PEI Modern Quilt Guild April 2018 Monthly Meeting

Spring is most definitely here!!! The temperatures have been in the double digits all week and the April showers have been plentiful as well. I love this time of year!! There is such a feeling of awakening and renewal every time you venture outside. 

This month's meeting had 18 members and 1 guest in attendance. Welcome to Ada C. And our newest members Virginia and Janet.

Heather opened the meeting by greeting everyone present and reminding them about the upcoming Summer/Fall quilt shows around this fair Island. Application forms are already available for some shows, so be sure to enter your work so everyone can enjoy your lovely quilts/ projects.

We are very excited to announce that the members of the PEIMQG will be hosting a retreat at the Our lady of Hope Retreat Centre in March of 2019!!! I can't wait!!

Our Raffle Quilt campaign has officially kicked off. Members have some tickets in hand and we will be selling at some venues in the coming months. If you would like to buy a raffle ticket please feel free to contact us at: peimqg@gmail.com for details or to arrange an E-Transfer. Tickets cost: $3.00 each, 3 for $5.00 or 9 for $10.00. Wouldn't you love the chance to own this beautiful quilt? We are also happy to ship the Quilt anywhere in Canada.

We will be hosting the wonderful Cheryl Arkison for a Trunkshow and 2 Workshops in October 2018. We have spaces available to anyone interested in attending. Please contact peimqg@gmail.com to reserve your space.

After the recent Tragedy affecting the community and families of the Humbolt Broncos, a call for quilts was sent forth to quilters across Canada and the world for Quilt Blocks and Tops to be donated. We had 7 quilt tops in total that will be shipped to Haus of Stitches for further quilting. 

Here is guest Ada's contribution

And Susan shared the following 6 quilts all ready to be shipped in the coming days.

The information about this worthy cause can be found here.

Cathy presented this year's QuiltCon Charity Challenge, and at next month's meeting, members will present their ideas and concepts for the group to vote on. You can find more details here.

Next up for Program, we had Janice demonstrating her techniques and tools for fabric painting. It was awesome, and we all really enjoyed everything she shared with us. Here are some examples of her supplies and samples of things she has made with fabric painting.

This year's President's Challenge was so much fun!!! The theme was "Nautical" and the results are fantastic. We asked the online community to vote for their favorites and alongside those chosen by the PEI Modern Quilt Guild Executive, we have the winners and their blocks: 

Last, but not least we have:

Show & Share

Cathy shared this fabric panel she designed and had printed on Spoonflower. There are some fun mugrugs in her future....

Jean shared some postcards she had made from the recent CQA postcard workshop. As well as a couple she had made previously.

Roberta had several items to share. Here's a lovely apron made for her sister.

And this adorable camper pillow.

The following "Peaceful Sky" & "Sailing Days" panels were made using Row by Row kits.

This stunning Beach themed quilt used a panel beautifully.

The "Hearts Will Go On" quilt is a classic Storm at Sea design with a fun secondary design showing through.

Here's a close-up on the heart.

Roberta's Gravity quilt was stunning!! Love the use of Rainbow solids in this fun geometric design. This quilt is on my Make it Wishlist!!

Velda brought in her completed "The Avenue" quilt inspired by Jen Kingwell. The low volumes in this quilt were amazing!!!

Susan had some postcards to share, which will be sent to Quilt Canada 2018 (along with the others) for the postcard challenge,

and this "Star for Nora" quilt.

Gail had this fun Jelly Roll to show us, she's looking forward to making a quilt with this one!!!

Linda has been having fun making bowls!!!

And in between Quilt-Along projects she managed to make this super cute table topper.

Lucinda had these cute coasters to share. 

She shared these pretty postcards.

She also found this great vintage tin!!

Liz had this great bag to share. I really want to make one of these too.

Heather had more postcards.

A recently finished UFO finally complete. She doesn't use batiks much anymore, but this quilt is absolutely beautiful and she should be proud to finally have it finished after *ahem* 7 years. 

She also brought in her Amazing Mystery Quilt to show us her label.

Great meeting everyone!!! 

Here are  the upcoming events for the PEI Modern Quilt Guild.

The following Events are planned for the West Royalty Community Room, Sobeys, 39 Babineau Avenue, Charlottetown.  Save the dates!

May 12th:                       PEIMQG Sew-In (9am - 4 pm)

May 24th:                       PEIMQG Monthly Meeting (7 - 9 pm)

May 31st:                        PEIMQG Mystery Quilt-Along Grand Prize draw!!!

It's not too late to vote!!!!

We still have a little time left before we reveal the President's Challenge Blog Viewer's Choice award at this month's meeting. Please take a moment and vote for your favorite.

At the end of year potluck Heather J. presented the members with a challenge. The president's challenge had us taking home a paper bag of random scraps of solids. Each bag had a constant color that we had to use (Kona Regal). The theme was "Nautical" , and the results are amazing!!!! 

We would like the online community's help in choosing their Viewer's Choice".
Please find the poll at the bottom of the blogpost and vote for your favorite block. The winner will be announced at the April 26th meeting.

Which Nautical Block is your Favorite?

PEIMQG April 2018 Sew-In

What's the best way to spend a cold Spring Saturday? Quilting with friends, of course!!! As the cold temperatures have continued to linger, a small group of the PEIMQG members gathered together to sew, and pass the time. 

Dianne was working on her "No Measure Bargello" quilt, using an "Ocean Breeze" jellyroll.

Roberta was very productive cutting her fabrics for "Antelope Canyon" quilt kit. Aren't these fabrics so sophisticated!!

Lucinda was making Itty Bitty blocks for her "Long Time Gone" Quilt.

Linda was binding her "Patchwork City" Look she was even smiling while doing it!!

Our newest member, Janet, was working on a project which she started back in 1996!!!  Her EPP (English Paper Pieced) Hexies will become a beautiful "Grandmother's Flower Garden" quilt. 

Here's a section assembled, so we can see how it will come together. Just awesome!

Susan has been busy making Blocks for Humbolt Broncos.

Janice was playing with leftover HSTs.  Maybe they will get pieced into a backing??? 

Janice was working on a Quilt Block of the Month project, using up her scraps and stash. Sew pretty!!

Cathy was cutting T-shirts for some Comfort Quilt pieced Quilt backs.

Jean stopped by for a visit too.

We had a fun day together, laughing and enjoying each other's company. We even managed to get some sewing done!!

A couple of our members were away at retreat, sewing the whole weekend!!!! We can't wait to see what they accomplished this weekend.  

Upcoming Events

The following Events are planned for the West Royalty Community Room, Sobeys, 39 Babineau Avenue, Charlottetown.  Save the dates!

April 26th:                       PEIMQG Monthly Meeting (7 - 9 pm)

May 31st:                        PEIMQG Mystery Quilt-Along Grand Prize draw!!!

PEIMQG Mystery Quilt-Along Starburst Blossoms Stories

It's been a few days since the PEIMQG Mystery Quilt-Along was revealed. So what did everyone think? Were you surprised? Did I do a decent job keeping it a Mystery? I hope everyone had fun playing along and building the units from month to month. Now the real fun begins..... 

I certainly hope you like any of the versions I dreamed up, but before you start sewing everything together, why not take some time and play around with your units and the block placement.

As you can imagine, planning and organizing this endeavour was a an amazing experience. I began in early April of 2017, and here we are, a year later, and the whole thing is coming to its conclusion!!! I couldn't have done it without the support and encouragement from the members of the PEIMQG. 

Huge thanks go to President Heather J. for proofing ALL the written text for the tutorials. This in itself was a massive undertaking....(I will freely admit that I struggle with punctuation!!!! and spelling and grammar... Yikes!)

I also had a few members kind enough to act as pattern testers to make sure that all the math and measurements were correct and clear. Thank you to Heather J, Jean and Linda.  I encouraged them to be creative with the units and their layouts. Boy-oh-boy, they didn't disappoint!!! I asked these kind ladies to share their personal thoughts and explain how they made their quilts their own. 

We will start with the smallest and work our way to the largest.

Here are their Starburst Blossoms Stories.......


Linda's

I decided I would make a single block and give myself permission to play around with the colour choices for this project, hence the "Kona Brick" solid for background.

I made the "tulip" corners according to instructions, but my mini quilt wanted something that enclosed the edge more and drew the eye back into the centre. 

Rather than do this with a border around the edge, I decided to reduce the scale of the tulips and use the space for elongated half rectangles as leaves. The original tulips are based on a 3 x 3 grid of 2" squares (finished); my tulips with leaves are a 4 x 4 grid of 1.5" squares (finished).

My mini was beautifully quilted by Colleen H. in a starburst pattern using variegated pastel threads. I feel it really emphasizes the starburst design. 

I was blown away with how great all the mystery quilts turned out for our 3 pattern testers. The differences were intriguing and I will be spending a lot of time studying them when they are posted. Cathy put a huge amount of work into preparing all the information with so many different sizes and both traditional and modern layouts.

~Linda

Jean's

This has been a fabulous quilt along! Cathy Victor went way beyond with this pattern which allowed us so much choice in quilt size, type and layout. I now have a new favourite quilt that was not as labour intensive as other QALs I have  done and I learned a new trick or two which is always a bonus.

I purchased the text printed background fabric on our summer trip to Alberta at a really, really good price. Being a librarian, I love text and map printed fabrics. What I did not realize until I got home was the text was in French! No problem, just a surprise.

The next surprise was the first installment and the choices given. No question, Modern was the one for me.

Later, I learned that half square rectangles are not trimmed the same as half square triangles. Thank goodness I read the instructions  and viewed the video. I felt like Cathy had put that part in just for me!

I arranged the blocks in a way that was most pleasing to me on my design wall, stitched it together and bundled it off by post to my fabulous friend in Calgary to quilt for me. Now, Laila Nelson always knows that she has totally free rein when it comes to the longarm quilting and I love her creativity. When the quilt came home, imagine my surprise, when obviously Laila saw the design differently and had turned it 90 degrees. 

I had forgotten to mark the top. However, now it  looks even more modern as the design came in from the right and not from the left. Go figure! I love serendipitous events!

Cathy, should you decide to do another mystery quilt along you can count me in...

~Jean 

Heather J's

Mysteries are great reading material, but for a quilt, sometimes I'd rather know where my fabric choices are going to end up in the quilt! I took a leap of faith, and jumped in!  I was amazed at how the different monthly clues came together at the end, with Cathy throwing in those additional surprise cutting instructions.

I chose the collection from Libs Elliot curated by Mad About Patchwork and decided that my background would be a mix of low volume fabrics.  I knew I  was going to do the modern version, with a twist! 

I wanted to see what the block would look like if I broke up one frame.

In my negative spaces and in the black HST frame, I showcased one low volume print. 

Liz, from Blueberry Cove Longarm Quilting Studio, custom quilted it, calling it "my secret garden" as she was quilting it. She did a superb job, using a variety of thread colours, even quilting a cat in amongst the LV cat faces fabric. 

Mine is larger than the pattern, but using a wool batt makes for a fabulous drape in this quilt.
  

I am thrilled with my quilt!!! Thanks for keeping us in suspense Cathy!  It was fun!  This will be my quilt to snuggle under while reading my mysteries!

P.S.  I am looking forward to seeing everyone's interpretation of their Starburst Blossoms!  I hope you will share your stories when you post your quilt selfie (picture)!

~Heather J.

I am so pleased to see the way my fellow Guild members interpreted their quilts. I encourage anyone who wants to share their quilts and impressions of the PEIMQG Mystery Quilt-Along, to send a photo and their thoughts on the experience to peimqgmystery@gmail.com If you would like to be featured on the PEIMQG blog please let us know that it is okay to share your "Starburst Blossom Stories" with our followers.

~Cathy