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Healing Boston

There are a couple of great efforts in the modern quilt world to help heal Boston.

One is through the Boston Modern Quilt Guild. They are asking for quilt blocks by May 24 to make modern, bright, and cheerful quilts (in the colors of blue, yellow, gray, and white). The wonderful Lori Saporito has volunteered to collect any blocks made by our guild at the May meeting - if you can make one, it would be appreciated, I'm sure.

Here's the link to the Boston MQG's post (size requirements, explanation, etc.).
Here's the Flickr group, which currently shows blocks people are working on all over the world.

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Finally, there's an effort through the Vancouver MQG to send flags to Boston.

 

You can make a piece of a penant/flag that will hang in Boston. The deadline is May 21. Check out the blog post for more details.

Let's continue to keep Boston in our thoughts.

-Jess S.

Upcoming: June Events

I will repost this as it gets closer.
THERE IS NO JUNE MEETING!

Instead, paid members can attend a free lecture given by Angela Walters, a modern machine quilter and author (see her blog)!

When: Friday, June 14, 7-8:30 pm
Where: Pennington Quilt Works
RSVP for this event ASAP, so we know how many people we can expect.

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Also, Angela will be giving a modern machine quilting workshop the same weekend. Members can pay $55 to attend (all checks go to our treasurer, Kristina. You can pay at the May meeting!). If it doesn't fill to 24, we'll open it up to non-members.

When: Sunday, June 16, 1-5 pm
Where: TBA (near Pennington, NJ)
RSVP for this event, so we know how many people we can expect.

Thanks! Stay tuned for some more pictures from our retreat.
-Jess S.

May Meeting!

Hi all,
Please join us for our May meeting!
At this meeting we will:
- Have a demonstration on machine binding
- Swap our mini quilts (24" or less on all sides in an analogous compliment color scheme - if you want help, go to Color Scheme Designer ,click "accented analogic," and play with the color wheel)
- kick off the guild bee!
- general business
- regular show and tell and brainstorming
REMINDER: THERE WILL NOT BE A REGULAR JUNE MEETING

Event Details & RSVP
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What: May Meeting
Who: Central Jersey Modern Quilt Guild
When: Tue May 14, 2013, 7-9:30 pm EDT
Where: Pennington Quilt Works
Pennington, NJ

RSVP: http://www.bigtent.com/home/calendar/event/77578480

April Meeting Recap

This month's meeting took place on Tuesday, April 9, with yours truly covering as meeting leader. P.S. We had 26 people - a huge meeting! And, finally, thanks to Kathleen, our secretary, for compiling the minutes. The minutes and my notes are the basis for this post.

Info and Upcoming Events:

• New members, please pay your dues and join the Big Tent website group to see announcements, share pictures and documents and RSVP to upcoming meetings. Let Jessica Levitt know if you do not receive an invite to the Big Tent group.
•  Who wants to teach? Give a short 10 to 30 minute demo or lesson and receive a $10 giftcard to Pennington Quilt Works.
• Anyone wishing to enter a quilt into the Modern Quilt Showcase at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, Texas should check out www.callforentriesmodernquilts.com. Deadline is April 26th. The event takes place October 31st to November 3rd.  We discussed this at the meeting - all of you should consider it!

• We had a fantastic first weekend retreat in Princeton this past weekend! Check out the first post! (I'll be posting another one later this week, with more pictures). 

• Our guild bee will begin in May, with the first quilter bringing in a design and/or fabric for those participating to follow. Check out our "Guild Bee" tab at the top of this blog for more info. MORE INFO will be out sometime very soon to those who signed up (I think we have more then 12 now, so we can keep it going for an entire year! Yay!)

• Angela Walters, who is a very well-known author and modern machine quilter, will present a free lecture to paid members on Friday, June 14th at PQW, from 7-8:30pm at Pennington Quilt Works IN PLACE of our regular June meeting. Check out her blog and her free Craftsy lecture from QuiltCon (you need an account to view - that's also free!)

• Angela will also present a workshop on the topic of modern machine quilting on your home machine, on Sunday, June 16th from 1-5pm. Cost to members is $55. Sign up now and make payment to Kristina (you can email the guild for her address, if you want to send her a check). We expect this will fill quickly. You will bring your machine - any other supplies will be determined at a later date. Location TBA.

Meeting:

• Discussion on threads: Members brought in different kinds of threads and discussed using them for different reasons (piecing versus quilting, for example). 
• We also looked at these pictures of thread under a microscope from the blog Owen's Olivia to compare thread quality. I brought up the topics of twist in the threads (you can see that in the pictures from the blog above), loose fibers, and smoothness.
•  Finally, we talked about using polyester vs. cotton threads, and which brands we preferred.
• Check out the "downloads" section of our BigTent group for some useful thread information - thanks, Robin!
  
• Discussion on borders: Based on the Modern Quilt Guild's definition of modern quilting, we talked about the usefulness of borders in modern quilting. Our main consensus was that they are either used as an extra design element, to add more color, or to simply add size to the quilt in question (I sound like a detective). Members shared their examples of borders in their recent finishes.

• Challenge: Stash buster: Nothing was to be bought (though there were no quilt police around, so I broke the rules :) ). Members shared their projects:

 

• Finally, we had show and tell.

 

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May Meeting - Tuesday, May 14 @ 7pm, PQW

• Mini workshop with Jessica Levitt on machine binding
• Spotlight on Lee Burnham (thanks for volunteering, Lee!)
• SWAP: Mini quilts! Should be 24" or less on all sides - in an analogous compliment color scheme (we are applying our knowledge from our color theory workshop - but of course, even if you didn't go, you should make one!)

 

(picture from here)

This means your color scheme should be, on the color wheel, one color along with three directly across from it. This is a great website to play with this kind of color wheel (ours is "accented analogic").

Good luck! Can't wait to see those mini quilts :)

-Jess S.

"Can ya quilt me a poncho?"

This is just one of the questions we've gotten today at our guild retreat. It hasn't gotten old yet.



I'm live blogging from Princeton. We're down from about 11 to 4 people at 11:39, and it looks like we'll be up for quite a while! Some of us are staying overnight so as long as we can keep our eyes open, we'll be in this room.

 Kristina and Sara revolutionize pressing. Seriously amazed over here.

We're expecting a few more people to be joining us tomorrow afternoon and night.  Woohoo! We've also encountered a loud lacrosse team, confusion at a local restaurant, and quilt sleeve whining.

Also, apparently, our president "likes sewing." This was a random comment made at midnight. I think we're getting tired. :)

-Jess S.

April Meeting, and Retreat: Reminders and RSVP

It's going to be a busy and awesome week for our guild!

• RSVP: April Meeting, Tues. April 9 @ 7 pm, Pennington Quilt Works

At this meeting we will:
- Discuss threads - bring your fav brands to share
- Discuss borders - do you use them and how? Bring examples if you'd like
- Share our challenge - stash buster - make a quilt entirely out of materials you already have at home, no buying anything
- General business
- Regular show and tell and brainstorming on your current projects
- Be awesome because I'm leading this one (we'll miss you, Jess!)

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• RSVP: CJMQG Weekend Retreat, Fri. April 12 - Sun. April 14

It's almost here!! For more details, see the RSVP page.


 Can't wait for a great week with you ladies!

-Jess S.

Modern Monday #15: 4/1/13

 Modern Monday posts detail happenings and trends in the modern quilt blog world. I will discuss general news, significant contests and their results, new quilt-a-longs, and post Flickr inspiration boards. My hope is that everyone, both CJMQG members and modern quilters around the internet, will find some inspiration and get involved with the online world!

Happy April!

New Quilt Alongs:

 

 Check it out - this pattern uses quarter yards and starts very soon! Check out the color post, which reflects some of the things we discussed in our color class.



Flickr Inspiration:
 

1. field study zig zag, rainbow string, 2. Progress - MSMS, 3. Final Reveal!, 4. Atomic Pinwheels eggplant, 5. Half square triangle quilt top, 6. Color Wheel Quilt



-Jess S.