May Meeting Recap (+ show and tell!)

We held our May meeting on the 14th at Bernina Sewing Center in Kalamazoo. 

A couple highlights from the minutes:

1. Elections! A BIG thank you goes out to Holly and Mary, who are stepping down from our executive board. Our guild wouldn't be what it is without your roles in our first year of existence! 

Congratulations to our elected board, unanimously approved at the meeting, serving from May 2014 through May 2015:

President: Stephanie

Vice-President: Jillian

Treasurer: Terri

Web Coordinator: Carolyn

Secretary: Joanne

2. Guild retreat! Scheduled for November 14-16. Find preliminary details here, and watch for more details both here on the blog and at the July meeting.

3. Upcoming online challenges! I (Lisa) will be posting the Challenge for the July meeting soon, as well as details about the text fabric swap for the July meeting (with fabric to be used for the September Challenge).

4. Sharon and Pam shared two different binding techniques--thanks ladies!

Here, Sharon demonstrates her preferred method:

And Pam shows hers:

And now, onto everyone's favorite...show and tell!

Jill shared her finished quilt made from the wonky star blocks. 

Lisa shared her finished quilt (except for hand stitching the binding, which has since happened) from the improv herringbone challenge:

Stephanie shared her liberated medallion work in progress from the Gwen Marston workshop:

Stephanie also shared some adorable zipper pouches she's been making:

And a few more (I think she had 4 of the pencil version?):

Pam shared her liberated medallion from Gwen's workshop:

Terri shared a piece she made at a class at the AQS show in Paducah:

Mary shared her small studies piece from Gwen Marston's workshop:

Joanne shared 3 quilts she's made:

Joanne's second quilt:

And Joanne's third quilt:

Jane shared her liberated medallion piece from Gwen's workshop, made primarily with Kaffe Fassett fabric:

Jane also shared this modern Christmas quilt top she finished:

Jackie shared two different star block projects in progress: 

And Jackie's second star project--great fussy cutting!

Jill shared a saw blade quilt she's been making for her dad:

Tina shared a baby quilt she made from a pack of 2" squares she won:

Connie shared a purse that Joanne made for her:

As well as her piece from Gwen's liberated medallions workshop:

Lisa shared her small studies piece from Gwen's workshop:

And her liberated medallion piece:

Carolyn shared a hexagon piece that she made and hand quilted:

Holly shared her small studies piece:

And her liberated medallion piece:

Teri brought in several projects to share: First, a drunkard's path design:

This neat lantern-looking design:

Love the scrappiness and the colors in this quilt of Teri's:

Wonky bullseyes from Teri:

And one last one from Teri:

Sandy shared her hexy project in the works: great color scheme!

Mark your calendars for our next meeting on July 26! More details to follow.
And...if I made any mistakes in the information about the show and tell pictures, please leave a comment letting me know so I can fix it!

January Online Guild Activity!

Hi Everyone!
It's Lisa here with our January online activity. Is it just me, or did December and the holidays go especially fast this year? 

I try to have a sample block done to show when I do these posts, but I'm so late in getting this up, and now with the *lovely* weather outside, I wanted to get it up ASAP in case you are housebound from the cold and snow and want to SEW!!! 

Our block for the January meeting: the wonky star! (Shown in digital form...I'll be sewing mine later this week!)

You can find the tutorial for this from Shanna at Fiber of All Sorts. She has the directions for 12.5" unfinished blocks. She's also got cutting information for 6.5" unfinished blocks. You can either make a 12.5" block or you can make four 6.5" blocks and join them together to make a four-patch of stars. 

So to recap:

One 12.5" star block

If you're really ambitious, follow the cutting for the 6.5" star blocks and join four together to make a four-patch star block, as shown above. This will count as 1 block for the drawing.

Color Specs:
Anything you like, but let's switch it up from  Shanna's original. Make your star white and the background the print or colored solid fabric, as I've shown in my illustrations. Please do use the same fabric for the entire background in each star block though. 

Submission/Winning:

• Submit a photo of the completed block by January 24.  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 GLMQG-Jan14
• 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 January 25.  You do not need to be present 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 January 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?

Any questions? Leave a comment below. See you at our January meeting!