2015 Riley Blake Challenge

Riley Blake Cottage Garden by Amanda Herring - photo courtesy of the Modern Quilt Guild

As requested at our meeting Saturday, here is the information about the latest Riley Blake Fabric Challenge hosted by the Modern Quilt Guild.  (Note that you must be signed in to the MQG website to follow the link.)

Riley Blake made 1500 fabric bundles available to MQG members, and each member had to request the fabric on their own.  It took only 8 hours for all 1500 bundles (6 FEs each) to be taken.  However, if you wish to participate, you may purchase fabric to use for your challenge.

Here is the challenge: 

• Make something fantastic that is quilted.
• Make something you've never done before.
• Challenge yourself to learn something new.
• Use only Riley Blake Cottage Garden fabrics and coordinating Riley Blake basics and solids.  [You may use any Riley Blake basic solid or shade to compliment the Cottage Garden Fabrics. (Riley Blake Basic, solid or shade are generally coded as C100 or C200), suggestions were C100-1, C200-3, C100-12, C200-43, C100-40]
• The challenge runs from March until July 2015. 
• Tag all your photos on Facebook and Instagram with #mqgfabricchallenge

Photo courtesy of www.rileyblake.com

If you didn't receive fabric directly from the MQG, you may purchase fabric in any colorway to participate in the Riley Blake Fabric Challenge.  Some prints are available locally at A&E, or you may wish to purchase your fabric online.  A quick check showed fabrics available at Hawthorne Threads, Fabric.com, and Missouri Star Quilts.

The deadline for your quilted creation to be uploaded to the MQG Facebook page, the MQG website or on Instagram is July 31, 2015. You must use the hashtag #mqgfabricchallenge to enter.  I recommend, however, that in addition to posting to FB or IG you upload your photo to the MQG Website here.

ECMQG will be having our own Riley Blake mini-challenge as well.  Bring your creation to the July ECMQG meeting on July 11, 2015 and share your "something fantastic that is quilted" with guild members.  One plus is that if your creation is finished by July 11, it will be done in time to enter into the MQG challenge.

Happy creating!

MQG 2015 Fabric Challenge

Early this year, January 20, 2015 to be exact, the MQG announced the year's first fabric challenge, once again, generously sponsored by Riley Blake Designs.

THE MODERN QUILT GUILDMembers Only Newsletter 2015 Fabric Challenge!

If you were one of the lucky MQG members to sign up (in the eight hour window before all of the spots filled), you received a fat eighth bundle of six fabrics from designer Amanda Herring's The Cottage Garden collection.


The genesis behind The Quilted Fish, Amanda is, in her own words "a mom, wife, pattern designer, fabric designer, entrepreneur and all-around fun person.  I started The Quilted Fish in 2008 and it has been an amazing creative journey for me."

So what is the challenge?

• Make something fantastic that is quilted.
• Make something you've never done before.
• Challenge yourself to try something new.
• Use only Riley Blake The Cottage Garden fabrics in the aqua and gray colorway and any coordinating Riley Blake basics for solids.
• The challenge period is from March through July.
• Take pictures and upload them to the community page on the MQG website.
• Tag all of your photos on Instagram or Facebook with #mqgfabricchallenge.

If you did not receive fabric, you can still participate by purchasing these same six fabrics from your favorite local brick and mortar quilt shop or online retailer. 

We expect to see some fabulous quilted items during the guild reveal which is our August meeting.

MQG Riley Blake Fabric Challenge Projects

Kudos to every ECMQG member who participated in the most recent fabric challenge sponsored by the MQG and Riley Blake Fabrics.  

Unequivocally, the following pictures are testament to the talent and creativity we have within our guild.

Many thanks to Kim, our photographer, for this scrumptious display of eye-candy!  This is a picture laden post.  (I will add links to tutorials, blogs, patterns, etc., if they were provided, over the next several days.  Please check back.)

As most of you know, this is but one of the benefits of our association with the MQG.  If you choose to be a full member of ECMQG, we automatically include the MQG membership with our membership, making you eligible to participate in these challenges.

Coincidentally, the next MQG Fabric Challenge was announced this past Sunday night.  You can read about it here.  We will be participating.  I hope you'll join us in this next creative endeavor.  

Cindy Marvel

ECMQG Secretary

Swap Update

Hi again!  Wendi Mihalik here with the ECMQG Swap announcement for December.  We want to make sure there is always something FUN going on in the guild.  (Of course, it's up to you whether you play along or not.)  

For December, we're having a Handmade Christmas Ornament Swap.  Everyone who wants to play will bring one handmade Christmas ornament to the Christmas party/social on December 13, and take home a fabulous handmade ornament made by another guild member.  No other rules, just handmade by you.  And no partners this time....  We will simply exchange amongst those who bring an ornament.  This promises to be lots of fun, and I'm sure that we will see (and covet) some a-may-zing ornaments made by guild members!

And, looking ahead...

 In January, we will have the big reveal  in the MQG Riley Blake Challenge. 

And for February, be thinking of sharing the LOVE!

ECMQG Swaps are open to all guild members in good standing.

Have fun!

October was a Busy Month

To continue where I ended the last post...

Marcy and Kelly had bundles of goodness waiting for everyone participating in the MQG Riley Blake Basics Challenge.
  
Other than the national MQG rules, we dubbed ours as the New Year, New Skills Challenge.  Try something new.  Something you've avoided.  Something you think you can't do.  You'll be pleased how fast that word - can't - is eliminated from your vocabulary and way of thinking.  

If you're a precise piecing type of quilter, try improv.  If you're an improv piecing type, try precise piecing.  If you're afraid of the zipper, make something with a zipper.  If curvy piecing intimidates you, try curvy piecing.  Not a hand quilter?  Here's your opportunity.  Are you a straight line only quilter?  Try free motion quilting.  Just try something new.

Projects are due at the January meeting. 

Marcy, through another local guild, had an urgent request for Quilts of Valor.  There was a little bit of discussion as to what the requirements were, but we all agreed modern QOV could be done.  More on this opportunity to help is in the works.  However, start pulling from your stash, MODERN fabrics that are obviously, red, white, or blue, but also light gray. Our members from A&E - Liz, Rosemary, Glenna, & Rhonda - graciously agreed to quilt and bind it for us if we made the blocks and quilt top(s) .  

Show & Tell.  This is the highlight of our meetings.  All of your creativity on display.  Stories about how the quilt came about and who it was made for.  Details of the piecing and quilting processes.  What you liked or didn't like.  What you'd do differently.  What you learned.  Color.  Fabric.  Design.  Texture.  Sharing.  Learning.  Inspiration.  I love it all.

Let me apologize in advance for failing to get pictures, let alone details, of your quilts.  I was too busy talking and handing out Riley Blake bundles!  Also, some of the pictures are blurry.  :(

Here is Wendi's quilt top from the Wonky-Cross Block Lottery she won last month.  Beautiful.

Crazy colorful string block madness.  Wavy organic wood-grain quilting.

Another of Wendi's beauties.  Her Bow Tie Quilt.

Quilting detail.  They look like sand dollars, although I believe she said they were daisies.

I have no idea who's this is.  But, look at the dogwood quilting and the star & moon!

Marcy's Black, White, & Turquoise quilt created for another guild's challenge.  Of course, Marcy put a modern edge to that challenge with her fabric selection and quilting designs, especially the pebble quilting.  

Back of Marcy's Black, White & Turquoise quilt.  The pebble quilting is more apparent on this side.

Bev's quilt.  (Apologies, I have no details.  Please let me know and I will edit this post accordingly.)

 Up close detail of Bev's quilting, albeit a bit blurry.  

Leslie's, aka The Purple Bug, color-blocked, improv pieced, I-Cleaned-&-Organized-My-Stash quilt.  Just look at the texture.

Up close detail of Leslie's quilting.  She "played" with Marcy's longarm one day.  Awesome!

Melissa J's low volume Modern Maples WiP.  With a seven-month old, I think we understand how finding the time to quilt is a luxury.  

Cindy's Make Them Go Away scrappy ROYGBIV Circle of Flying Geese envelope pillow for a friend.  The combination of improv and traditional paper piecing equals one crazy busy pillow.   

I believe that wrapped up the Show & Tell portion of our meeting.  If I failed to photograph your item, please let me know.  I am more than happy to edit and include what I missed.  

While everything else was taking place, Gina, was organizing and setting-up our mock booth for the upcoming St. Simon's Craft Fair.  Again, apologies for no pictures.  Sigh.  So much going on.  Which really is a good thing.   Please contact Gina directly if you have items to donate or, if you'd like to volunteer to sit at our booth for several hours during the event.  

The remainder of this post is for your viewing pleasure.  Just pictures of what happens during the Sew-Day portion.

Beautiful.  Creative.  Inspiring.  Fun.  Friendly.  Modern.  

            
What will you create until the next time we meet?

Cindy
ECMQG Secretary