Category Archives: MQG

A WOMBAT

Posted on by
22

According to a facetious list of quilting terms I have, a WOMBAT is a quilt that is a “Waste Of Money, Batting, And Time”. Which is why I’ve named this quilt WOMBAT.

The full sun on the west side of the house washed out the colors a bit

And here’s the backing!

This was one of the patterns provided by the Modern Quilt Guild. I usually ignore those, BUT in this case a blogging friend made one and it sounded interesting. In particular, she commented, “Who thinks like that?” with regard to the written instructions in the pattern. I like to find out how different designers think and plan, so I jumped in.

In fairness, I learned a couple of things, but I thought the written instructions wasted a lot of printer ink and time giving detailed instructions for things that were easily improvised. Anyway, it’s done. Finished in 2022, actually, but I have a backlog of quilts to bind and blog about, so here it is at the start of 2023. Happy new year to all!

Quilt Stats

Name: WOMBAT

Designed by: Charles Cameron, for the Modern Quilt Guild

Finished size: 63″ x 87″

Made by: me

Quilted by: Elisabeth Pugh

Did anyone else make this quilt? If so, what did you think?

 

 

Asheville Quilt Show

Posted on by
10

So I went to the Asheville Quilt Guild’s annual show, which usually has lots of inspiration.  There were many nice quilts, but two quilt makers stood out, in my opinion.

The first is Diana Ramsay, whom I know from the Modern Quilt Guild, which used to exist in Asheville.  Here are her quilts:

Dutch Holiday by Diana Ramsay
Detail of Dutch Holiday

Fascinating Rhythm by Diana Ramsay

modern quilt, Asheville Quilt Show

Bulls Eye II, by Diana Ramsay

Although I don’t know Linda Fiedler, I was very impressed by her quilts, as well:

Moonglow, by Linda Fiedler

Detail of Fusion by Linda
Fusion, by Linda Fiedler

The guild’s gift shop always has something I wish I had made, and this year it was a little pyramid bag.  Of course I bought it.

I’ve always liked pyramid bags, which I first saw years ago in a craft store in Berea, Kentucky.  I had a pattern to make one, but it seemed pretty complex.  The internet to the rescue!  I found several sets of instructions and even videos.  Here are the instructions I used:

http://www.loganberryhandmade.com/sew-triangle-zipper-bag-pyramid-pouch-sewing-tutorial/

And here is the first set of pyramids. 

They were quick and easy!  Do I hear a Christmas gift idea?

Some Tiny Blocks

Posted on by
6

My modern guild is making a charity quilt for QuiltCon 2019, and the requirements include a predetermined palate and blocks with pieces no larger than 1″ in at least one dimension.  The theme is “small piecing”.  Here is the palate:

At the last meeting, our guild had chunks of fabric about 8″ x 10″ cut for us to take home and make little blocks.  The blocks are going to be used to construct something else, so the only requirement is that they finish either 2″ or 3″ square.  I took these 3 colors:

And here are some little blocks I made.

The quilt has to be twin size, so it’s going to take a LOT of these babies!  It will be fun to see what other guilds do when QuiltCon comes around in February.

Thanks to everyone who offered an opinion about my choice of accent color for the shirting quilt.  There are two different blocks in the quilt that use the tiny accent squares, and I’ve decided to use orange for this one and rust for the other.  Here are a couple of the blocks with orange.  Those tiny orange squares finish 3/4″.  Eek!

I’ll keep you posted.

 

Hard Times in Publishing-World

Posted on by
11

This week I received notice from Meander Publishing that both Modern Quilts Unlimited and Machine Quilting Unlimited are to cease publication immediately. I am a little surprised, given the ever-increasing popularity of both machine quilting and modern quilting. The notice cites the “soft market” for magazines as well as the costs of producing a print magazine.

For me personally this is a disappointment, both because I have enjoyed reading Modern Quilts Unlimited and because the magazine has published several articles by me.  My most recent submission was to have been published in the upcoming July issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited, but they will be returning the quilt to me instead.  The July issue of Modern Quilts Unlimited will not be published at all, and the July issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited will be digital only.

The front page of the Meander Publishing website hasn’t caught up with the news as I write this, so I’m not sure how widely it is known.  I predict that this will leave a vacuum in the modern quilt magazine market that will be filled shortly by something from the Modern Quilt Guild.  Their agenda seems to be to own the definition of modern quilting, and a magazine would further that aim.

I expect this is disappointing to Vicki Anderson, the CEO and editor of the Meander Publishing magazines.  She has put a lot of effort (and probably money) into these publications.  I am sorry to see these magazines go.

What do you make of it?

QuiltCon Charity Quilt

Posted on by
8

The Modern Quilt Guild of Franklin (NC) has been working on this quilt designed by Sarah Overton of My Crowded Nest.  It is paper-pieced octagons,and the paper piecing certainly has helped it go together more smoothly with so many different people working on it.franklin-quilt-1

Several people took papers and fabric home to do a row at first, then we all met several times to put the rows together.franklin-quilt-3

We were working from a plan, but color placement was still a challenge!franklin-quilt-4

Of course the colors were chosen by the national MQG, but we added a few prints to liven things up.franklin-quilt-2

And finally, the top is done!franklin-quilt-6

It’s going to be quilted by Andrea Walker, so I’ll be sure to show a picture of the final quilt when it’s done.  After QuiltCon, it will be donated to our local hospice.

Guild Challenges, Part I

Posted on by
3

When I volunteered to arrange programs for one of my modern guilds this year, I didn’t realize the job included coming up with a challenge each month.  Luckily, there were lots of ideas for guild challenges in internet-world, so the challenges weren’t too much of a challenge.  (Sorry, that just slipped in!)

I thought it might be helpful to other modern guilds if I posted our proposed challenges, since I’m sure other folks are in need of ideas, too.  So here’s the first one: slabs.  If you don’t know what a slab quilt block is, Canadian quilter Cheryl Arkison published the idea in her book Sunday Morning Quilts.  You can see a picture and instructions here.

modern quilt challenge

Slabs can be addictive!  And a quilt of many colors is fun.

In January, each member received brief instructions on how to make a “slab” of a single color of the rainbow.  Sort of.  While trying to figure out how to set up the rainbow challenge, I found this quote from Isaac Asimov (one of my heroes):

It is customary to list indigo as a color lying between blue and violet, but it has never seemed to me that indigo is worth the dignity of being considered a separate color. To my eyes it seems merely deep blue.

So our colors for the challenge are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.  Seems like the main value of indigo and violet is that they let us spell out ROY G BIV.  Huh.

Our slabs are 15-1/2 inches square, to be 15 inch finished blocks.  Each person makes one in her assigned color, then can make as many others as she wants in as many of the six basic colors as she wants.  At the next meeting, we’ll put all our slabs in a pile and each person’s name will go in a basket once for each block she turns in.  Then we’ll draw a name and somebody gets all the blocks.  Of course she’s expected to make something wonderful with those blocks before the next meeting!

I e-mailed examples of slab quilts to guild members as part of the challenge and also took some of my quilts to show.

slab quilt

Jerri Szlizewski combined her purple slabs with neutral slabs, then appliqued purple dots on the neutral backgrounds

Improvised slab quilt

I cut up the yellow-orange slabs I got in a swap and inserted blue

Does your modern guild have some great challenge ideas?  Let me know!  I’ll be posting about our other challenges as we go along so you can use them, too.

 

QuiltCon, Anyone?

Posted on by
6

QuiltCon, the Modern Quilt Guild’s annual gathering, will be in Savannah in February 2017, and I am going!mqg-new-logo

I recently read an interesting blog by Becca Fenstermaker about how to deal with a convention when you’re an introvert.  Believe it or not, that would be me, so I plan to use her idea.

Becca’s main suggestion was to start ahead of time and try to find people who will be attending, so you’ll have somebody to visit with when you get there.

Fortunately, there will be several people from at least two of my guilds, but of course the point is meeting new people as well as visiting with old friends.  So if you’re going, please leave me a note in the comments–I’d like to met you!

Meanwhile, I’ve made two more clusters of sweet pea pods.  The pattern is well illustrated and the directions easy to follow 🙂

Hope you have a good week!