August 2016 Dessert Party

This month, in lieu of our guild meeting, we gathered together at the Murray Centre in Kensington, PEI to host a wonderful event. A PEIMQG Dessert Party featuring guest speaker Sharon Baldwin's "Time out with Textiles". 

Susan was the MC for the night and she welcomed our 81 guests and thanked them for coming, We had people from all over PEI and some visitors from NS as well. She brought everyone's attention to our fabulous door prizes and the silent auction items contributed by PEIMQG members, local and not so local businesses. 

Huge THANK YOU! to our very generous contributors.

Next up, Heather J, the president of the PEIMQG, spoke about the Modern Quilt Guild. How it was formed in LA in October 2009, developing out of the thriving online community of Modern Quilters and their desire to start meeting in person. The MQG is made up of over 150 guilds across the world. There are currently 18 Modern Quilt Guilds in Canada.

So what is "Modern" Quilting? 

Modern quilting is primarily functional and inspired by modern designs. Modern quilters work in different styles and define modern quilting in different ways, but there are several characteristics to help define a modern quilt. These examples include, but are not limited to:

-The use of Bold colors and Prints

-High contrast and graphic areas of solid color

-Improvisational piecing

-Minimalism

-Expansive negative space and alternate grid work.

- Modern traditionalism or the updating of classic quilt designs is also seen in Modern quilting.

Modern quilting has existed in many forms for much of the 20th century but wasn't until the 2000's that quilts with a modern aesthetic began to appear in greater numbers.

More info can be found on the MQG website. You can find the PEIMQG blog here, to see what we've been up to.

Cathy talked a little about our most recent charity quilt, and about the generosity of the quilting community as a whole.

 This beauty will be heading to the Orlando MQG as a donation to the Quilts for Pulse project.  The PEIMQG has also donated an additional quilt top to this cause as well.  Previous donations of quilts were made to Fort MacMurray and quilted placemats to the Montague chapter of Meals On Wheels. We are very proud of the charitable work we've been able to accomplish so far, given that we are a new guild as of January. Due to the success of this evening, we will be able to continue to do more charitable endeavours and education of our members in the future.

Next up, Susan introduced our guest speaker - Sharon Baldwin. Sharon is a very accomplished Textile Artist and quilter. She began sewing at the age of six. By the 1970's she was making traditional quilts.

 In the 1990's she began working with surface design. She dyes her own fabric, does needlework and is a fabric painter. She says that screen printing is her favourite medium and most of her work is "All about Nature". Her pieces are absolutely stunning, and need to be seen to fully appreciate their beauty. Her attention to detail is unparallelled.

Here are some of my personal favorites and a slideshow of many more will follow as well... 

 Halfway through the evening we had a break for desert and coffee. 

The guests were invited to come on stage and look and admire Sharon's pieces up close. We also gave out some door prizes and encouraged guests to place their final bids on the auction items.

The second half of the evening Sharon showed more of her work and opened the floor for a question and answer period.

click here to access the photos in the album


 I think the entire room was inspired by Sharon and her passion. Thank you so much to Sharon Baldwin for agreeing to be our guest speaker. We loved having her and we hope to see her again in the future. If you would like more info about Sharon you can check out her guest blog here.


We gave out the rest of the door prizes and finalised the silent auction items, I think everyone who won, enjoyed their winnings and a great time was had by all. 

Huge THANK YOU to all the members of the PEIMQG for making the event such a huge success,especially the setup/cleanup crew and the kitchen volunteers the desserts were beautiful and (as I was told by many guests) DELICIOUS!

Tips, Tools, and Techniques August 2016

For this month's Tips, Tools and Techniques, I'd like to bring your attention to the Side kick ruler by Jaybird Quilts.

 I purchased this ruler to make a specific quilt pattern, but was inspired by the versatility of the different shapes that can be cut from the same size strips. Here are some pictures of the ruler in action:

60 degree triangles:

Diamonds:

And this half-Triangle works as the end pieces or can be joined together to make triangles, etc:

The triangle pieces can be joined together to make half hexagons:

You can join 2 half-triangle pieces to triangles as well:

The possibilities are endless, and alot of fun. Here are some of the different pieces layed out:

Here is the layout I decided on:

Add a couple of borders and you have a great placemat, mug rug or wall hanging:

As you can see there are alot of fun possibilities with this ruler, not to mention the amazing patterns available from  Jaybird Quilts.  This is the one I am making:

And here are a few of the blocks I've made so far:

Well folks I hope this tool review has shown you the versatility of the Sidekick ruler.

August Sew-In

For this month's Sew-In we had a number of members in attendance given we were competing with the sun which was shining.  Those who joined us, worked on varied projects and even a bit of business.

Dawn and Colleen were here for the morning to collect Silent Auction items for the upcoming Time Out with Textiles and Dessert Party with Sharon Baldwin. Please make sure any remaining tickets are made available to Dawn or Susan, so that we can make them available to email/phone customers in the coming weeks.

Want a sampling of the items we will have for the Silent Auction?

Here's a stunning charm package supplied by the Quilting B & More:

Cathy made this wall hanging from a fabric panel she designed.

Lucinda made this gorgeous tote bag.

Colleen has offered this gift certificate.

Here are some candles from Applewicks.

Diane has donated some beautiful glass yard art.

And This is our fantastic door prize!!!

 And that's just a small sampling of the items we'll be auctioning off.  We hope to see you there on August 25th from 7-9 p.m. at the Murray Centre in Kensington.  Doors open at 6:30 p.m.!  We are looking forward to an evening of eye and food scrumptiousness!

Heather C. came in to discuss the desserts for the Dessert Party and we are going to have a great assortment of delicious desserts!! Thanks Heather C. for making sure that everything is running smoothly.

Lydea was cutting out some FQ's for the Low-Volume swap. Here's the completed bundle. What a great assortment.

Lucinda was busy working on a pattern for PEIMQG tote bags, Can't wait to see the finished product.

Janice was making these lovely maple Leaf blocks, for a future project, Looking forward to seeing it when its done. Check out her beautiful Featherweight!!

Gail had these super cute Advent calendars to bind, Great idea working on them now, you'll have them done by Christmas for sure.

Dianne was busy putting together some scrappy string blocks, for a future charity quilt, She made a lot of progress. It looks great!

Linda got started on her Patchwork City blocks. I really like the color choices she's made for this project. Stay tuned for more pics in the future. (We have several members playing along. Thanks Jean for creating this sew-along.)

We had three members working on binding today. Here's Liz sewing the binding onto a commissioned quilt.

Here's the quilt called "Scrappy Cats". So much fun!

Heather was sewing down the binding on her Tic-Tac-Toe quilt from blocks when she was Queen Bee.  Can't wait to see it finished!

Cathy was sewing down the binding on the #quiltsforpulse Charity quilt. She did a super job piecing and quilting this beauty.  Here is the quilt front:

Here is the pieced back:

Here's the label for the members to sign.  Cathy spent time using her artistic talents to draw our logo on the label.  She will bring the quilt to the dessert party so we can get some more signatures before we send it south of the border!

Roberta and Velda dropped by for a visit to see what the gang was doing. It was nice of them to drop by during their busy day.

Lucinda is the Queen Bee for August and because we don't have a meeting this month, she has asked that the instructions to the link be posted.  Check it out Braid Tutorial .

Well we had a lot of fun at this month's Sew-In and are looking forward to this month's event. You can read all about the guest speaker here: Dessert Party.  Contact us at peimqg@gmail.com if you wish to reserve your ticket!

Upcoming Events:

August 25:  Time Out with Textiles and Dessert Party, Murray Centre, Kensington

The following two months Sew-In and Meetings are planned for the West Royalty Community Room, Sobeys, 39 Babineau Avenue, Charlottetown.  Save the dates.

September 10:  PEIMQG Sew-In
September 22:  PEIMQG Meeting
October 8:  PEIMQG Sew-In
October 27:  PEIMQG Meeting

Guest Blogger August 2016

We have an exciting event happening this month.  For this month's guest blogger I would like to introduce Sharon Baldwin, who just so happens to be the guest speaker for our 1st Annual Dessert Party.  

 Here is a bit of her background....

Sharon was taught to sew at an early age by her very creative mother and later became a traditional quilt maker.

While living in the UK she was able to study City & Guilds Embroidery, Art and Design and take a course on Dye, Design, Stitch with Leslie Morgan a noted UK textile artist.

Since retiring, textile art has become a full time obsession and a passion for colour has led to dyeing and printing her own fabric for creating art quilts.

She is inspired by the fabric itself, the scenery around Nova Scotia and her garden. She has displayed her work in many British Guild shows, Earls Court UK and numerous museums and galleries in Nova Scotia.

She is a member of TARTS, a small textile art group in the Valley, N.S.

 

Q&A:

    1. What do you love about quilting?

Being a Textile Artist. I use hand dyed fabrics as a background to screen print my designs. My art is all about feeling the emotion of a time or place.

    2. Where do you draw inspiration?

Scenery, especially trees, inspires my impressionistic landscape textiles, which is another series that I work on.

   3. What are you currently working on? (Can we have a sneak peak?)

At the moment, I am working on some mixed media pieces to incorporate into my Roadside Weed Series.

   4. Solids or Prints (What types of fabric do you use)?

I love to dye and print fabric and threads, and this has lead me to do fabric art inspired by the scenery around the Maritimes. 
  
   5. Favorite Tool or Trick you can't live without?

I enjoy keeping an art journal of my impressions and use this as a starting point from where most of my ideas develop.

   6. What or Who is your favorite Blog/Designer/Artist?

There are so many artists who inspire me, but Sandra Meech (Textile Artist)and Edward Hopper (painter) are my current favorites.

   7. What's one thing we should know about Sharon?

Sharon is going to be the guest speaker at a Dessert Party hosted by the PEIMQG this August 25th from 7-9pm. We are very excited to meet her and think her Trunk show will be too good to miss.  Get in touch if you would like to get tickets to this fabulous event. There will also be a silent auction, door prize and of course lots of fabulous desserts.