, then people will line up at the starting line. The starting judge will yell “Ready Set Go!” and there will be a big scramble to get to the stuff first. People are not to bring stuff they would throw out (no stains, stuff beyond repair). Upholstery fabric is ok. I don’t know if I will participate. I can’t think of anything off hand that I have to get rid of. I don’t want to bring used stuff into the studio really.

Klippies

The group is doing Klippies in a new way. There are teams. I didn’t really collect the Klippies last year and have already missed too many meetings this year to really understand what is going on. I did notice that there were a lot of opportunities to collect Klippies this time, so that was good.

Modern Quilt Guild Membership

Apparently, the MQG has opened up memberships to chapters. The Board is going to review the materials sent out. They will do a cost benefit analysis and prepare a presentation for the June or July meeting so the group can vote. Ruth didn’t want to start a discussion before all of the information was in and the Board had a chance to review it, so she didn’t provide a link to the original presentation. All she said was that the cost would be a significant part of our budget for the year, which sounds a little ominous. I immediately wanted to see the link and see what was up, but then I decided I had enough on my plate and it really didn’t matter to me. If the cost of membership goes up enough to make it untenable, then I won’t rejoin. I might be gone at both those meetings as they are around the time I travel for work. I need to sync up my calendar. I have to trust that the group will make the right decision. Are any of your guilds discussing this?

Retreat

The retreat is coming up. I am not going, as of this moment. Again, I have to sync up my calendar. I think that may be the weekend I get to go and be political wife with DH. If not, perhaps I will commute there. They don’t have any single rooms left and I don’t know anyone well enough to want to share.

Activities

Swap: Joy-Lily organized a fabric swap and people exchanged bags of fabric. I am not sure what that was about (again, I was gone, so missed the detail), but people seemed to enjoy it.

Color Group: Ruth had asked people to bring colors to the meeting. I wasn’t sure what she meant when I read it in the blog so I didn’t bring anything, expecting not to participate. Ruth organized it so that everyone could participate, which was great. I am in a group with Suzy, Kelly, Patti, Jennifer, Chris. I wasn’t really in the mood for any agonizing, so I suggested a couple of the colors from the group that people brought. Nobody objected, so we are using purple, pink and bright yellow. Next month we need to bring fabric scraps. I meant to get mine in order yesterday, but really didn’t have a lot of time, so need to get that I my agenda. I don’t want to be doing it at the last second before the next meeting. Then we will decide what we will make next. We have a tentative plan to make blocks and make them into a charity quilt and also a plan to make tote bags. We will see.

Madrona Road Challenge: I missed this, but I thought the fabric was ugly anyway. I was mightily impressed with the bags that people came up with for this challenge. Really great work and a good use of the fabric. People took the best parts of it. Apparently, Ruth did a great zipper tutorial at one of the recent meetings and people really used that tutorial to enhance their bags.

BOM: The Block of the month is still going strong. Joy-Lily (who must have taken over as BOM coordinator (?), swap coordinator (?) or something) did a demo on this month’s block, which is Snail Trail. I started to watch the demo, but drifted away when I saw how she was doing it. It isn’t a hard block. Joy-Lily doesn’t do matching of points, so she showed a method of putting on a larger piece and then lopping off part of it. I know how to make a Snail Trail and I wanted to talk with Rhonda.

SCVQA: Kelly has done an awesome job of organizing the exhibit of Modern quilts within the SCVQA show. I should enter. I meant to talk with her about it, but forgot. I guess I will send her an email.

Sleeve demo: I did the sleeve demo using the method from Robbi Joy Eklow’s book Free Expression. [<– If you buy from that link, I get a small amount of money.] I had made the step outs that were coded to a very detailed handout, but when I went to look for the handout, it was nowhere to be found. I probably saved it in some weird location on my computer and it will show up in 3 years. People had a few questions, but they told me that they liked the demo and I think I convinced them that the double-sided sleeve was the best idea. I hope I made sense.

Show & Tell

Show & Tell was a little paltry IMO. The new policy is to only show finished things. That made it a lot shorter and fewer people participated. I had 3 quilts to show, but a few other things in progress I didn’t bring. I showed Calm, which is finally finished and I have posted the Finish post here yet, FOTY 2011 and the Stepping Stones quilt. Calm and Stepping Stones now need to be sent off. I don’t think the new policy is good for encouraging quiltmaking. I was really inspired by Mallory’s top and made Sparkle Pink as a result. I am not in charge, though, nor do I want to be in charge, so I am keeping my mouth shut.

San Mateo County Fair

It is coming up. You can enter online; no photos required. There is a big reward for entering even if you don’t get a prize: free passes to get in and a parking pass. That is at least $35 for entering. Rhonda will coordinate entries.

If you are not local, look into entering in your local county fair. You do great work and people want to see stuff like you make. Trust me.

I was glad to see some people that I hadn’t seen in awhile. It looked like a smaller group than the December meeting. I didn’t see Kathleen and I missed her. I had a little chance to talk to Adrianne about her studio reorganization. It was great to hear that Alison sold her house in LA and now will be looking for a place here.

I [tried to convince] told Kelly about the Petrillo Bag-a-Long that Pam from Hip to Be a Square Podcast and I are doing. It will be starting on about March 23. You need to buy the pattern now, because there are some specialty supplies you need to probably get online. It is only $8 and downloadable. Pam talks about the Petrillo bag challenge in episode 121. I’ll write a blog post about it soon.

CQFA Meeting

The CQFA Meeting was actually on January 5th, but I can’t always get to the meeting notes right away.

As usual, we traded ATCs. There were about 7 people participating in the swap this time. It was really great to see all the ATCs that people made.

Mine weren’t my best work. I measured wrong and waited until the last minute. Everyone made the best of my blunder by saying that they were the embodiment of the resolutions of the New Year. They were skinnier than they should have been so they were the butt of a joke about weight loss in the New Year.

The meeting was great. We had the usual business meeting and show and tell after a really nice social. I finished the Garden during this social hour. It wasn’t fun, because I finished the Garden; the social part of the meeting was great because of the opportunity to chat with everyone.

I showed the Spiderweb top, mostly because I had it there and was working on ripping off the paper after I finished the Garden. I also showed The Corner Store. People were very complimentary.

There was show and tell, but I forgot my camera (typical, I know, right?). I love the group, because they do such great work. The piece above is one of Maureen’s and I liked the negative space. I was smack off of working on the Negative Space segment in the Design Series, so negative space in quilts was on my mind.

Ann brought this piece and it screamed Ruth McDowell at me. I think Ann said she took a class from Ruth at some point, but had really just gotten into working with her techniques recently. I thought the veins of this piece were great.

Good meeting. I enjoyed myself.

BAMQG Meeting pt.2

One part of the meeting I didn’t write much about Monday was the party part. Kathleen headed up the party committee and the table decorations and food were amazing.

I really like the vase she and Kelly made. It is modern and fun and just a nice centerpiece.

People seemed to like the food. You can see the nice view outside. I really like the trees and the green. The room was a bit warm and the windows didn’t open, but the view was great, especially after the rain stopped.

One of the nice things that happened was that Adrianne acknowledged all of the coordinators. She had everyone who contributed to the success of the guild this year stand up and be thanked. It was an impressive group.

I don’t know how many of these people will continue, but I hope that others will step into their shoes.

We couldn’t do it without Kelly’s big wagon. This is a fold up wagon that holds A LOT! At other meetings she has helped me by carrying some of my stuff into the room. She hauled a lot of stuff for this meeting.

Fat Quarter Swap

I know I did all the fabric-y stuff in the last post. I didn’t have photos of my fat quarters, thought and I wanted to make sure my fabulous swap partner was acknowledged and thanked. Yes, I will write a thank you note, but a nice public note is nice, too.

As I said, I came home with a headache and that ended any thought of additional blog work. I finally did a massive photo shoot and was thrilled with the fabrics that Peggy, my swap partner, picked for me.

She picked out Ty Pennington’s Impressions for me. This isn’t a group I would have chosen for myself, but I like the variety of scales in the pack. I usually don’t buy dark blues, so it is good to see some for a change. My stash of them is low after the Stars for San Bruno quilts.

All in all, a great meeting and a much appreciated guild.

BAMQG December Meeting

The meeting went well. It was held at a different location, because of the crazy traffic last year. I really liked the space around this Library’s community room. The schedule of the meeting had a lot of different parts.

One of the activities was a fat quarter swap. I am terrible at wrapping gifts, which is why I use gift bags. I wanted this package to be pretty. I thought and thought and could not figure out how to be a successful gift wrapper. Friday I took the fabrics down, because I was on a deadline. I had to wrap the gift. I looked at the fabrics and realized that I had chosen fabrics that were pretty and cheerful. I went rummaging through my ribbon stash and found this lovely orange fabric ribbon. I decided to use the fabric as the wrapping. For a wrapping challenged person, I am pleased with the way it turned out.

Peggy was my FQ swap partner and she bought me a set of blue and green fat quarters from the Fat quarter shop. they are really cool looking. She wrapped my group in another piece of fabric.

The packages looked really pretty wrapped up. People did clever things wrapping. I always get ideas and then I can never remember to use the ideas later.

I showed the A-B-C Challenge quilt and back. A few other people brought their finished A-B-C challenge pieces. Michelle and Lynette both brought their pieces and they did a really good job. A lot of us did similar blocks, but with the different arrangements and layouts and fabrics, they all look different. Others brought their blocks. Kathleen worked on her blocks during the sew-in. Rhonda worked on putting sashing on her blocks. I don’t know if we will have enough to finished quilts to enter in the San Mateo County Fair as a group.

I really like the graphic nature of Kathleen’s blocks and fabric choices.

I also showed the cat beds and the Baby blocks quilt I finished for the Charity Girls. I was pleased to see another 6-7 quilts brought in for the charity drive. It is amazing how people keep bringing in quilts that they have finished. It is amazing that everyone works together on getting the quilts finished. I love it.

I forgot to bring the Spiderweb to show, but brought all the parts to baste the Corner Store. I decided I wanted to try and quilt it myself. I want to finish it and the only way that will happen is if I do it myself right now. Rhonda and Deborah helped me baste, which I appreciated so much. They are awesome at basting and that quilt looks good. We used every single safety pin I brought. I could have used more, but it worked with what I had. Perhaps I will quilt it while I am off work over Christmas.

I was really pleased to be able to stay for the sew-in for a little while. I came home with a headache, though, that lingered through yesterday.

CQFA Meeting

I can’t remember the last time I went to a CQFA meeting, which is a very sad thing. I think it may have been May, which is forever ago. It was a great meeting – very well attended. In a way I wish BAMQG and CQFA were not on the same day, but, on the other hand, I get all the driving and being out of the house out of the way in one day.

ATCs

I made really cool ATCs. I saved the mesh wrapping from two different bags of fruit. Limes had a green mesh wrapping. The other was a red mesh bag. I opened them up to flatten them, then placed them in layers over a piece of fabric, which was of an unfortunate design. I tried not to think too much about the choices I made while I was making them. I just made the choices and worked through the design in my head.

I placed the two kinds of mesh over the fabric, pinned everything together and wove eyelash yarn through the mesh over and over using one of my book binding needles. Once I felt like I had woven enough of the eyelash yarn through the mesh, I pinned the backs to the front (which was one piece) and sewed with a straight stitch around the two parts to hold them together. To finish, I satin stitched around the outside.

There were only 4 of us swapping, so I got one of mine back, which I was happy about.

Notan

Julie, Dolores and Maureen set up a presentation on Notan. They did a great job. I learned a lot and can use some of it in my Design Series presentation on negative space in the future.

The thing to remember for me was to the think of the whole design not just the foreground. In the photo of the exercise 2 the white is just as important as the black. The designs are whole and neither the black nor white is more important.

I borrowed Julie’s book, because I couldn’t find mine and am looking forward to reading more.

Show & Tell

I showed the Flowering Snowball, which I finished the other day. No photo yet, but look for one soon. I have to get one of the boys to hold it up so I can take a photo. I am in love with the back mostly because of the large piece of Philip Jacobs fabric I included.

Maureen, Dolores and Bron brought their self portraits (workshop from last meeting), which really turned out great. Maureen wasn’t happy with hers, but I liked it. It didn’t look like the photo she started with, but it did look like a person.

I like Dolores’ self portrait, because it has the essence of Dolores. It has her feeling, joie de vivre and expressiveness without looking exactly like her. I have always thought that getting the feeling of the person right is more important than having the painting or quilt look exactly like a person. I love the way Dolores has used the different fabrics for different parts of her self portrait. The black on white works very well for the hair even though the fabric is numbers. I think it was an inspired choice.

I am not sure that Bron’s piece is a rendition of her grandmother, but I think it is. Many people commented on the background of the piece. The two different fabrics she used for the background are inspired choices. The different scales are good. The gold of the one piece of the background brings out the skin of the figure while the stripes in the left hand background mimic the stripes in the figure’s dress/shirt.

I also really like the scarf. I never thought of adding a scarf, but it really looks great and solves a lot of neck/skin problems. I would have liked to have looked at the scarf for longer to see how it was sewn, but didn’t get the chance.

I am constantly impressed by what CQFA people make and the choices they make within their pieces.

BAMQG Meeting

As usual, the meeting was great. Lots of people, quilts and a good demo. For some reason, my camera does not want to take photos when I am out and about. The battery (not fatal) ran out at CQFA and I forgot the spare at home, so I only took a few photos with my phone. Something has to be done about this camera. Perhaps I just need a few new batteries?

Pincushion Swap

I decided to participate in the Pincushion Swap after I spoke with Joanna Figueroa at PIQF. Once I had the pattern and the know-how I picked out the most modern fabrics I could think of and really had a good time making it. I am going to make one for the raffle basket that will be given away at the Holiday party.

There were a lot of really great pincushions. One I was particularly enamored with was a Cathedral window pincushion. I never thought of that pattern before, but a pincushion seems doable. I am not going to make one, but I admired it. There were probably a dozen that were given in. It will be interesting to see what the Kansas City Quilt Guild sends us back.

Donation Quilts

I finished another donation top and back. I had the blocks done over the weekend. When I had a day off on Wednesday I put all the blocks together. I have used sashing before, but I decided to just put all the blocks together next to each other. I like the way it turned out. I like the movement of the squares of color. I almost randomly picked the border fabric, but not quite. I am pleased with how it turned out. It looks cheerful and happy.

For the back I used some more golds. I wanted to make one side a bit calmer. I hope it isn’t dour.

I was hoping for calm, as I said, but I also picked some fabrics that had a bit of color. It is a really different back that front.

I also wanted to clear off my sewing table. I need space next to my sewing machine, which I will probably fill up with other fabric “junk”. 😉 I had cut up a bunch of 2.5″ squares for future donation quilts. I have several left, but am kind of done with the checkerboards. Perhaps not completely, but mostly. I made some blocks with some of the parts I had and will give those to the Charity Girls.

They are kind of fun, but I don’t have enough parts to make a whole quilt with any of the colors. Peggy took them as well as some 2.5′ squares, so it will be interesting to see what she does with them.

I kept enough background fabrics in both grey and white to make another top, but I don’t know what fabrics I will use for the foreground. Jennifer saved me some kits for the Patchwork Wheel block and the next charity quilt I make will be from that pattern. Change of pace, you know.

I posted about the Patchwork Wheel blocks I made a few days ago. I realized as I was packing for the meeting that I had kind of a lot of donation quilts to give in. I posted about the quilt I bound and the Pink & Green donation top I made a week or so ago. It is a good feeling to give.

Peggy made this Cross/Plus quilt for the charity effort as well. I was told that we are up to 99 quilts for the year. I don’t know if the one I turned in bound was counted.

The colors in the photo don’t do it justice. The quilt is a really nice combination of turquoise and scarlet.

I believe that Kathleen made a quilt like this in a swap earlier this year. These may be the leftover or reject blocks from that quilt. If they are rejects, they are perfect in this quilt. I am partial to the color scheme, but I still think that some youngster will like it.

Show & Tell

There was a lot of great show and tell in addition to the pincushions. One of the quilts that I really liked was a from a pattern called Sparkling Cider by All Washed Up quilts. The fabrics used for the packaging doesn’t do it justice. Mallory used Tula Pink’s Plume Collection from a few years ago. I always liked the larger prints in this collection, but didnt’ buy any because they were too large. I am not scared of really large motifs, but I have a lot of them and they are hard to use. there are two blocks in this piece and you can turn the block with the smaller Sawtooth Star different ways to create more movement and achieve balance. One thing I like about the Sparkling Cider pattern is that the blocks are large, but the quilt design is not boring. I am way past large squares in my quilt life. There are some nice renditions on Flickr.

Adrianne's Modern Amish — Adrianne’s Modern Amish

Adrianne saw an advertisement for modern Amish quilts that were needed for a book. The deadline was very short and since publishers require that a quilt not be published anywhere else, including on a blog (I am so totally screwed on this front) that many quilts people had already made were in eligible. Adrianne got inspired and started work on this quilt. She said she didn’t make the deadline, but she finished the quilt and it is a really interesting piece. The negative space is a really interesting shape. This could be made with the Fons & Porter Pyramid ruler.

I know you can see it, but the quilting is horizontal lines across the whole quilt, which looks great.

Alison's baby quilt — Alison’s baby quilt

Alison brought a baby quilt made from fabric from a Malka Dubrowsky’s first hand-dyed looking line, A Stitch in Color. I really like the way it came out. It sounded like she said she did a sort of Jelly Roll technique, but I think she managed it more than the directions for a Jelly Roll Race quilt.

She added in the parallelograms to break up the fabric motifs as well. I like those parallelograms; I think they add a bit of stability to the design as well.

Sew Time

A few of us stayed until the bitter end. Only Alison was doing anything remotely related to sewing. I don’t know what my problem was, but I forgot to bring a hand project. Alison was basting another baby quilt. That girl makes as many baby quilts as I make donation quilts! Rhonda and Kathleen chatted about what items to put in the raffle baskets at the next meeting. Alison and I chatted about the house she is selling in LA (in Glendale) and I put my two cents into the raffle basket conversation as well. It was very pleasant.

Not a lot of people are staying for sew time, which I don’t understand. I love the social aspect. I get a few things done and it is usually pleasant. I think it is a pain to bring the machine for only a couple of hours, but there is plenty of cutting to do in a project, so people could do that. It will be interesting to see if this is just because of the busyness of Fall or if it is a trend.

BAMQG October Meeting

Saturday was the October meeting of the Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild. I know I am late getting this up, but I had to juggle posts around as I was sewing on Sunday instead of writing.

The meeting was fun as usual! The sad part is that I forgot my camera, so I don’t have any of my own photos. I could have taken them with my phone, but just didn’t. Adrianne, the current photographer got the photos up on Flickr pretty quickly, so you may see some.

There are a lot of upcoming events. If you are a member, you can participate in the FQ swap and the pincushion swap. I haven’t decided if I am going to participate in either. I am leaning towards the FQ swap. I want to look at patterns for pincushions as I haven’t made one and I don’t want to commit to something that will come out crappy.

It is also time for new officers. I don’t think anyone signed up, so I am nervous about what will happen. Adrianne will not continue as president. I can’t really blame her. After 2 years, she needs a break and guild needs some new blood. Adrianne has great ideas, but groups, organizations need new leaders to shake things up a bit periodically. I am not really presidential material, so didn’t sign up either. I am still doing the blog (would love to hear your comments over there, BTW!!!), but if you only have time for one comment, comment here at Artquiltmaker. 😉

Someone emailed me and wants to help out with the blog, so I am excited about that! I hope I am not taking candidates away from the leadership of the guild.

A-B-C Challenge

It was the end of the A-B-C Challenge block-making portion of the challenge. We asked people to finish their tops by December and the whole quilt by the beginning of May. Our goal is to enter them into the county fair as a group.

Rhonda was the only other one who showed blocks, the other participants were absent.

Whole Cloth Challenge

Here is the big reveal of all of the quilts. I wrote about my quilt earlier this week. I do have a detail that Adrianne took with her nice, fancy camera.

Charity
I was sad not to see the Charity Girls, Jennifer and Deborah at the meeting. They were both off having lives. I turned in the Froggy Cat Bed, but there weren’t any new cat bed kits to take, so I took some of the Patchwork Wheel block kits and am having some fun with them. I only took two kits, which seem to make a total of 4 blocks. The kits have pretty crazy fabric combinations! Perhaps I will move on from the checkerboard blocks I have been churning out and make some more of these blocks?

At the last possible moment, I also took a quilt that someone quilted to bind. I put the binding on it on Sunday by machine and am trying to decide if I will test sewing the back to the quilt by machine or if I will hand sew it. It is in the hand sewing area now (down by the couch), but I can always bring it up. I have some Aurifil monofilament to try out and this might be the perfect opportunity to try something new.