Linda McLaren's demonstration of the One Block Wonder.  So many options to consider!

One Block Wonder - one of our guild members project in process

We had a wonderful turnout for our first meeting of the year with 34 folks attending.
Kristyn gave a 2017 update and thanked all members who taught mini-workshops and all businesses that supported us on our website.
The Canada 150 Blocks display that travelled throughout London Public Library Branches through 2017 was very popular with the public. Kristyn returned  members' blocks.
For 2018, we will be meeting in the gym every month except for February.  We are also going to use a microphone next month.  The full program for next year is outlined on our website. Our February theme is Notions and everyone is invited to bring along your favourite notion.  We will have two projects: A Thread Catcher and a Mason Jar Notions Holder.  Please bring along a mason jar as well as fabric scraps to use in the activities.
If anyone has ideas for Library Books to add to our collection, please let Kristyn know.

MQG Update: Linda McLaren
The Modern Quilt Guild is redesigning its website. 
The Block of the Month has been renamed Block Study.  They also have a Quilt of the Month.
A new season of Fresh Quilting has been posted on the MQG website.
Anyone who has signed up for the Riley Blake challenge--your fabrics will come to the guild.
The mini-swap deadline is Feb. 9.
The newest publication, Modern Quilts: Designs of the New Century, features a quilt by Kristyn.  The book may be purchased through the MQG or through Amazon.

People are transitioning into their new roles in the guild during January.

Upcoming Events:
March 5-29;  Landscapes of Israel: An Exhibition of Quilts, Jewish Community Centre, London,ON.
April 26-28:  Piecemakers 2018 Quilt Show, Pyramid Rec Centre, St. Mary's, ON.
May 7: Shannon Brinkley Lecture, Sarnia Quilters Guild, Sarnia, ON.
May 8, 9: Shannon Brinkley Classes, Sarnia, ON. Representatives will be at our next meeting to register folks for the May 9 class ($80)
May 21-26:  Quilts of Iceland:  land of ice and lights, Ailsa Craig Recreation Centre, Ailsa Craig,ON.
May 22-26: Quilt and Fibre Art Festival, St. Jacobs, ON
June 1,2:  A Feast for the Eye, Sarnia Quilters Guild,Point Edward Arena, Point Edward, ON.

Show and Share:
Members showed examples of their recent quilting.

Program: Linda gave an excellent demonstration of the One Block Wonder technique, showing her quilts as well as member’s pieces. She  provided lots of support for members trying this technique. 

The book, One Block Wonder, which illustrates this technique,  is coming to our Library.​
Our next meeting will be held on Saturday, February 10 at 12:30 at the Boyle Community Centre. Hope to see you there!

Our final meeting of the year was held December 9th.  What a fun meeting it was!  We were able to take over the Boyle Community Centre gym which gave us lots of space for all of this month's activities. 

​We had a ton of homemade tasty treats and lots of gifts to exchange. 

​Mary, Kristyn & Sonia each held a demonstration of Christmas crafts. ​

Stache Fabrics was our very special guest vendor!

As always we had some wonderful quilts that were shared!

We would like to thank all f the 2017 Executive who have made this year such a success!  We look forward to continuing all over our quilty fun in 2018!

Have a happy & safe New Year!  See you at our January 13th meeting!

Can you believe 2018 is only a month away?  Where does the time go?

2018 Membership renewals are going on now for current, in good standing members.  Thank you to those that renewed at the November meeting,  there will be 2018 forms at the December meeting too. If you can not attend, but wish to continue as a member, please email the guild and let us know.  If are not able to renew your membership. please let us know that too as, we have a waiting list for new memberships. 

Here is what is going on for the December Holiday meeting- hope you can join us, guests welcome!  DECEMBER

 November meeting was held on November 11, 2018.  We had a packed house!

Sonia, Nancy & Kristyn all took turns discussing different aspects of creating movement in quilts.  

During Sonia's section, we discussed as a group different ways we could create movement in our upcoming Logo Quilt.  We worked on several possible arrangements using our members quilt blocks made for the Logo Challenge.

During Nancy's section, she discussed how colour can create movement throughout the quilt.  We were each given a template to use to colour and create our own version of movement using colour in quilt design.

During Kristyn's section, she demonstrated various quilting techniques that can be used to create movement in quilts.

As always, we had some pretty fabulous quilts at our show and share!

​

It's one month until Christmas Eve, which means our Holiday meeting is fast approaching.  This post will have all the information you need if you wished to participate in our make your own ornaments as well as the potluck and gift exchange.  (all are totally optional and nothing is required of you, please feel free to attend and socialize if you wish)   Guests are welcome, come for the fun, don't worry about bringing anything unless you wish to. 

Our meeting is from 12-5 on Saturday December 9th at the Boyle Community Centre.

We will be making Christmas ornaments or a pillow for the program portion.  The 3 options are a folded fabric ball, clear ball filled with fabric snippets and a scrappy appliqué block that could be used as a pillow or a small mini quilt.  The supplies for each are listed below.

Folded Fabric Ball:
(we only have 3 spaces left for this craft so please let us know if you wished to make the fabric ball)
(the pins and foam balls will be provided)
You need to bring- 3 contrasting fabrics that are 2 1/2" squares.  8 squares for the centre and 16 for the other 2 sections. Also bring a strip of fabric to finish the edge maybe 12" x 2" wide and a ribbon for the top. 
And bring your basic sewing kit just in case.

For the Scrappy Appliqué block:
(some fusible is provided)
Bring your fabric scraps, a 12" square of fabric and some fusible web.  We will have fusible webbing to use, but bring your own if you have a specific brand you prefer. ​ Also bring your basic sewing kit. 

We are also collecting a voluntary offering of money to use for our Lear to Quilt Outreach Program at Limberlost so that we can purchase some needed supplies like rotary cutter blades, pins etc. - you know the notions that seem to need to be replaced often.  Please see Veronica for any donations or to answer any questions you might have.  

We hope you come with an empty tummy too as we will have pot luck snacks to share.  Please bring some dish to share, like cheese and crackers, veggies and dip, meatballs- the typical pot luck items.  We have a fridge and stove if needed.  And bring your own beverage.  

One of our members Michaelanne has opened an online shop called Stache Fabrics and Notions and she will be a vendor at the meeting as well.  Lots of beautiful fabrics will be for sale as well as some notions. 

And if you would like to participate, we also like to have a gift exchange.  You can bring a small item that you purchase or make such as a mug rug, pencil case or wide open pouch (as we are all experts on making the pouches from our January meeting) Here are some ideas for you.
​

We hope to see you on December 9th, it's such a fun meeting to attend!  Any questions please let us know. 

​Here is a reminder for our November Meeting that will be held November 11, 2017 12pm-2pm at our new location, Boyle Community Centre, 530 Charlotte St.

Don't forget to wear your newly made personalized name tags!

Here is our agenda:

Policy Updates:

• Library
• Membership

Trunk Show Update

MQG Update
 
Outreach Program:

• Limberlost Student Quilt Raffle - $2 each, 3 for $5 and 12 for $10
• Volunteers needed

Mini Quilt Swap

Upcoming Events:

• Christmas Meeting- pot luck and gift exchange and vendor

Blocks

• If you still have any Guild logo blocks, please bring them to this meeting.

Show and Share
 

When you want to figure out how to make a regular sized quilt block much larger scale- the best way is to have a Secondary School math teacher teach at guild!  And if Sarah teaches her students like this- they are so lucky as she is an amazing teacher!

You can tell when a teacher is doing a demo- there is always a huge piece of paper with steps listed! 

The idea is to take a regular sized quilt block and then make it much larger.  How big do you want the block? Do you want to use the whole block or just a portion of it when enlarged?  Do you want a variety of sized blocks in your design?  We learned it all today at our meeting!  

Sarah brought a bunch of example blocks, and each guild member took a block and then did the "quilty" math to figure out the new larger dimensions.  Here are some of the graph paper calculations, and the possible quilt designs. 

We even have an action shot of Carol colouring her block.

Here are some of Sarah's examples on how to make a quilt top with large blocks.

And these are our show and share quilts.  The maker and pattern name to follow:

And Linda will be demoing how to make a One Block Wonder quilt at our January meeting. 

Here is a reminder for our October Meeting that will be held October 14, 2017 12pm-2pm at our new location, Boyle Community Centre, 530 Charlotte St.

Here is our agenda:
Volunteers Needed:

• Quilts needed for Sarnia Guild trunk show, please bring quilts to Oct meeting. 
• Executive Positions- please sign up
• November lesson- need a presenter

Upcoming Events:

• Hand Sew Happy Hour, November 9th at Anderson Craft Ale
• Canada 150
• Cherrywood
• Christmas Meeting- pot luck and gift exchange and vendor

Blocks

• Please bring in the guild logo quilt blocks and the Michael Miller blocks.

MQG Update

• Swaps sign up
• Member Buzz
• Modern Monthly

Limberlost Student Quilt Raffle:
$2 each, 3 for $5 and 12 for $10
 
Boyle Info
 
Show and Share
 
Large Scale Lesson Supplies Needed:
Pencil, eraser maybe pencil crayons if they have them. We will have some extra pencil crayons if needed.  Do not set up machines until the sewing time at the end as they won't be needed for the lesson.
We will have a open sew-in until 5pm that day.  Bring a project and stay for the afternoon!

After almost a year of anticipation, our guild workshop with Libs Elliott had finally arrived!  25 eager students were up bright and early and ready to start class.  

Libs gave us some of her background about design school, her start into quilting, her quilt commissions and of course her design on the collectable Absolut vodka bottle.  Then we got right to playing a game and coming up with our own unique layout to her Embrace the Chaos quilt design.

We were given a large selection of possible blocks to choose from and once we had picked 5, Libs then started our BINGO style game to come up with the layout for these 5 blocks. 

When we were all happy with the quilt design we took some time to colour in our blocks for reference.  Here are a few of the quilt layouts from the students.

And some students cut out fabric for reference as well as matched the pencil crayons exactly to their fabric selections! 

Mid morning snack break consisted of some wonderful baked goods and home made cookies- thanks to those that knew we would need a sugar fix throughout the day.  Not many left by the end of the day though. 

Here is everyone hard at work making blocks. 

And once we had enough blocks made, it was time to lay out our blocks into our personal quilt top. 

I think this might have been the only quilting class where there was more vodka on the tables than coffee!  Thanks to Libs for autographing all our bottles! 

Thanks again Libs for such a wonderful day!  I can't wait to see 25 finished Embrace The Chaos quilts over the next few months!  

Here are 4 finished quilts at our October meeting Show and Share.  25 students in the class, 4 quilts finished- 21 more to come for Show and Share (but who's counting?)