March 6, 2021, Meeting Highlights

.  Contact Information – to reach a member, please find contact information in the GMQG 2020 Directory and/or use our guild email greenvillemqg@gmail.com.  A new 2021 Directory will be provided in April.

.  Thanks again to the Modern Quilt Guild (themodernquiltguild.com) for the use of their Zoom account.  If any member would like a recording of today's meeting, please email Brooke Stambersky or Dana Blasi within 14 days of the meeting date and she will send it to you.

.  Our next meeting will be held on Saturday, April 3, 2021, from 1 to 3 p.m.  Log on between 12:50 and 1:00 p.m. for a short visit prior to the start of the meeting.  Members will receive an email notice containing the Zoom meeting link and passcode prior to the meeting.

ST. GILES - FELLOWSHIP HALL UPDATE:

St. Giles may begin allowing groups back into their facilities late March/early April.

 

SEW-IN:

Sandy Helsel requested that members of the GMQG please send her an email if they are interested in participating in a “sew-in” at the Bernina shop on April 16th from 10-3.  As of this writing, masks are required at Bernina.  If there are at least 5 people interested, Sandy will make a request for their sewing room. 

MEMBERSHIP: 
We welcomed 24 members to our March Zoom meeting. 

POLL - MEETING IN PERSON:

Voting results from today’s poll of members in attendance and by proxy favors hybrid meetings.  We will further discuss during the next Board meeting to determine the details later this month.  Results:  Meeting in person only – 5; Zoom only – 4; Hybrid – 18. 

MEETINGS & PROGRAMS:

APRIL Speaker & Workshop:

For the April 3^rd Membership meeting, Maria Shell will virtually present “Building Community Through Quilts.”  Immediately following the guild meeting, she will conduct a (virtual) workshop on “Making Prints Out of Solids.”  The fee for the workshop is $25.00.  Contact us at greenvillemqg@gmail.com to sign up by PayPal invoice or by check payable to GMQG.  Once we have a final list of those who have paid, you will receive Maria’s handout from Dagmar or Dana.  Five slots remain open at the time of this writing. 

MAY PROGRM:  GEES BEND PANEL - FAYE JONES & RITA SASSONE

The May program is dedicated to a glimpse into the Quilters of Gees Bend. These talented quilters are descendants of slaves from an isolated plantation in rural Alabama. Without much exposure to the outside world and no art education, many generations of these women created stunning quilts which caused a sensation in the art and quilting world. 

MARCH 6th PROGRAM:  FAVORITE BOOKS - MEMBER PARTICIPATION

Today's program allowed each of us to bring forth one or two of our favorite quilting books and share what we love and enjoy about the book.  It was interesting to see what it is that draws each of us in, and sparks our inspiration and imagination. 

Dagmar Theodore shared:

.  15 Minutes of Play – Improvisational Quilts by Victoria Findlay Wolfe that presents a freeing way to use up your fabric scraps in bursts of 15 minutes to create “Made Fabric” to use in your quilts later.  Includes 16 traditional blocks, challenges and experiments; and

. Modern Quilt Magic by Victoria Findlay Wolfe proffers new piecing tricks to make five patchwork techniques easier and 17 projects to expand your piecing skills.

Christina Strickland shared:

. The Quilters Album of Patchwork Patterns by Jinny Beyer that contains 4,044 pieced blocks she and her son found by poring over newspapers, catalogs, patterns and magazines of the 1800s-1900s to prepare detailed illustrations along with grids, dates, construction how-tos, and multiple names of each block.

Sandy Helsel shared:

. Convergence Quilts by Ricky Tims that offers a fun, easy piecing technique featuring two or more fabrics cut into strips, sewn together, then cut and pieced again; and

. Crazy Curves by Elisa R. Wilson that explores the Drunkard’s Path block in three sizes.  Full size templates are included and ordering info for acrylic templates is provided.  Update an old block with many assorted colors.  Excellent instructions for working with curves.  Great for beginners.

Darlene Roberts shared:

. Material Obsession 2 by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke that presents more than 20 new quilts combining fresh, modern fabrics with traditional designs using bolder and large colorful prints such as those by Kaffe Fassett and Anna Marie Horner; and

. Longarm Quilting Workbook:  Basic Skills, Techniques & Motifs by Teresa Silva for piecing and modern longarm quilting with clear instructions and ideas for filling in a space.

Joan Manfre shared:

. Adventures in Design by Joen Wolfrom that presents nature’s design basics to help build a design foundation from which to develop your personal style; teaches the basics such as use of line, direction, shape, color, value, texture, proportion and scale then provides exercises to push you into analyzing and doing more.

Dana Blasi shared:

. Double Wedding Ring Quilts – Traditions Made Modern:  Full-Circle Sketches from Life by Victoria Findlay Wolfe featuring modern layouts and “made-fabric” innovations on the classic DWR with full-size patterns for 10 quilts; and

. Rings that Bind by Cheryl Phillips and Linda Pysto for a unique method of constructing a double wedding ring quilt, which also provides a quick method for piecing rings prior to cutting them out.

Susan Nunchuck Schumski shared:

. Quilting Traditions by Canadian, Devon Levione, featuring old-school skills to 12 slightly modernized, unusual quilts (and brought Susan back to quilting after pausing to reassess her quilting goals).  Emphasizes finding your inspiration for each quilt you make; and

. Rulerwork Quilting Idea Book by Amanda Murphy for longarm quilting and domestic quilting using six basic shapes with machine quilting rulers; 59 different designs.

Susan Rink shared:

. Measure the Possibilities with Omnigrid published March 15, 2000, by Nancy Johnson-Srebro, the key advocate of rotary cutting at its onset demonstrates how to use one ruler to cut out many shapes; a great how-to resource for anyone who does ruler cutting.  Eleven wall hanging patterns and hundreds of designs.

Brooke Stambersky shared:

. Color Inspirations by Darius A. Monsef IV, which comes with a CD, contains color palettes from the website COLOURlovers.com, organized by color family in a logical, easy-to-use format demonstrating 30,000 sometimes unexpected color combinations; and

. Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns by Barbara Brackman, a modernized version of her 1993 pattern-id book with full color and line drawings of over 4,000 pieced quilt block patterns.

BetterWorldBooks .com and Thriftbooks .com were recommended to find lower cost new and used books; free shipping. 

SHOW AND SHARE / QUILT QUARK GALLERY:

. Susan Schumski - Moda challenge entry for QuiltCon based on a design from a magazine based on a paper-pieced color wheel.

. Dagmar Theodore:

  . Snowflake quilt, made from a Modern Handcraft pattern through a quilt-along featuring randomly pieced, low-volume text prints in the background;

  . Flying Geese quilt ruler-quilted by Darlene Roberts;

  . Maypole quilt, a pattern by Suzy Quilts, quickly made in one afternoon using straight-line quilting; and

  . Race Car quilt for her car-crazy grandson using colors from his Cobra car with the Nürburgring Grand Prix racetrack quilted in the background.  She printed out an Excel spreadsheet with square cells, used a screenshot of a free crochet pattern found on Pinterest, and colored in the pattern allowing her to easily calculate the amount of fabric needed.

. Johnnie McKenzie shared her improv Sun quilt on which she hand stitched a large amount of loose yarn within the circle of the sun and hand beaded outward to create the rays of light on a background of improvisationally pieced “fractured” fabric. 

Please click on the Quilt Quark Gallery to see the quilts shown today.

Thanks to all our quilters for their Show & Shares!  Please continue to share your quilts with us by emailing photos either to greenvillemqg@gmail.com or to Secretary Dana Blasi.  Please take note:  if you are sending photos for Show & Share any later than 2 days prior to the membership meeting, please send them directly to Dana.  Inexplicably, we have experienced not receiving your photos in time for the meeting when sent to our Gmail up to 2 days prior to the meeting.

TEN MINUTES OF INSPIRATION - Johnnie McKenzie

Susan Nunchuck Schumski shared a photo of her first great great granddaughter that inspired Susan to make her a “forever quilt.”  She used true baby pink, navy, and gray, and picked a pattern with blocks on point to lend toward a design of diamonds with occlusions based on her granddaughter’s sparkling eyes.  See Susan’s quilt in the Quilt Quark Gallery.

PHILANTHROPY:

.  Quilts for Kids – The folks are back at Julie Valentine and we are in need of charity quilts!  Faye gave them 12 in December and took 17 to them in January.  Susan Rink is dropping 4 off to Faye today (thanks Susan!).  Remember these are not bed quilts, but Comfort quilts to snuggle.  Sizes may range from 30” x 30” all the way up to 45” x 45”.  Of course, these are approximate sizes.  Let your inspiration be your guide.

 

.  Faye has received a large quantity of upholstery and curtain weight fabric scraps of all shapes and sizes from Marion Mann of Fowler Interiors, which are great with which to cover a stool, magazine holder, or a box, or make tote bags, pillows, purses and pouches either for yourself or for charity.  Email Faye to make arrangements to see this fabric treasure!  (New members who do not yet have a Directory may send an email request to greenvillemqg@gmail.com.)

 

.  Faye has made several more attempts to reach out to Pendleton Place – Smith House to extend our offer of charity quilts or art lessons by Faye for the teenage girls housed there to no avail.  Faye will suspend any further attempts to reach them.

 

ANNUAL DUES - PAYPAL OPTION & EXTENDED DEADLINE:

While you can join GMQG at any time, our parent, the MQG, has extended the deadline for receipt of our information to March 31st to join GMQG and also get access to the MQG website with its plethora of free webinars, patterns, challenges, and the latest from QuiltCon.  If you plan on joining, please do so now so that Treasurer Cindy Lange has time to process your information before the end of the month.  Once she has sent in the batch of new members’ information to MQG, we will receive our new MQG membership cards.

 

ANNUAL RETREAT:

Sandy reported that Wildacres Retreat of Little Switzerland, NC, has contacted Faye regarding their opening for guests from April through October.  Sandy and Faye decided that due to Covid restrictions still in effect in that area, it would be better for our guild to request a date in the autumn, sometime between the last weekend in August and the end of October for our retreat at Wildacres.  We should know soon what time slots (Thursday through Sunday) will be available to us. We have requested the sewing room for 24 and lodging, double occupancy as in the past.

CARES & CONCERNS:

Sandy has requested members to please let her know if they know of a member experiencing serious illness or passing of family members to please let her know so she can send “get well” or sympathy cards from the guild.

WANTED:  CLASSIFIED ADS SUBCOMMITTEE:

We are looking for volunteers to participate in a new subcommittee to review procedures for adding classified ads to our blog for members to sell their quilty items and for quilt related businesses to advertise on the blog, in the Directory, and on our social media.  We have lots of ideas and examples and simply need someone to help organize it all.  Contact Brooke Stambersky to participate.

OTHER NEWS:

.  Gees Bend Retreats is going to open up registration in April 2021 for the next retreat to occur in 2022.  For further information, contact past attendees Faye Jones or Rita Sassone and/or go to geesbendquilting retreats dot com and sign up to be notified.  We are told it fills up fast.

.  Check out the GMQG Instagram account at @greenvillemqg (#greenvillemqg).

.  If members come across a link or other information they would like to share, they may forward it to President Brooke Stambersky to be shared at the next meeting.

See you next month!