Emerald Coast Modern Quilt Guild: February 2018

February 2018 Show and Tell

The members of the ECMQG celebrated the joy of creating by showing off projects. Take a peek!
Laraine shared a bag made from an Aneela Hoey pattern.

Mary was a prolific sewist the past month sharing many quilts that she made for charity.

Marcia shared a puffy baby quilt

Maureen shared a quilt for her granddaughter with girlfriends fabric and the Zola quilt from Ink and Arrow

Lisa shared a rainbow pinwheel baby quilt

Faye has been working on leggings - this one is for an Alabama fan

Natalie shared her woven rug made from T-shirt strips on the rigid heddle loom - sorry no pic of the rug

We are excited to see what everyone creates and shares next month!

February 2018 Meeting Minutes

February 10 Meeting Minutes for the "small and mighty" ECMQG

Our meeting began promptly at 10 am with the clanking of the bell.

Old Business

Members were reminded to sign up for the monthly potluck.
Our online auction was considered a success. Planning is underway for another auction in November.
We will be limiting our guild sponsored charity quilts to two each year. Currently Natalie is working on the Hospice quilt and the 2017 Quiltcon charity quilt. The charity has not yet been determined for the Quiltcon quilt.

New Business

Quiltcon 2019: Charity quilt info to be announced June/July. Make plans early to register and attend.
People are happier when they are creating. Show and Tell is for sharing the joy of creating. Bring what you are working on.
Monthly we will be highlighting a quilter from our guild on the Blog.
Tiger Lily, Kona color of the year challenge was introduced. This will be a bag or tote that the creator keeps. Fabric will be available for purchase at the April meeting.
We will be sending “Bits of Friendship” scraps to The Pine Tree Quilter’s Guild of Muskoka. Bring beachy colored/themed scraps to the March meeting.
Riley Blake Spring Challenge is underway; deadline is April 22, be sure and post with the required hashtags.
The upcoming calendar was discussed and pointed out on the blog. It is currently up to date.
At the March meeting Wendi will be demonstrating quilting on your domestic sewing machine. Free motion and walking foot.
A reminder that at the April Sit and Sew Natalie will be helping those that started their strip piecing with Diane should bring their started projects.
A fundraiser suggestion was made, would members be interested in purchasing a chance ($10) to win long arm services.
Maureen gave a membership status, we currently have 17 members.

We played “Get to Know Your Guild” game.

We had 8 participants in our “Bring Two, Take One” Zippy Swap. Participants were able to choose the Zippy that spoke to them, the other was donated to our upcoming online auction in November.

Block Lottery

Lisa was the happy winner of the “Bits of Friendship” block presented by Mary. Lisa went home with a whopping 29 blocks.

Announcements

Flying Needles Quilt Show will be held at The Palms in Destin on Feb, 23-24.

Our guild will have a booth at the Surfing the Beach Quilt Show. We will have a display showcasing our Flamingo Challenge Mini Quilts. Members will be on hand to answer questions about our guild and Modern Quilting.

Program

Cindy – 1/4” seams

Cindy presented our block lottery using Elizabeth Hartman’s, The Knee Sock Block. She discussed how important accuracy with the 1/4 inch seam will be to make this block work. Cindy helped members 1 on 1 work on their accurate ¼ inch seams. Blocks should be done in solids with a white background, colors should be in the warm color range, Red Violet to Yellow, Finished block should be 12.5 inches.

Show and Tell, Pot Luck, and Sew Day rounded out a day of fellowship and sewing.

Knee Socks - March 2018 Block Lottery Info

We are going way back (2012) for this months block lottery, one Elizabeth Hartman originally created for the Modern Quilt Guild's website. (Thanks for being patient while we waited for permission to link to her post.) It is a tutorial for the Knee Socks Quilt Block, and in the version we're making, it is one of the 12.5" quadrants.

Whether you've been a modern quilter forever or a few short months, you've probably seen a tutorial, book, pattern, or fabric line by Elizabeth.

She is talented.

She is prolific. She is known for her use of color and her meticulously detailed pattern writing.

She is one of the first bloggers I followed when I started quilting. I can't tell you the number of blocks and quilts I made using the ideas and techniques she shared.

In choosing Knee Socks for the March Block Lottery, the skill set to master is the scant .25" seam allowance. There are VERY GOOD tutorials online about how to do this, including tools you can buy or methods that use simple materials that might already be in your house. Type into your search engine .25" scant seam allowance and thousands of results will populate.

Elizabeth's Knee Socks Quilt Block tutorial and pattern, a seven page PDF (I told you she was meticulous!), can be found here. It is AMAZINGLY detailed and easy-to-follow.

The background fabric is Kona White. Warm colored solids (no prints) from ANY quality fabric line make up the stripes.

Please choose three colors for each 12.5" block.

The most accurate blocks I sewed for this post are the ones where I took the time to prepare my fabrics before I cut. I pressed. I used starch. Even with my scraps! It made a noticeable difference. I really, really, really, practiced sewing with a scant .25" seam.

Both of those steps made every block after the first, the one where I used my seam ripper multiple times, easy and accurate.

As with all of our block lottery drawings, someone is going to own a gorgeous stack of modern quilt blocks for the project of their choosing. Is March going to be your month? I hope so!

Cindy

Happy Valentine's Day

The sewists of ECMQG met last Saturday to a surprise devised by our President, Loree. With a photo booth full of props and a Count Your Kisses guessing game, members vied for kisses and had fun with the photo ops! Take a look...