May Meeting Prep

We have a meeting coming up this Saturday, May 5, 2012 and we hope you will all make it.  As always, we will have the meeting between 1-3pm and open sewing from 3-5pm.

Logistics and Particulars

DATE: Saturday, May 5, 2012

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

Agenda

We have another great meeting planned.(NOTE: this agenda is tentative. Check back later this week for the final version)

• Quilt National Tour Recap
• Show & Tell
• Free Sew

 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.

Swaps and Challenges
New swap for May is a "Stud and a Dud". Stay tuned for more info at the meeting!


Quiltcon block challenge is ongoing. Have you designed your block yet?


BAMQG block challenge is ongoing.

Stuff To Bring:

• Show & Tell
• ABC Blocks for Mary. March's block names should start with O & P. Bring your current blocks only.
• Charity Blocks (Instructions)
  
• Extra WHITE Fabric, batting big enough for a quilt, or orphan blocks for the Charity Bin (at the moment our fabulous charity people have enough scraps and fabric)
  
• Project to work on during sew time
  
• Supplies for your project such as sewing machine, extension cord, etc
  
• Snacks to share

Needs:
Our  fabulous charity coordinators need batting and white fabric. If you haven't used that Joann coupon, perhaps you could use it to buy a package of batting or a yard or two of white fabric? The charity project is so successful! Let's keep up the good work.

Reminders:

QuiltCon:  February 21-24, 2013in Austin, Texas.  QuiltCon will feature a juried show.  Quilt entry opens July 1, 2012 and closes October 31, 2012.  There will be more information in May regarding pricing and speakers/instructors.


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

BAMQG Views Quilt National Exhibit

By Angela O.

On Saturday, April 14th, a group of BAMQG-ers who weren't cramming to get their taxes done spent a great day admiring quilts and getting to know each other better at the BAMQG field trip to the San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles Quilt National 2011 exhibit and after party at Rhonda's (our demo coordinator). 

The exhibit was amazing and many of us were so tempted to touch the quilts to figure out how they did that or what's that made of.  Ruth displayed her flexibility by getting on the floor and leaning just right to peek behind one of the quilts to report to the group about the amazing stitching and "binding" method used.  Many people were inspired by the some of the very closely quilted pieces (we're talking 1/8" or less here!!) and were moved by some of the more thought provoking quilts that used nontraditional materials such as plastic bags in the piece "Global Warming - The Great Unraveling".  Ruth commented "I love how people were able to achieve such dynamic and textured looks from their quilting, and I admire the time commitment that must have been."  Rhonda fell in love with Pink Leaf 2 by Pat Pauly saying it "would look awesome in my living room.  Oddly enough, I could not convince anyone to create a diversion while I ripped it off."  Maybe next time, Rhonda, when there's not a lawyer present as a witness.

We all agreed that it is more fun to look at quilts with other quilters.  Mel commented that "Even though I had seen the exhibit earlier this month---I got a totally different perspective walking around with fellow BAMQG members. I especially enjoyed walking through with Kathleen and trying to find the connection between the quilts and their titles.  Some titles were more apparent than others.  And the pink elephant in the room with high heels!"

After the exhibit, Rhonda opened up her home to all of us for an after party with snacks provided by the guild and with beverages and Girl Scout cookies (yum!!) shared by the attendees.  There was quite a spread of healthy and not so healthy food to keep our tummies happy while we got to know each other better and talked quilts and guild.  Everyone was very impressed with Rhonda's cute, industrial style home and quilting studio and especially with her soon to be patented "co-habitation quilts" and "cat tank".  Rhonda's pets, Willie and Gizmo, also made us all feel very welcome and, as Mel says, "rounded out the evening's entertainment line up!"  

Overall, it was a successful event and everyone had a really good time.  If you haven't had a chance to see this exhibit yet, we'd all highly recommend it.  You can find out more here:  http://www.sjquiltmuseum.org/

We hope to continue getting guild members together to visit local quilt exhibits and shows.  If you know of any good quilty exhibits coming up, please leave a comment here or let Angela know at the next guild meeting.

A-B-C Challenge: O & P

Remember the A-B-C Challenge? It is still going strong and in the home stretch! Bring your ABC Blocks for May to the meeting. These blocks should start with O & P

Some examples of O blocks are:

1. Ohio Star gives good practice with quarter square triangles.
2. Old Maid's Puzzle creates some interesting secondary designs when a number of them are put together.
3. Ocean Wave from Around the Block

Some examples of P blocks are:

1. Pineapple - there are a lot of variations of this block, so look around for other that are more complex and less complex.
2. The Pinwheel block would be great with at least 3 fabrics. It would give a nice spinny effect.
3. Prairie Queen has a nice asymmetrical design 
4. Peace & Plenty - find it in Around the Block

Below are a few of the many block resources available to inspire you:

• 1000 Great Quilt Blocks by Maggi McCormick Gordon
• Around the Block with Judy Hopkins: 200 Rotary Cut Blocks in 6 Sizes by Judy Hopkins
• Around the Block Again: More Rotary Cut Blocks from Judy Hopkins by Judy Hopkins
• The Civil War Love Letter Quilt: 121Quilt Blocks Inspired by Love and War by Rosemary Youngs
• The Farmer's Wife Sampler Quilt: 55 letters and the 111 Blocks they Inspired by Laurie Hird
• Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix & Match by Susan Briscoe
• Judy Martin's Ultimate Book of Quilt Block Patterns by Judy Martin
• Modern Quilt Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks from your Favorite Designers by Susanne Woods
• Once More Around the Block by Judy Hopkins
• The Quilter's Album of Blocks and Borders by Jinny Beyer (out of print)
• The Quilter's Album of Patchwork Patterns: 4044 Pieced Blocks for Quilters by Jinny Beyer

Featured Photos

Adrianne & Amanda with Be Square Challenge Blocks

I was perusing the member forum and saw this wonderful picture of our president and secretary. Ruth has created a space of Featured Photos on the forum, which is where I found this photo. If you are a paid member, you can see this wonderful group of photos that exemplifies the work of the group.

Remember Sew Day April 21

The upcoming Sew Day is near. If you haven't RSVPed, talk to Diana or check the forum.

When: Saturday, April 21 10am-10pm
Where: Los Altos Library
Map:  http://g.co/maps/kvpkt
Address: 13 S. San Antonio Road, Los Altos, California, 94022

Diana will be polling on the Forum for people to bring the following items to share:

• Irons
• Ironing Boards
• Design Walls
• Light Snacks
  

Most people should plan to bring:

• an extension cord and/or
  
• power strip
• Sewing machine
• cutting tools/mats

Thereare outlets in the walls and the floors, but these can fill up
quickly.

 We'll need to set up/take down the tables and chairs, so please plan to help.

You can all the fun that people had at a previous Sew Day event.

See you there!!!

Sew Night - March 23 Report

We had our first sew night, and second sewing event on Friday, March
23 from 5-11pm.
4 people had arrived by 5:30, and 13 tables were set up shortly
thereafter!  The library has new tables, some of which have pop-up
outlets in the table.  Handy, if you forgot your extension cord.  We
had 4 ironing stations set up, and a large cutting mat on an extra
table.  By 7:30, each of the tables were occupied - we had 13 people
in attendance at the height of the sew night, so everyone got a table
to themselves.  It was very nice to have so much elbow room, but to
also be sewing with a sizable group of people.
The library itself closed at 6pm, and the front doors were locked, but
later arrivals could be let in by someone already inside the building.
 People needed to knock loudly, but it was fairly easy to hear the
knocking across the lobby hall.

Most people had eaten dinner before they came, or came with a light
dinner to eat onsite.  A few of us went out mid-evening to pick up
some food at a local grocery store.

By 10:30, about half our group had left, but people were still sewing
even then.  We had originally told the library that we'd leave at
10pm, but when we checked in for the evening, the staff informed us we
could stay until 11pm.  We were to take down the tables, stack the
chairs and let ourselves out at the end of our night.  Everyone was
very helpful in both setup and take down.  Our group cleared out
shortly after 11pm, after a very full night of sewing, quilt
discussion and snacking on cookies and kettle corn.

Q2 Charity Block - New Pattern! New Inspiration!

The guild's fabulous Charity Coordinators have rolled out a new pattern for charity blocks for Q2: String blocks. This post was originally posted on the forum.

String blocks are a wonderful way to use up scraps.  We will be making quilts from 2 types of string blocks, paper foundation pieced and quilt-as-you-go. 
There are many paper foundation pieced tutorials to be found in blogland.  We like this one over at Film in the Fridge.  Please note:  we are using an 8.5" paper foundation and 1.5" center white strip for our block.

We’ve put together this tutorial to show you how to make them using the quilt-as-you-go technique, and we have provided specific measurements for the blocks we are making for our charity quilts.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Jennifer or myself.
Thanks!
Deborah

Materials needed:
a piece of batting, cut to 8” square
a strip of solid white fabric, such as Kona Solids, cut to 13” x 1 ½”
6 assorted prints cut to the following measurements:
- 11” x 2 ½” (2)
-  8” x 2 ½”(2)
-  3” x 2 ½” (2)

Note: All seams are ¼”.

Instructions:
1.  Center the 13” x 1 ½” white strip corner to corner on the 8” square piece of batting.



2.  Pin an 11” x 2.5” prints right side down on top of the white strip, aligning raw edges.  Sew.  


3.  Remove pins and press to the side.


4.  Pin an 8” x 2.5” strip on top of the newly sewn 11” print, right sides together with raw edges aligned.  Sew.



5.  Remove pins and press to the side.


6.  Pin a 3” x 2.5” strip on top of the newly sewn 8” print, right sides together with raw edges aligned.  Sew.


7.  Remove pins and press to the side.



8.  Repeat steps 1-7 for opposite side of the block.


Turn the block over and trim, adding a ½” seam allowance.


Block will be 9” square.

Turn over and admire your work!

April Meeting Report

The meeting was Saturday and we flew solo, as our fearless leader, Adrianne, was down with some dread illness. It must have been bad to keep her away.

A-B-C Challenge
We had another reveal of the A-B-C Challenge blocks and, again, they were were fabulous. Because of the missed March meeting, we had 4 blocks due: K, L, M & N. People are trying to catch up, so we had a lot of blocks.

Events

QuiltCon is coming.


 Challenges and Swaps

The Echo Challenge and the Pillow Swap were both due this meeting. Awesome work! There were zippers, ruffles, piping and covered buttons, among other techniques.

Joy-Lily used the leaf pattern from her book, Carefree Quilts. It is fun to see the block in different colors.

Mel's pillow has a brighter version of the French provincial look to it.

Everyone who participated gave in a bag of scraps, which meant that they would like what they got back, hopefully. There was lots of excited squeals when people saw their pillows.

Spiderweb is a very popular pattern in the Modern Quilt World. This rendition is really striking. I like the pink with the dark grey/charcoal.

Amanda's pillow, yellow and blue with the lozenge shapes, is wonderful. I really liked the block the maker used and want to find out the name so I can make it. Perhaps I can include it in the A-B-C Challenge blocks?

Members brought their Echo Me! Me! Me! challenge pieces in as well. There were a wide variety of items from hand and tote bags, quilts, placemats, pillows, journal covers and more. It was wonderful to see the variety of items that people made. The amazing thing was that people made their pieces with only fat eights. Many people added additional fabrics, or bought additional yardage, but some did not. It was great to see what people could make with that much fabric. There was definitely no room for cutting errors! Thanks to the guild for supplying the fabric for this challenge.

Marci is trying not to buy fabric in 2012, so all of her extra fabrics came from her stash. Great colors!

Claire was inspired by Jaye's pencil rolls. She made a sewing tools roll from her challenge fabric. Claire was really SMART to add a kind of elasticized top to the roll so that the tools wouldn't fall out.

I think that these would make great gifts for other sewists. Hint hint, Claire! ;-)

The next challenge is the Modern Quilt Guild's block design challenge, which is called the QuiltCon Block Challenge. Elizabeth Hartman of the ohFransson! blog will jury the blocks.

The fabric can be purchased at:

• Fat Quarter Shop
• Pink Chalk Fabrics (not listed on the QuiltCon site, but they have the bundles for less money than the other shops)
• Marmalade Fabrics
• CheFab
• Sew Modern

All have fabric packs available for purchase. Not all of the packs on the sites listed above are solids, though solids are suggested.

Rules and guidelines are listed here. More information about that challenge will be forthcoming so check back.

An additional local challenge is to make a block from the BAMQG colors. The blocks made in these colors will be made into a banner to display for external public relations.

Amanda hasn't told us what the next swap will be so stay tuned for that.

Charity
Our AWESOME charity coordinators are back again with a new and exciting Q2 block: string blocks. String blocks are great for using up strips. You can make them according to the directions or using your own widths of strips.

Q2 quilts will be given to Project Night Night. Directions are posted on the forum for members. Directions will be posted her soon, so check back.

They had a very fun example with bright and cheerful colors and someone may do a demo on joining blocks built on a batting foundation at an upcoming meeting.

The group has already made 20 finished quilts to be given to the chosen charities. Awesome work!

If you are not a member, but want to send in blocks or tops or quilts for our donation quilts, please leave a comment and someone will get back to you.

 Sew Time
As usual, we had a bit of time to sew. People chatted and made progress on their own projects.

See you all on May 5!

Meeting tomorrow!!!

We have a meeting coming up tomorrow, Saturday, April 7, 2012! We hope to see you all there.  As always, we will have the meeting between 1-3pm and open sewing from 3-5pm.

Logistics and Particulars

DATE: Saturday, April 7th (TOMORROW!)

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

Agenda

We have another great meeting planned.

• Quiltcon
• Retreat Recap
• Quilt National Tour
• New Charity Project & Sew Day
• Show & Tell
• Free Sew

New People
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.

Stuff To Bring:

• Bring finished Me Me Me Echo Challenge 
• Show & Tell
• Bring finished Scrappy Pillow for swap
• ABC Blocks for March and April. March's block names should start with K & L; April blocks  should start with letter M and N. See the post about M&N block ideas. Please bring your current blocks only.
• Charity Blocks (Instructions)
  
• Extra Fabric, batting, or orphan blocks for the Charity Bin
  
• Project to work on during sew time
  
• Supplies for your project such as sewing machine, extension cord, etc
  
• Snacks to share
• Cat Beds for Amanda (not the filling; she needs finished beds)

Other Dates to Remember:
Sew Day April 21
QuiltCon:  February 21-24, 2013in Austin, Texas.  QuiltCon will feature a juried show.  Quilt entry opens July 1, 2012 and closes October 31, 2012.  There will be more information in May regarding pricing and speakers/instructors.


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

Retreat Report Day 3

Sunday:  A Race to the Finish!

Our sewing engines revved bright and early on Sunday morning, as we all raced to the finish for the Final Show and Tell of the retreat.  Every little bee was busy sewing squares together, quilting tops, or putting on binding in preparation for the finish line.  We didn’t even take a lunch break! Instead, our awesome vice president, Kathleen, called the local pizzeria and ordered us several hearty pies (and salads!) so we could keep sew-sew-sewing while we ate ("hey, watch where you’re dripping your tomato sauce, willya?!")

But Sunday wasn’t all about our own projects – we still had a few more demos to throw in! One of our retreat committee members, Kelly, showed us an awesome and simple keyfob demo to put to good use with the supplies from our BAMQG-quilty gift bags.  It seriously took Kelly maybe 5 minutes to make the keyfob, and then we had the opportunity to finish our own and earn a klippie for prizes later in the day.

One demo wasn’t enough, however - let’s squeeze in a second! Amanda, who makes cat beds for the homeless kitties at a local shelter, brought in the trimmed-down tutorial and did a quick demo for the animal lovers in the group.  There was a good bit of interest and even a couple bed shells got made for Amanda to take home and stuff.

And if demos weren’t enough, we still had the after show and tell where everyone could show off how much they got done during the retreat.

And we can’t forget the tons of prizes! Sunday was actually the DAY O’ PRIZES, as we had to figure out the winners of “Guess the First Quilt” contest, the first, second, and third prizes for KLIPPIEMANIA, and also miscellaneous door prizes just for being our awesome sewing selves and coming to the retreat – books, fabric, and patterns, oh my!

We also had a Fat Quarter Frenzy where everyone got to pick 2 fat quarters, and so our lovely Julie from the online fabric store The Intrepid Thread was kind enough to supply us with a table of fat quarters for us to ransack – er, choose from.  There were some great new prints that our grubby little hands could not grab quick enough – thanks, Julie!

Finally, we also wanted to squeeze in some thank yous, for where would we be without all the fabulous people who helped make our first retreat a success? Thanks not only went out to the retreat committee, but also those who weren’t even on the committee but still pitched in behind-the-scenes, including Julie from Intrepid Thread who brought in her store for the weekend so we’d never have to leave(!), Sara for being our finance wizard extraordinaire and getting our guild members a weekend discount at Natural Expressions, Peggy for doing a great Quilt-as-you-go demo, Jennifer for organizing the Q2 charity block rollout, and Kathleen for writing our Liability Waiver.

When 3pm rolled around, we cleaned up and left, the stars (and stitches) still twinkling in our eyes.  It was an awesome first retreat, filled with fun times, groovy music (thanks, Angela and Ruth!), excellent conversation, fabulous food, snacks, and wine, and the most furious stitchin’ and fabric shopping this side of the Mississippi. The only question left: when’s our next retreat?  The withdrawal has set in! ;-)

April Meeting Prep

We have a meeting coming up this Saturday, April 7, 2012 and we hope you will all make it.  As always, we will have the meeting between 1-3pm and open sewing from 3-5pm.

Logistics and Particulars

DATE: Saturday, April 7th

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

Agenda

We have another great meeting planned.

• Quiltcon
• Retreat Recap
• Quilt National Tour
• New Charity Project & Sew Day
• Show & Tell
• Free Sew

 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.

Me Me Me Echo challenge due
What did you make for the Echo challenge? Bring it along so we an all drool!  

Scrappy Pillow from Swap Due

The scrappy pillows are due this month.  Members can read about it more on this forum post.

Stuff To Bring:

• Bring finished Echo Challenge 
• Show & Tell
• Bring finished Scrappy Pillow for swap
• ABC Blocks for March and April. March's block names should start with K & L; April blocks  should start with letter M and N. See the post about M&N block ideas. Bring your current blocks only.
• Charity Blocks (Instructions)
  
• Extra Fabric, batting, or orphan blocks for the Charity Bin
  
• Project to work on during sew time
  
• Supplies for your project such as sewing machine, extension cord, etc
  
• Snacks to share

Reminders:
Sew Day April 21
QuiltCon:  February 21-24, 2013in Austin, Texas.  QuiltCon will feature a juried show.  Quilt entry opens July 1, 2012 and closes October 31, 2012.  There will be more information in May regarding pricing and speakers/instructors.


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