September Meeting Summary (much belated)

We had 20 members at the September meeting, including two new members,  Jeanine and Patty. Welcome!

Ed Orloff, physical therapist, gave us a presentation on how to prevent injuries and keep on quilting. He is a very informative and entertaining speaker. We appreciate all the helpful suggestions he shared with us. Ed is a member of the Borgess Spine Therapy Team and has this alphabet soup after his name: PT, DPT, CSCS, Dip.MDT!

Susan won 20 spider web blocks in our drawing. Congratulations!

We had a wonderful show and tell. Thanks to everyone for sharing.

A cutting mat and a fabric bundle were given to two luck door prize winners. Congratulations!

A sew-in followed our meeting.

And now, the show and tell portion of the blog post:

Susan shared a row quilt made out of such fun fabrics:

With a pieced back!

Joanne shared a pencil pouch with a clear laminate pocket:

And a sweet little duffle made out of laminated fabric:

 Jackie shared her finished improv medallion top from the Gwen Marston workshop. Beautiful!

And her gorgeous rainbow kaleidoscope quilt:

And an iPad holder:

Jane shared a tote bag she made--love the fabric and the pattern! 

Pam shared a Jacquie Gehring quilt that she won--wow!

Stephanie shared her curved nine-patch quilt that had been quilted and bound. Love the quilting! Wow again!

And her new favorite pouch to make--the pouch of many zippers! :)

with a patchwork exterior

Love the roller skating fabric on Jill's new purse!

And now, a few unlabeled show and tell pics (this is what I get for posting the pics from the September meeting in March!!! Sorry about that...) I can't remember who made what or the stories behind them--if you made them or know who did, please let me know and I'll add in the info. (lisaeruble (at) gmail.com).

A completed online activity quilt top!

Simple = beautiful in this quilt:

Stars and hexagons (Jackie?)

August Online Activity!

Get your text fabric ready! It's time for our August Online Activity!!

We're going to be making the Spiderweb block, as suggested by Stephanie. I made mine this afternoon and the tutorial is excellent--easy to follow.

The details:

• Find the tutorial to make the block here.
• Please use black on white/cream text fabric for the center star, which means you'll need a 12-1/2" square of text fabric to get you started.
• For the strips, I followed her recommendation of using strips ranging from 1" to 2" wide. Please use bright, candy-like colors. You can see I've got a bit of variety in mine. :)
• I will stress a few points from the tutorial and from my own experience; first, follow the directions for marking your triangles--it may seem strange, but trust me--don't think too much about it--just do what she says and it works out! 
• Second, you're only sewing the strips to each other, not to the text fabric behind as you would in a typical foundation. This means you'll have a triangle of text fabric to trim at the end.
• Third, this is my own point to stress--after you trim each quarter block, you'll have a decent amount of bias edges. When you start assembling the quarter blocks into the block, pin frequently! Especially where the text fabric joins the first strip so that you get decent points. The text fabric will be very stretchy.
• Fourth, after the block is assembled, the tutorial says to trim the block to 12". Despite everyone's best effort, I anticipate there being a bit of variety in our block sizes (maybe because mine measures more like 11-3/4" square?!?!). I recommend not trimming--that way the winner of the blocks can trim them all as she/he likes. So to repeat, do not trim the block to 12" when you finish. (And sorry, whoever wins, that mine is already a little small!)

 Here's a pic of my quarter block pieces, pre assembly. I fell more in love with this block as I made it--someone's going to end up with a great quilt!

Submission/Winning:

• Submit a photo of the completed block by Sept 26.  We want this to be fun and easy, not stressful, so we have several options for submitting your photo.
• If you have a Flickr account, please post the photo to Flickr, add it to the Great Lakes Modern Quilt Guild group pool, and tag it GLMQG0914. *Adding the tag is key, because it allows the photo to get into the slideshow on our blog.*
• If you have a Facebook account, you may post the picture to the Great Lakes Modern Quilt Guild Facebook page. 
• You may email your photo to glmodernquilter@gmail.com 
• If you do not have access to a digital camera, contact me (Lisa) and I will arrange to photograph your block.
• How to win all the blocks:
• We are going to draw for a winner of all the blocks at our next live meeting, which is September 27.  You do not need to be present to win.
• IMPORTANT: If you want to be entered in the drawing but will not be at the meeting with your block, please make sure to let another attendee know. We try our best to make sure everyone who submits a photo of their block gets entered in the drawing, but making sure a friend puts your name in the hat will guarantee you have a chance to win!
• You get your name in the drawing each time you enter a block.  So, if you submit two blocks, your name goes in the drawing twice!
• Please bring your completed block to the September meeting so all the blocks can be delivered to the winner.  If the winner is not at the meeting, we will mail them to him/her.
• We'll post the name of the winner here on the blog.  So, if we don't have your email address, check the blog so you can see if you won and can send us your contact information.  (If you are at the meeting, you'll get your blocks on the spot!)
• If you will not be at the meeting, either
• Give the block to a friend to bring it for you, or
• Mail it in.  E-mail us at glmodernquilter@gmail.com, and we'll send you the mailing address where you can send your blocks.

• That winner must assemble the blocks into a finished quilt before being eligible to win again. Fair enough?

As always, leave a comment if you have a question and I'll try to answer it!
Thanks!
Lisa

Text fabric swap details!

Hi all,
We'd talked at the May meeting about doing a text fabric swap in July, and the date is fast approaching!

Here are the details:

• If you want to participate, bring a fat quarter of text fabric to swap. (If you like, bring more than one and you'll take more than one home...it's up to you!)
• At the meeting, anyone who brings a fat quarter (or more than one) to swap will take home a different fat quarter. 
• If you can't make the July meeting (July 26) send your fat quarter with a friend so you can still be part of the swap!
• Text fabric is any fabric with words/numbers/writing on it. Here are some examples below.

link

link

link

link

(Note: I found all of these examples [and many more!] simply by googling "text fabric." You can also check out your favorite online quilt shops.)

A few shops to look at:

Pink Castle Fabrics

Pink Chalk Fabrics

Hawthorne Threads

************************************************************

Now, to make things slightly more complicated, if you like, this can tie into our next online activity (for the September meeting). Our block will be the spider web block (find the tutorial here and see the block photo further down in this post). We will be asking you to use black on white/cream text fabric for the center "star" (the solid white portion) of the tutorial block.

Sample of black text on white/cream background:

link

Here's a peek at the block (color scheme of the pieced portion still to be determined--we'll let you know details at the July meeting/on the blog after the July meeting):

Photo and tutorial: 

http://alamodefabric.blogspot.com/2010/06/spider-web-quilt-block-tutorial.html

What does this mean?

• You may wish to purchase more than a fat quarter of text fabric when you choose something for the swap. 
• Each spider web block uses a 12-1/2" square of text fabric. Ultimately, you'll have text fabric scraps left over from making the spider web block, but you will only be able to get ONE 12-1/2" square (for the block activity) out of a fat quarter. 
• If you choose a non white and black text fabric for the swap, that's fine--just make sure you also have a white and black text fabric option of your own to use for making your online activity block. (I say this because I haven't seen a lot of text fabrics around the area--you may end up going online to buy text fabric for the swap and/or activity, and this way you can plan ahead to purchase both at the same time.)
• If you buy 1/2 yard of fabric, you can cut it into 1 fat quarter for the swap and still have fabric left to make one spider web block. If you buy 3/4 yard of fabric, you can cut your fat quarter for the swap and be able to make 2 spider web blocks (or just have leftover text fabric to play with!). *You can also the FQ you receive in the swap for your block if it is black on white.*

I tried to make this post uncomplicated, but I'm not totally sure I succeeded! If you have questions or need help finding fabric, please leave a message in the comments and I'll get in touch with you.

Thanks!

Lisa

p.s. If you have suggestions on where else online to shop specifically for text fabric, please leave web addresses in the comments below and/or on Facebook!