East Bay Modern Meeting Notes – August, 2011

It used to be that I would get home from an EBMQ meeting and type up my notes right away.  Or by the next morning, at the latest.  Well…it’s been about 2 weeks now since our last meeting, and I’m just now getting around to getting the pictures and notes on the blog.  Sorry!!!  Even more pathetic than that, is the notes I actually took at the meeting.  Just a couple of words on a notepad because I was sure I’d remember everything that happened and I was going to type this up before I could forget.  Well, it sure is a good thing I took some pictures to remind myself of all the fun!

East Bay Modern Quilt Guild Meeting, August 2011

We had a lot of new faces this month.  I apologize again for my bad note-taking if I get your names wrong in the pictures.  Please leave a comment to correct me!  Also, if you’re a Flickr user, please feel free to tag yourself and your work in the photos.

Lots of people brought in their finished or almost finished Jay McCarroll Habitat challenge projects.  There were also some Robert Kaufman Charm Square quilts shown.  Some amazing work, people!

A couple of other points raised at the meeting:

• For newbies: The best place to find information and interact with other East Bay Modern members in-between meetings is on the Facebook page.  The blog features posts by members and meeting notes as well as a super map of all the fabric stores in the Bay Area, but it’s on the Facebook page that all the day to day chatter happens.
• East Bay Modern Lending Library – one of our newer members, Danielle, has donated some books for us.  Anyone interested in making donations/heading up the library?
• What’s a Thangle?
• C&T/Stash Publishing – some great books!
• Karrie showed us her quilt for the Alzheimer’s Art Quilt Initiative and lots of folks were interested in making their own.  Here’s what you can do!
• Just Announced!  Modern Quilts at the International Quilt Festival! Let’s see how many East Bay Modern quilts we can get into the show!

Not a winner, but still feeling good.

I recently entered a contest put on by Generation Q magazine. The question was, “What is modern quilting?” The debate is not new and maybe we don’t need more opinions on the subject, but I felt compelled to submit an essay. We had to do this in 350 words or less. This does not come easy for me since I am a naturally wordy person who likes to over explain. I did not win, but I thought I would share what I wrote…

I am fairly new to quilting. By this I mean I have not grown up with a needle and thread in my hand, but learned to sew and quilt in 2007 at the age of 28. I was taught by traditional quilters who loved to tell me the endless rules of quilting. These rules included border sizes, color and fabric choices, and that one should never use anything but cotton or God help you. To be fair, I learned a lot from these women and still seek their advice. I also began to seek out alternative ways to quilt and groups who would encourage this type of behavior.

In my search I came across I modern quilt guilds and was introduced to modern quilting. After reading several blogs and looking though several resources I believe there is a definition for modern quilts. Much like modern art, modern quilting throws out the rules. Bold prints, exclusive use of solids, geometric patterns, negative space, and borderless quilts are all elements that I commonly see in modern quilts. Modern quilters have a different perspective and do not mind experimenting.

Modern quilts have many inspirations from the past. The quilts of Gee’s Bend are brought p often and for good reason. The quilts of Gee’s Bend are amazing in their use of recycled fabric and bold patterns. They also have unusual fabric combinations that turn off a traditional quilter. These women were modern quilters before there were modern quilters.

The Amish communities also were a big inspiration for modern quilters. The Amish use primarily solid fabric and create fantastic geometric blocks. Traditional quilters favor calico or small prints and find solids to be too flat.

What I like best about the movement is the acceptance to anyone. The guild I belong to is a very diverse group of people from all backgrounds. Some enjoy traditional quilting. Others have more of an art quilt background. Others have been stretching the limits of what fabric can do in order to create really amazing pieces. Everyone gets along!

Please take a moment to check out the other submissions and of course the winner, Kathy Loomis, whose essay made me love the modern movement even more!

Shapes Change

Have you ever read the book The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein?  I feel like the Big O these days, as he says to the missing piece, “shapes change”.  My shape has certainly changed 2  births later and lets just say a “few” years since I’ve really sewn myself a fitted garment.

Anyway, it’s not a pity party, but rather a puzzle that I can’t quite piece together.  Anybody a good garment fitter?  I made my second toile, but can’t figure out how to make this last fitting work and translate it to a new pattern for my dress bodice.  Needless to say, I’m not experienced, so I guess I might be making 3 or 4 muslins before I get this right.  In the meantime, I have the needies – for this book.  It’s new, from Collette Patterns called The Collette Sewing Handbook and it looks informative and beautiful all wrapped into one.  Did I mention there is a time limit on this project…?  Aaaaaack – counting down a few more weeks, getting my butt in gear, here we go!  (Maybe I need a backup plan?)

Dynamo Day

This isn’t at all quilty, but sharing excitement is fun.  So, thank you, I will.

As much as admitting this might get me banned from the i-feed-my-children-only-healthy-natural-organic-food club in Berkeley, I must tout praises for Dynamo Donut + Coffee in San Francisco.  Okay, well, I never was invited to that club anyway because we eat SPAM at our house — and I don’t need your darn club,  so there!  It was a cold, foggy morning in the city, and gourmet donuts and tea (my drug of choice) fit the bill perfectly.  $3.50 for a mere donut?! might you nay-sayers exclaim.  And yes, those tender morsels were worth every penny I might add.  The shop even had donut themed kids books inside for the girls to read while they waited as I savored every bite.  Mmmm.

Books about donuts!

I also began a silhouette project following these instructions by Jill of Homemade by Jill.  I made freezer paper stencils (my first time) of my girls’ silhouettes.  I ironed the stencils to squares of Kona white, and did two applications of navy blue fabric paint with those foamy brushes.  My dynamo day ended with the paint applied and drying and me happy to have a surprise in the morning.  I couldn’t wait to reveal the silhouettes.  This is how they turned out.  Unfortunately the process left big sis with some sort of wattle – we’ll redo that one.  :)

Li'l sis & Big sis

East Bay Modern Quilt Guild Meeting, July 2011

East Bay Modern Quilt Guild July 2011 Meeting Photos

Wow!  As you’ll see when you look at the Flickr stream* of the July meeting, East Bay Modern’s got some talent!  There were so many beautiful quilts and projects that were brought in, not to mention some DELICIOUS brownies!

*If you’re on Flickr, please tag yourself and your projects in the meeting photos!

A few go-getters brought in their quilts for the Freespirit/Jay MacCarroll Habitat challenge.  They were all so beautiful and so different!  Sharona, from New Pieces, suggested they be entered in the PIQF Juried Exhibit.  For those wishing to enter, the deadline is August 8th!

I can’t wait to see what the August meeting brings!  (Remember, it’s always the last Tuesday of the month, if you’d like to attend.  Check the Events page of the East Bay Modern Quilt Guild Facebook page, if you’d like more details!)

Here are a few of the other things we discussed:

• Bound buttonholes
• Sherri Wood’s Daintytime blog and her experience at Penland
• Franki Kohler’s website
• Modern Quilt Guild’s “organic challenge” winner

As always, you can keep up with what’s going on between meetings by visiting us on Facebook.  Feel free to stop in and say hi!

Flirting with Bow Ties

Ever since my read of the Plaids book blogged here, I have had this idea to make a bow tie quilt. There was an incredible bow tie quilt made entirely of directional prints in that book that really made an impression on me.

I checked out another book from the Berkeley Public Library today with even more inspirations to share with you all. One bow tie quilt for me, a drunkard’s path quilt especially for my friends Peppermint Pinwheels and Dan Rouse of Piece and Press who have both talked of Drunkard’s Path recently, and some other quilts that caught my eye. This book was a historical reference and more of a show-and-tell book rather than a show-you-how-its-done book. May you be inspired, too!

Source:
Accidentally on Purpose: The Aesthetic Management of Irregularities in African Textiles and African-American Quilts by Eli Leon

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Snow in July

It seems I’ve spent an obscene amount of time thinking about the Habitat challenge.  The EBMQG meeting in June provided me with fat quarters of most of Jay McCarroll’s Habitat fabric line.  The link has lots of background about him and the MQG challenge.  Yesterday, I went to my favorite LQS and added some solids (mostly solid) as prescribed by the “rules” of the challenge – which was to only add solids in order to highlight the fabric line.  I also added one of the prints that I didn’t get from the meeting to round out my selection of the habitat line.  Plus, I really wanted to be able to bind it with one of the prints too and would never have enough from the fat quarters.

My stack of goodness. I bought the top three to add to the Habitat line: Kona Olive and Coral(?) and an unknown mottled aqua.

I flirted with pinwheels, and improv stripes but decided to give it some order with a well-known patchwork pattern and to make it simple.  I was worried the pinwheels would be to busy, and would take me much longer to cut (anyone have a good shortcut for cutting the triangles?).  In the end, I decided to make a snowball quilt.  You can find an example of a snowball quilt here.  I added contrasting strips of solids to the fat quarters – partly to add interest and partly to extend the size of the fat qarters so I could cut more 8″ squares from them.  You can see the coral strips going through the birch FQ there, and then a finished 8″ square from the dot fabric.  After the squares are all done I’ll add the triangles to the corners probably mostly in olive – but I’m doing this by feel so we’ll see!  And, a little sashing, perhaps?  Thanks to Westminster and the Modern Quilt Guild for a fun challenge!  Come and join us at our next meeting to see what everyone else has come up with – we don’t bite and we have alot of fun.

Cutting the 8" blocks for the snowball quilt.

East Bay Modern Quilt Guild Meeting, June 2011

Okay, so I’m a week late writing up the June meeting notes. Sorry!!! But, as it turns out, when you write up the meeting notes to a very exciting meeting a few days late, other people do a much better job of it for you! A few of the EBMQ attendees were ready to get down to business, and wrote blog entries of their own, which you can check out here:
XOXO Quilts
I want to cut you!
Joeysplanting

There’s also been a big buzz on the group Facebook page. What’s it all about? Jay McCaroll’s newest line of fabric called Habitat.

Westminster Fabric generously agreed to donate yardage of Jay’s newest line, just to see what the Modern Quilt Guilds would come up with. Exciting, right? I think Cyn, Lauren, and Joel covered the excitement pretty well, so head over to their blogs and read up! We’ll be posting more on our progress with this challenge each month, so keep checking back to see how brilliant our members are. You can also see what other Modern Quilters have made by checking out this Flickr pool, dedicated to all things Habitat.

Well, you might think that was enough excitement for the evening, but there was more! It was Lady Dan’s birthday, so we had some yummy banana cake. We had show and tell with the theme being “family.” We had some new visitors (welcome!!). And Dan (the man) brought in his new little toy, the Accuquilt Go Baby. He recently had a give-away on his blog and I know I’m not the only one who was a sore loser. He gave us a really great demo, and some of us (no names, but one person in particular who really likes to cut things!) got busy die-cutting some fabric. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, you can read his excellent tutorial on how to use the Baby Go on his blog.

Also, we heard from Lauren who has been spear-heading Operation Kid Comfort here in the Bay Area and there were quite a few “misty” eyes when she was done. Great job, Lauren – in the month of June, she and her volunteers finished 23 personalized quilts and pillows that will be given to children whose parent’s have been deployed.

A few of the other things mentioned:
Sonia Delaunay
Magnolia Editions
Ellen’s cool new fabric line!
Possible field trip:Soulful Stitching: Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) in India
Wrapping Traditions: Korean Textiles Now
Denyse Schmidt collections

To see pictures of this meeting and others, check out East Bay Modern Quilt Guild on Flickr!

East Bay MQG June 2011, a set on Flickr.

photos from June 2011 meeting

Book Review, Directional Fabric

Leisurely perusing the quilting books at the library, I stumbled across Plaids & Stripes The Use of Directional Fabric in Quilts by Roberta Horton. I glanced through, and put it in my “yes” pile. Back in my mind, I’m remembering my friend Cyn’s post at XOXO quilts showing all her directional ready-to-be-upcycled stash and my curiosity was piqued. Little did I know the book is a neat little treasure with some interesting thoughts to offer a beginner quilter such as myself.

Horton talks about grainline, weave and patterns, value and scale (no surprise there) and number of colors used in a given cloth.  Each of these things can give either a calm or busy effect – depending on the choices made by the quilter.

I would give you a photo of the nice little chart in the book, but I lost my camera this week -sigh- so here goes (just imagine two columns lined up here):

CALM: on-grain, symmetrical (in the pattern), even, stripes, solid lines, low value contrast, small, two color

BUSY: off-grain, asymmetrical, uneven, plaids, ikat, high value contrast, large, multicolor

Horton recommends, to get a good feel for how plaids and directionals work or don’t work together, you do a quilt with ONLY directionals.  No solids or prints.  Whoa – that sounds awfully brave but also very fun!

She has a couple of lessons on drafting your own patterns, which I love.  I have not encountered this type of tutorial in other quilt books, and wonder if this is unique or if I just haven’t read enough quilt books in my day to come across it.

Lastly, there was a great demonstration about how “speed cutting” and “traditional cutting” can really change the way a pieced block will look.  Speed cutting is what she terms a shortcut in cutting but results in extra seams in piecing.  (Again, I wish I could show you a photo of the book, sorry!)  The extra seams are especially noticeable with directional fabrics which is one more artistic choice the quilter gets to make.  The bow tie block is one often found done the “speed cutting” way, where the center square is actually four triangles meeting in the center to make a square.

Anyway, I learned a bunch, and you’ll have to check this book out from your local library to see for yourself!  Might I see an upcoming EBMQG challenge in the future?? Hmmm?

Just a quick edit -  aside from the fact that I may be suffering from early onset alzheimers’ disease, I found my camera which I am really happy about.  Turns out I never even took the camera to the lake (where I thought I left it), or if I did, there were no pictures from the lake on my memory card or my memory bank!

Here is the photo of the chart showing calm vs. busy.

CALM / BUSY directionals from the book Plaids & Stripes the use of directional fabrics in quilts

 

And the photo of the effects of traditional vs. speed cutting – I highlighted areas for you to compare.  If you envision plaids in those areas you can imagine (unless one is an extremely fussy cutter) that there would/could be quite noticable seams.  Which the quilter may or may not want to highlight.

Modern Quilt Guild Field Trip to Berkeley Rose Garden

We had so much fun at the Berkeley Rose Garden with our quilts!  The pictures almost speak for themselves…

Still, I have to add in that I just loved having Lauren’s kids along for the event.

They were so friendly and interested in what we were doing.

They wanted to see the quilts and photograph the quilts. And they wanted us to WATCH them – well, Rad did, anyway!  Zeke wanted to participate, but in his own 2-almost-3-year-old fashion.

It was also nice to see each other out in the world, have a moment to chat in the way that is hard to do when you’re chatting to 15 people at the same time.

And… the day was gorgeous!  What a gift after all the dark rainy days that led up to our outting!

I hope we get to do it again this summer. Lauren came in with a huge stack of finished quilts (of course!); Margaret brought her two from the last meeting; and Joel brought his smile and his camera.

I managed to FINISH my pink rose quilt the day before, and then I had to make do with showing two tops in progress.  That was fine by me.  A quilter’s work is never done!

Is there anything sweeter?