{Getting Ready for} St. Simon's Craft Fair

The St. Simon's Craft Fair is almost upon us, and with all the excitement over our AWESOME Sew Modern Quilt Lab, and all the demands of autumn - school starting, new routines, and the countdown to the holidays - let's make sure this event fall is just as successful!

The St. Simon's Craft Fair will be held on November 6 - 7 at St. Simon's on the Sound Episcopal Church in Ft. Walton Beach.

If you have handmade items - or even have unfinished items - please remember to bring them to the October 10 meeting!

We are asking each member to bring 2 handmade items to sell at St. Simon's.

Stuck for ideas?  Not much time to create something handmade?  We've gotcha covered!  Check out our Pinterest board for some fun, quick ideas for handmade items that will sell!

Running out of time?  Maybe you can use our Sew Day to make a few items!

Maybe you have some orphan blocks lying around that just need some finishing to create a wonderful bazaar item!  Orphan blocks could make great pillow covers for example.  Sew Day would be a great time to turn a couple of orphan blocks into great handmade items for St. Simon's.

Maybe you started something and haven't had time to get back to it...  Sew Day would be a great time to finish up those items - or even get some help finishing them up.  There are always willing hands and hearts at Sew Day.

Kristy and Deb will have a booth mock up at our October 10th meeting, and it is always fun to see it come together as people add their contributions to the booth.  Please bring yours and help make our booth a success!

Don't forget to sign up to work a shift!  Kristy and Deb will need everyone's help to man the booth.

Working together we can make this event a success!

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