BAMQG Various & Sundry

Here some fun links that might be of interest to members. Enjoy!


Tips and Tricks
Amanda has introduced us to her cat bed project. All People Quilt has a related tip about dog beds. Size them down to make smaller ones for Amanda's project. ;-) You can also use this tip to store your scraps until Amanda is taking them again.

Modern Patterns
Point me by Denyse Schmidt. Who will be the first to make it?

Quilter's Survey
Take the survey and tell the industry what you think. It closes on January 30!

Road to California
Check out the Flickr Stream of quilts from the show.

Tutorials

How to sew curves from Piecemeal Quilts.
Fresh Lemons Y seam tutorial.

Fabric
Aunt Edna from Denyse Schmdit is coming soon. Check out the DSQuilts website and follow her on Facebook.

Blogs and Web
Did you see the new look for the LizzieBCr8tive blog?

The Guild's First Sew Day

The group held it's first Sew Day on January 21. There were about 20 people in attendance for most of the day, with about 10 people staying on from 4pm on. There was no meeting component and no scheduled activities, just people working on their projects.

We only had 11 tables for the room, so it was 2 per table during the busiest hours in the afternoon.  We had 4 ironing stations set up for most of the day, but people mostly did cutting at their own tables.  It's great to sit by the ironing stations because you get to chat with everyone when the come up to press their work!  It's also great to sit by the back wall, which has a sort of fabric covering and worked as a huge (and semi-secret) design wall.  Julie and Kathleen also brought design walls, and so many people were laying things out that there was also heavy use of the "design floor" areas near the windows.

People worked on a ton of projects. Some of them were:

• Peggy - a postage stamp charity quilt for the guild
• Sheetal - her first me-made blouse, with cute gathers in the back (Sheetal finished most of the blouse and then put sleeves on it the next day, wahoo!
• Diana - wavy quilting on a curves quilt (Diana tried both free motion quilting and the walking foot over the course of her marathon day of quilting)
• Adrianne & Julie - huge swoon blocks (Julie managed to finish two big swoon blocks during the sew day, leaving her 1/3 of the way done with this quilt!)
• Lisa - half square triangles to recreate her first ever quilt with a more modern look  (Lisa showed me her no-trim method for making multiple half square triangles and I am definitely going to try it!)
• Colleen - Sewed stars and then laid out and assembled a fussy-cut Heather Ross Quilt (Colleen aaaaalmost finished this quilt top, she was working on the last row when we had to close up shop and go home at 8pm)
• Ruth - Did an "over the hump" theme for the day, getting things rolling on several stuck projects:  a postage stamp quilt from vintage sheet squares, an apron, oven mitt, and quilting her Kona challenge quilt
• Kathleen - teal and red blocks
• Jennifer - charity quilt for the guild, I believe, but I think she also did another project.
• Deborah - red and teal cross blocks
• Sara - was laying out a pretty quilt on the design wall
• Mel - was laying something  out on the floor in the corner but I didn't get to go see it (from the sew day pictures it looks like it may have been a baby quilt)
• Claire - continued quilting a quilt that she started on the long-arm
• Angela - quilted a cute quilt with one of my favorite animal prints on the back
• Alison - I'm not sure what she was piecing, but she used the prettiest redish-orange and teal fabric to do it.
• Lynette - 6 point-star quilt
• Kelly was cutting in the back corner using an Accuquilt cutter, not sure what the project was for.
• Rhonda showed the AWESOME robot quilt top that she recently finished, but I didn't get to see what else she was working on.  She was very concerned about the South Carolina primaries going on that day, though.
• Cynthia was there working away.

Kathleen took orders and picked up lunch for about half the people there at 12:30 (the rest went various places or brought lunch) and we all ate lined up in the sitting area right outside the sewing room.

People brought plenty of snacks and they lasted all day, although next time I'm going to bring my own tea bags.  (Someone was trying to kill people by offering up decaf tea at 10am - the horror!)  The coffee stand outside is really more of a self-serve deal with coffee for $1 per cup.  I took a short walk down the street in the afternoon for a stretch break and to pick up some tea.

Overall, there was a ton of enthusiasm and people were really focused on their projects (unlike the sew times after our meetings, when more people use the limited time available to chat)

Also, in this room we are required to put away tables and chairs before we go home, and people were FABULOUS about taking care of their area before heading home.  The last 5 of us to leave only had to put up our own stations and dispose of the remaining snacks before

Thanks to Ruth for helping with this report! You can find some additional thoughts about the day at Doodles and Designs.

~Jaye

January Sew Day

DATE: Saturday, January 21 

TIME: 10am-8pm

ADDRESS: Los Altos Library, 13 S. San Antonio Road, Los Altos, Ca

Food:  The room rules state that we are allowed to bring "light refreshments" such as punch and cookies into the room.  Basically, they want to keep it clean from spills and crumbs.  You can bring your own lunch, or walk a few blocks into downtown Los Altos.  We are not really planning out snacks, so use your own discretion.

Other Stuff:  We will need to set up and take down tables and chairs, which are available at the library.  Please plan to help with this.

Bring yourself, your machine and your tools.  It should be a fun day!

January 2012 BAMQG Meeting Notes

The BAMQG January meeting was Saturday.

Thanks for your Service

The 2011 Officers did a great job and the guild members took it upon themselves to get some gifts together. A few people made bags and everyone else added little bibs and bobs to create nice gift bags.




A-B-C Challenge

The A-B-C Challenge is going strong. We don't have many participants, but the blocks generated are wonderful.
From left to right the participants are: Lynette, Deborah, Michelle, Kathleen and Jaye.




Above is my G block for the A-B-C Challenge. It is called Glacier Bay and is from Around the Block Again by Judy Hopkins (pg.68). It is also a 6" block and I cut everything a little bigger and then trimmed. It is still a bit wonky, but I like the general effect. I don't remember ever seeing this block before. I think it would make a really cool secondary pattern if I put many of them together.



This is a great challenge as it allows people to make one block rather than a whole something. Kathleen wants to speed it up a bit, so we will be doing two letters each month for the rest of the year. Next month are I and J.

Question of the Month

Rhonda creates the QotM and this month it was: "What are your quilt resolutions?" Most were normal resolutions about finishing and curbing buying, but there was some variety as well.

• use more than I buy
• finish one project before starting another
• buy less fabric
• use scraps to make scrap quilts
• finish virtual swaps and bees projects
• teach
• quilt one per month on the longarm
• take sewing machine to be serviced
• end year with 5 fewer UFOs than the year started with
• improvise
• organize so sewing does not take over house
• make something from solids
• stop fearing binding
• make one charity quilt
• bring something to show and tell
• spend more time with real people than with sewing machine
• trust the experience I am feeling
• don't buy fabric I don't like
• make husband a quilt
• documenting quilts (labels and such)
• be liberated and wonky
• use orange and yellow
• start a quilt/craft blog
• make mom a quilt
• try curved piecing
• re-sort/organize fabric
• finish husband's quilt
• plan less and do more

Charity Quilts

Art Gallery Fabrics offers a bag of scraps free for people who will be using the scraps to make charity/donation quilts.



Two guild donation quilts were finished. A very large number of the postage stamp kits were returned as blocks this month. Almost all of the new kits were taken to be returned in February.

Accuquilt Go Demonstration


Patti provided an excellent Accuquilt Go demonstration. She also helped the charity/donation coordinators cut squares for more postage stamp blocks. Perhaps the guild should buy one to lend to members? ;-)


Echo Challenge

Ruth is the new Challenge coordinator and her first excellent effort is the Echo Challenge. The Echo challenge is a "Just for Me" challenge. Participants are directed to make something for themselves... something that they have wanted.




Some pattern ideas are:

• Ironing board cover
• Bulletin Board
• Sewing machine cover
• Handbag
• iPad cover
• laptop cover
• Notebook cover
• Camera Strap slipcover
• t-shirt sling bag
• apron
• Placemats

Above are free patterns and they have not been tested. You can see some notes about the Sewing Machine Cover on Artquiltmaker Blog.

Schnibbles for Cat Beds

Sadly Amanda has too many scraps and will hold off taking any more until she has made more cat beds. She really needs help making the cat beds.


See you in February!

~Jaye

January 2012 Meeting

Happy New Year!!

We have a meeting coming up this Saturday and I hope to see you all there. I'm excited to officially kick off the new year with our officers for 2012. This year's officers are Adrianne Ove, Kathleen Robertson, Sara Musko, and Amanda Materne. I'll also be introducing all of the new coordinators for 2012. We have an entire team of rock stars! : ) As always, we will have the meeting between 1-3pm and open sewing from 3-5pm.

DATE: Saturday, January 7th

TIME: 1pm-5pm LOCATION: Redwood City Public Library, Main Branch

We have a lot of excitement planned for the meeting. Patti will demo her new Accuquilt fabric die cutter. Rhonda will give us an update on the retreat. We will have a new Question of the Month and of course Show and Tell. If you've never been to a meeting, come and join us!! The first meeting is free.

If you want to see a glimpse of what goes on at our meetings, read the post for new people.

Ruth, our Challenge Coordinator is kicking of the year off right with FREE fabric (Echo by Lotta Jansdotter to be exact) and a brand new challenge. This is a guild sponsored challenge and you must be a member to participate. Ruth will be dividing up the fabric prior to the meeting on Saturday. If you haven't already, please RSVP on the forum, in this discussion.

Speaking of membership, it's time to renew. Our dues are $30 annually beginning in January. You can pay Sara by check or cash at the meeting. Please write your checks to, "Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild". You can also pay online using your credit card or Paypal account. Click on the BUY NOW button on our membership page.

Stuff To Bring:

• Show & Tell
  
• ABC Blocks, This month's block name should start with letter G
• Charity Blocks (Instructions)
  
• Extra Fabric, batting, or orphan blocks for the Charity Bin
  
• Fabric scraps and schnibbles for Cat Beds
  
• Project to work on
  
• Supplies for your project such as sewing machine, extension cord, etc
  
• Snacks

If you have any questions, contact me (or any of the other officers. See you Saturday! -Adrianne Ove