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.
- 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.
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!)
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.
