Tuesday, February 7, 2012

February Meeting Notes

The Bay Area Modern Meeting was yesterday and fun as usual. There is much talk of the upcoming retreat and also of the recent Sew Day. 46, the most EVER!, attended the meeting and the group had its first ever speaker. Lots of firsts.

A-B-C Challenge 

There are about 7-8 participants. Diana just joined by doing one block and Jennifer joined, doing a-J (minus I). I really like this challenge. It is great that I have a reason to make a block every month (not that I really need an excuse).
A-B-C Challenge - All blocks
A-Z challenge blocks


Angela brought two Hawaiian blocks (far left). I love it that she is doing these blocks in Hawaiian fabrics. Most people don't use Hawaiian fabrics as regular fabrics for regular blocks. Michelle is doing her blue and white blocks (also far left). It occurred to me that she might have the hardest job of all since not all blocks are suitable for two colors. Kathleen's blocks are still the black, white and red ones. She is doing a good job choosing how much print to put into each block.
Crayon quilt
Crayon Quilt
Jennifer's blocks
Jennifer's blocks


Jennifer is using the Lazy Girl ruler for her blocks (middle with all the points). She has just started the challenge and is catching up.

My blocks
Jaye's blocks


Lynnette's blocks
Lynnette's Blocks

 My blocks are on the top right. Lynette's are the grey and green on the bottom right. I like the way Lynnette's blocks have an on point sort of look. Many of them have half square triangles in the corners. She made a Glacier Bay block as well and it is really great to see how different it looks from mine. She uses fussy cutting in her blocks and the technique in Glacier Bay is particularly effective.

Speaker

Our Speaker was Joy-Lily. Check out the member spotlight for more background information on her.

Joy-Lily Prep
Joy-Lily Prep
 
 Joy-Lily brought books, Carefree Quilts,  and quilts to her talk. The quilts she brought were all from her book, so we didn't get a sense of the evolution of her work. She organized the talk to coincide with sections of the book, which was a good idea, especially if one had the book and could follow along. A clever portion of the book is that if you make all the blocks you end up with an extra block from each of the projects with which you can make a sampler quilt. Joy-Lily had someone else make the sampler quilt and the maker did a great job. I really like the colors.

Joy-Lily Sampler
Sampler


All the quilts from the book are all kind of wonky.
Leaf quilt
Leaf Quilt


Leaf quilt
Leaf Quilt



Wonky disappearing 9 patch
Disappearing 9 Patch
Flying Geese
Flying Geese

Sewing Time
Adrianne was a madwoman (in a good way!) on getting us to our sewing time. We were done with show and tell at 3:05 and everyone started moving tables, setting up machines and working away. I
I wish I had gotten a photo of the little sewing pod in the middle of the room. Ruth, Adrianne, Kathleen and bunches of other people were set up there. Such a buzz of activity! It was wonderful.

Charity Quiltmaking
Deborah and Jennifer collected bunches of more fabric and quilts and other necessities for the charity quilts the group is making for the NICU at Stanford. It feels good to be helping children and their families in need. People retrieved more packets of fabric to make more of the 16 patch blocks (2.5" squares, 8 of a color and 8 white).  Jennifer confirmed that the background can be any white.Good know in case you have scraps that would cut up to 2.5".

The charity goal is 24 quilts this year. They already have 6 so they think they will surpass that. Ruth quilted on project and handed it off to Angela for binding. Michelle is working in a series on stars and is using the charity project to perfect her star motifs. I think she has 3 charity quilts in progress. Stop for a moment, BAMQGers, and give yourself a pat on the back for your contributions!

Swaps
The Echo challenge is due in April. Ruth, the amazing Challenge coordinator, distributed fabric in January. If you haven't started, now is the time.

Amanda, the fabulous Swap coordinator, started a scrap pillow challenge. People brought bags of scraps and those bags were redistributed to others. Remember:
  • fill your pillow with a pillow form
  • consider a slightly larger size than the cushion cover you have made
  • if your bag says "scraps back", please return the scraps with your finished pillow
  • that BAMQG discount at Joann may come in handy if you need to purchase a pillow form
  • many of the pillow swaps on the web are 18", but choose any suitable size. Anyone doing a neckroll? ;-)



More on Show and Tell later

1 comment:

Peppermint Pinwheels said...

Looks like sew much fun! I must make it down some day!