Do What Makes Your Soul Shine

Hello it's Velda, from the Prince Edward Island Modern Quilt Guild (PEIMQG). Today I'm sharing the story about our 2020 QuiltCon Quilt.  Thank you Heather for asking me to do this.

Because I'm not sure how well some of our followers know us, let me begin by saying we are a small but busy bunch of quilters located in PEI Canada.  This was our 3rd QuiltCon Charity Quilt entry; and we are beyond proud of every one of them.

The MQG through its QuiltCon 2020's website invited member guilds to piece a quilt using a "Greyscale" colour way.  Specifically they suggested quilts should be pieced using the palette below.



and the Theme sent out was  "Text".


Yikes, 

I'm not gonna lie, the theme was a tricky one for us because there were so many really outstanding ideas offered by our members.  We finally decided by a show of hands, which one we would make, but I'm confident all of the contenders would have made memorable quilts.

Our quilt design was inspired by a Sam Cannon Art Print.  The first tricky bit we dealt with was how to transform the feeling of the inspiration into a Quilt that meant something to us, and also communicated a positive message for the Charity that would receive it after its journey to QuiltCon.  Here is a black and white photo of the print that we used for Inspiration.

We put our heads together on a Saturday, in late September 2019, to come up with some guidelines.  We confirmed we wanted our quilt be a group effort.  We wanted to make sure everyone in our Guild felt a personal connection to the quilt and we wanted the finished quilt to be a collaboration of all our ideas. Finally, we wanted to make sure that our finished quilt would be something that would suit the needs of various charitable organizations.

So how did we make that happen?

• I don't know about you, but it always makes me happy to look at a beautiful quilt and say "I have that exact fabric in my stash!" So, we asked our members if they wanted to donate some fabric to the quilt.  That way those that couldn't sew on the flimsy would be able to point to a piece of fabric and see a contribution they made.  We received TONS of fabric.  There were dark grey solids, ombre strips, black and white prints, solid black and white cotton and many many different snippets of text fabric.  FYI, there is NOTHING like a stack of fabric to get imaginations working overtime.

• We knew text was the other piece we had to get "pitch perfect" if we were going to nail the challenge.  What would we say? We wanted it to be positive and upbeat.  It had to speak to our common goals and it had to be fully integrated on the quilt top.  There were so many great choices but after a show of hands we decided this message would resonate with a wide spectrum of people.  

"Do What Makes Your Soul Shine".

• Text Alphabets....Holy Heck, there are so many fabulous options to pick from.  Sarah Fielke has an amazing new book that offers six fabulous choices; or we could do Improv letters, or seek out patterns from our members.   Precipitously, I had recently purchased an alphabet pattern from Linda at Paper Panache called A to Z, 1-2-3. After discussion and with the okay from the pattern designer, we chose to use this one because it was easy to paper-piece and simple to modify the size by printing the foundation pieced letters at more than 100%. Here is a little sample of what it looks like.

• After we chose our message and our alphabet  it was very simple to divvy up the words and send everyone home with enough fabric and pattern pieces to build their words.  We decided every second letter must have a dark background and that the word "Shine" would be larger.   We agreed to meet again in a couple weeks and sew the words together and then piece them into the 'moon' fabric.

• FYI, another way we chose to make sure all our Guild members were represented  was to ask them to select a leaf  and place it on the tree.  Many members and even a guest took us up on this and added a leaf to the tree.

• One of our members, "Janice" is an amazing artist, so we begged and pleaded and cajoled her into agreeing to work her magic on the "TREE".  Simply put, all the rest of us were intimidated by this aspect of the quilt and were very very afraid that we didn't have the artistic savvy need to make this tree shine.  Thank Goodness for Janice. Best. GuildFriend. Ever.  

• The whole group was simply gob-smacked by what she came back to us with. It was spectacularly perfect.  And, the next time we met, she pieced the tree into the flimsy and sewed down the leaves...all within a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon.

• It was my responsibility to piece those simple curves on the bottom third of the quilt.     I am not afraid to admit that I was freaked out and terrified.  I am not gifted in the art of Improv and had never attempted something of this scale before. However, I couldn't let my Guild friends down, so  I put on my big girl swimsuit and dived in.  Fortunately things went.... swimmingly LOL.

• By now it was almost the end of November.  Time was starting to run out because International Quilts had to be shipped early so they have lots of time to clear Customs, etc.  We needed to start a final push to finish the quilt in time to unveil it at the Annual Christmas Potluck at Heather J's house.  Here is a photo of us, at a sewing day after the final stitch to the body of the quilt went in and just before Janice worked her magic on the tree.  I think we look like proud parents, don't you?

Missing are all the rest of the Guild members who helped to make this beautiful quilt happen.

• On November 21, we  gleefully handed the quilt flimsy over to Colleen H, a Guild member who is fearless with her LAQ machine.  Together with Linda T, she came up with an absolutely breathtaking uniquely personalized quilting plan. The quilting did NOT disappoint.  Its brilliant....modern starry skies interspersed with the words "Do What Makes Your Soul Shine" wafting across the sky.   Ahhhmazing. 

• By mid-December, all that was left to do was make and sew on the binding.  Three members offered to take on this piece of the quilt making process.  Seriously there was a tussle over who would take the quilt home to bind! In the end, we left it in Janet's talented hands and within a day or so, the quilt was bound to perfection (right down to expertly matching the binding to fabric - way to go Janet!)

• Within a couple more days, the show labels were printed and sewn on as per QuiltCon's rules.  We mailed it off to Amanda at the Austin MQG address on December 23, 2019.  Naturally we took a picture of the quilt before we mailed it off.  Here it is!  Beautiful!  I'm sure you agree.

It is back in our hands now and we're glad it home safe (just like all of us).

And that's the story of how our Guild pieced a quilt to share with the world and then were blessed with the opportunity to give it away to a person or group who needs it. 

It makes my soul shine!