Saturday, April 25, 2015

April BOM!

April's Block of the Month comes from new member Terri Ann, whose gorgeous blog is Childlike Fascination.






You can find the tutorial on her blog here!

Terri Ann's other  patterns are available on Craftsy, and she runs the site Quiltalong.net, which is a FANTASTIC resource for quilters, where those who like to quilt in good company can find all kinds of ongoing quilt-alongs, both paid and free.

Monday, April 20, 2015

Quilts for Boston

It's hard to believe another anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings has rolled around.  When we put out the call for help we never imagined we would receive more than 2000 blocks from around the world.  Since that time we have stitched away turning those blocks in to quilts that would bring a big hug to those affected by this horrific event.  When all was said and done we were able provided more than 100 quilts.

There was no way we could have accomplished so much without the help of so many people.  Our heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who contributed to the effort.  At the risk of forgetting someone, we'd like to give special thanks to the following:

Andover Fabrics, Robert Kaufman, Quilter's Dream Batting, Fresh Squeezed Fabrics, Pink Castle Fabrics, Pink Chalk Fabrics, and Sew Fresh Fabrics for providing us with fabric, thread, batting and other supplies needed to produce all these quilts.

Gather Here, Quilter's Way, and Laurena's Longarm for hosting sew-ins, donating quilting time on their longarms, and donating fabric, thread and batting.

Weeks Ringle, Melissa Averinos, Nadine Villani, Quilted Horse DesignsBits N Pieces for donating their time and talent to quilt many of these beautiful quilts.

Members of the JacksonvilleMQG  and Seacoast MQG who graciously took blocks and returned them to us as finished quilts.

Helen and Karen who produced the fabulous brochure that was delivered along with each Quilt for Boston.

Tina for designing our Quilts for Boston label and Caitlin Topham for having it printed for us at Spoonflower.

All the members of the Boston MQG who helped coordinate this effort, donated supplies from their own stash, delivered quilts, pieced, quilted, bound and labeled quilts and worked so tirelessly to make this project a success.

The amazing quilting community for sending us their love in the form of quilt blocks.


 You can view all of the finished quilts in our Quilts for Boston flickr group.



Wednesday, April 15, 2015

April meeting recap

April's meeting was light on show-and-tell, but heavy on group participation!

We spent most of the meeting creating kits to make 4 quilts for Project Linus.  Blocks were pulled and arranged, and bindings and backings cut and pieced.

Our charity subcommittee (Alison, Stephanie, and Gwen) also announced that we will have a 6-hour drop-in sewing day on Sunday, May 17 at Gather Here in Cambridge, to complete these quilts, as well as finish more pillowcases for ConKerr Cancer.   We have had a wonderfully enthusiastic response to the ConKerr effort, with Alison reporting that 50 pillowcases have been donated already. We would love to take this number even higher!   Please mark your calendars and keep an eye on email for more details.

See below for action shots and show-and-tell, and see you on Saturday, May 16 at our next meeting!

piecing sashing and backing





















rough layout for quilt 2

rough layouts for quilts 3 and 4






























Show and tell:

First up, our April "Earth Day" challenge entrants:

Rebecca's entry was a miniquilt built around a paper cover from her last checkup

Patrice made an amazing bag with plastic bags enclosing rainbow scraps

Alexis went improv on this mini, made of plastic bags

Judy's already gotten lots of compliments on this wallhanging, composed entirely of trash

Amanda upcycled her old volleyball Ts into a striking quilt

Leah used bottlecaps and tiny scraps to construct this trivet.

































































































































































.. and on to traditional show-and-tell:

Ann showed off a very Spring-feeling quilt she just completed 
Ann also brought this stacked coins quilt, created from many, many scraps.

Rebecca's storm at sea is one of 2 quilts she's making for her twin nieces

(... this is the back)

Alexis's courthouse steps is the newest finish in her B&W series. 

(... and the beautiful back!)

Gillian's lovely "Boids" quilt was named after a 1980s AI coding system!
(back view).   You may recognize this as the MQG Quilt of the Month for April.  Congrats on being chosen, Gillian!

Terri Ann described the arduous process for making this lively star quilt, a Moda Bake Shop quilt.
This will be raffled to benefit Project New Hope.

Terri Ann also showed this finish, a Kona Dimensional chevron

(and the reverse!)

Judy called this quilt "Snow Melt"!  It's based on a Cheryl Arkinson low-volume pattern

(and the reverse!)

Reva showed off a cute reversible bag.

Reva also finished this colorful baby quilt top this month.

Joanne came with three items to share - first a lovely color-bar quilt top

Joanne also shared this striking flying geese quilt

And finally, Joanne brought a couple of blocks that we incorporated into our Project Linus quilts later in the meeting!