November & Upcoming

We had a great meeting last week, with a presentation by Meerkat Trading.  She packed up and left afterwards with much less fabric than she came in with.  :-)

December 14th will be our Christmas Dinner.  We are changing things up a bit this year.  Normally we have a pot luck supper but instead, we are having the Church Ladies cater a turkey dinner for us.  

• Make sure you respond to Gail's email (around December 9th?) and get on the list.  The cost for dinner is $15.00 per person.
• We will eat at 6 pm and follow that with a meeting and a little hand project.

Join us on November 9th...

Meerkat Trading (LINK) will be our guest speaker, talking about the African Fabrics they carry.  I suspect they will have some for purchase, too.

Meeting starts at 7 pm, visitor fee is $5.00.

Members - don't forget to bring your Mystery Quilt block for a little prize.  AND bring your Block of the Month if you took one.

Cutting Up a Quilt Panel to Make a Quilt

Laura Coia from Sew Very Easy was our guest speaker in October.  She knows we are doing a Panel Challenge this year, so she made a video for us!  Thanks Laura - this is a great idea.

If you're looking for a guest speaker she can be reached at sewveryeasy @ gmail.com (take out the spaces).

And a new season begins...

We had our introductory meeting for the new season on Sept. 14th.

Our 'fun' monthly activities are:
2 1/2" Strip Swap 

Swapping 2 1/2" strips.  Marg will tell you how many strips you need to bring to each meeting for the swap, and what the colour selection is each month. You will get a different strip from everyone in the group.  .

Mystery Quilt

You will be making a Queen or King size quilt for yourself.  Shirley will provide a new set of instructions every month.  Participants should bring in their completed work every month to get a prize.  Woo hoo!!

Our 'special' challenges include:

The Panel Challenge

In October you must bring in a fabric panel.  If you're like me, you have several of these that have been languishing in your basement for a few years.  These will be swapped between the members of the group.  You must make a quilt with it by the June meeting.  There is no size requirement.These quilts will be donated to a charity, most likely for children.  **Batting will be provided by the guild.

Canada's 150th Celebration Challenge - 

To celebrate our country you are invited to make a quilt - this will be for yourself and you do NOT have to sign up.  The minimum size should be 160" perimeter, so 40 x 40 or 20 x 60, etc.  Bring the completed quilt to the June meeting and we will be awarding Viewer's Choice prizes.  

At our next meeting on October 12th we are hosting Laura Coia from Sew Very Easy.  Link HERE.  You are welcome to join us - there is a visitor fee of $5 if you are not a paid member.

June Season Ender

We ended off the current season with a pot luck supper and the judging of our Challenges.

This is view #1 of the Paint Chip Challenge.

 Here is view #2.

These are the "MINI" Challenge pieces.

Check the page for Meeting Dates 2016 for information about summer guild dates and upcoming fall meetings,  Have a great summer.  Eat lots of zucchini!

Diane Carson Trunk Show and What's Coming Up On June 8th

Diane Carson brought a large selection of quilts, both vintage and current, and kept us entertained at our May meeting.
You can contact Diane through email at:
  grandmadquilts @ hotmail.com
(Remove the spaces before and after the @ sign.)

Here is a funky collage that I somehow created with the photo program in Windows 10.

If you are coming to the June meeting, it will be our season-ending pot luck supper.  This is always EARLIER THAN OUR NORMAL TIME SLOT so be prepared to EAT AT 6 PM.

June 8, 6 pm.
Bring:

• pot luck contribution (please identify if it contains chocolate, eggs, or nuts)
• dishes & cutlery (plates, knives, forks, spoons, mug)
• normal show & share items
• your completed Challenge Projects
• the Block of the Month block if you purchased a kit
• a couple of dollars for draw prizes

April Wool Applique

Our speaker in April was Brit Dowson, owner of B.A.T. House Designs.  Brit brought a wonderful array of her wool applique and gave us a great overview of the craft.

She carries all necessary supplies - wool, luscious threads, needles, kits, patterns.  And her hubby makes wonderful (!) wooden buttons to embellish your projects.

You can contact her by email at buttons4u@outlook. com (remove the space just before the "com"), or by phone at 519-426-9774.

Our speaker on May 11th will be Diane Carson, an award winning longarm quilter from the Grand Bend area.  She is also the longarm representative on the CQA board, so you may have seen her articles in the quarterly newsletter.

March meeting

The daytime stitchers took a class from the U-Quilt-It shop in Smithville.

Here is the former owner of the shop, assisting with the evening trunk show.

Here is the new owner of the shop showing some of her quilts.

They brought goodies for sale.  Who doesn't like to shop?

These were the block-of-the-month blocks that were won by a lucky guild member.  Those chickens are just too darned cute!!

Join us on April 13th at 7:00 pm.  Our guest speaker will be Brit Dowson with her wool applique quilts.

coming up in March...

Wednesday March 9th - 7:00 pm

Come and see the trunk show by U-Quilt-It , a quilt shop located in Smithville, On.

Even if you aren't a member you may attend by paying a small visitor fee of $5.00.

Block Exchange and January Design & Stitch

For a year or two our guild was running a Block Exchange of half-square triangle blocks.  Currently, we are running an exchange of 4-patch blocks.

HOW TO RUN A BLOCK EXCHANGE

• Signup of members is required. 
• Pick a size and simple block (half square, 9-patch, 4-patch, etc.).
• Provide instructions - not everyone knows the difference between 'finished size' and 'unfinished size'.  Make it clear that fabrics must be 100% cotton AND must be prewashed.
• Set a guideline for the colours (ours was a light neutral AND an assigned colour each month).
• Every month you make one block for each member of the group (including yourself), based on the required colour scheme.
• Give your blocks to the group leader in a ziplock bag clearly marked with your name.
• The leader of the group marks off your package each month and sorts the collection into piles for each member that you can take home at the end of the meeting. 
• If someone does not bring their blocks they need to bring them the next month.  Also, the group leader would have to retain this member's blocks that were contributed by everyone else.
• If you want to collect blocks for the guild to use in outreach quilts, have all members make ONE EXTRA BLOCK each month, and this will go into the guild kitty.  These add up pretty quickly.

Our Program for January and February is making three outreach quilts, using our collection of blocks.  We were split into three teams and given large stacks of these half-square blocks.  They all need to be squared up because, well, you know, everyone's 1/4" seam is a little bit different.

We are having a 'challenge' to create the most interesting/attractive quilts and there will be prizes.  Everyone loves prizes, right?

FEBRUARY
On February 10th we will be continuing our work on these quilts and hope to have the tops assembled.  See ya there!!