25 members attended our March quilt guild meeting which was led by Kathy Pierce. Berry Leigh, who described herself as a new quilter, attended as a guest.
Old and New Business
2025 Quilt Show (June 28-29) news: Denise and Su have come up with entry forms for our display quilts. They ask that each entry have a form. There were signup sheets for the various show committees. It is expected that each member who has a quilt in the show will volunteer to be a docent. Kasia will coordinate the docent schedule. A reminder: Georgia will be making up the raffle baskets for the show. The contents of these baskets will be unused quilt related items including notions, fabric (e.g. fat quarters, jelly rolls), rulers, or any other sewing items. Please bring these donations to Georgia.
Barb’s keys are still missing!! They were last seen at our February Quilt Guild meeting. Please check your bags/purses/show-and-tell quilts/pockets to see if they somehow got caught up with your belongings.
The McMurray Middle School Project: Ivy updated us on preparations for the quilting project for the Latino kids’ club. Tuesday, April 15th, will be the day that the ~21 kids will put together 9 patch pillow tops made of 6” fabric pieces as gifts for Mother’s Day. More backing fabric is needed (20” squares) and additonal volunteers are welcome. Contact Ivy for more information or to contribute: (206-353-7265, Ivyhaley@msn.com)
Today’s Program
All quilts in our quilt show will need labels. Jo Ann began the discussion talking about the quilts that come into Granny’s and how great it would be if they were labeled so they could know who made those quilts, and when and where they were made. Some labels include information about why that quilt was made, who it was intended for, and what the quilter was intending to convey with their work. You can draw your label on paper and have it printed onto sheets of fabric designed to work in your printer. You can embroider the information by hand or machine. You can buy preprinted labels or books of labels to transfer or trace and add your information using micron pens or pilot pens or a better, more long lasting choice would be All Purpose Ink for Workstation made by the Tsukinek company. You can just write your information on plain fabric or an orphan pieced block. Backing your fabric before writing on it with easily removable freezer paper can help stabilize the fabric making it easier to write legibly. Using organza can create a softer label than some of the stiffer fabrics used for printers. Over time and with washings, many labels fade. Sharon had unused, preprinted labels that were in a drawer that faded over time. Setting the label with an iron can help. Andrea found this Mary Fons Quilty video for making labels using freezer paper: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aItlOib6qBQ
We also discussed sleeves for hanging our show quilts. They will all need a sleeve. Directions were passed around for making a sleeve using triangle points. Here are the directions Barb provided for making a traditional sleeve: Cut a piece of fabric 7” x width of your quilt. Hem the short raw edges at the ends. Right sides together, sew a seam to make a tube. Turn right side out. Hand stitch (or use safety pins) the top of the tube to the base of the binding. In order to make room for the hanger inside the tube, sew the bottom edge so that there is ½ to ¾ inches more fabric on the outside than on the part of the tube next to the quilt back. If you do not want to remove your sleeve after the quilt show, you can just sew the top of the sleeve onto your quilt as you add your binding. Then you just need to stitch down the bottom of the sleeve later.
Show and Tell
Margaret had 6 wonderful baby quilts (made by Margaret, quilted by Jo Ann) to show today. She had also made a very pretty red, white, and blue American Heroes quilt using the tube quilting technique.
Anne Blair also made an American Heroes quilt using a jelly roll. Her quilt was made of large log cabin blocks with star centers. The use of various cream colors made for a soft and inviting version of red, white, and blue.
Andrea’s American Heroes quilt used red, white, and blue crumb blocks with vertical white sashing, blue horizontal sashing, and red at their intersections. So pretty! She also had an inviting quilt in soft aquas and creams made with leftovers from a tube quilt.
Sharon encountered the featured artist and fabric designer Anna Maria Parry at QuiltCon in Phoenix. She brought in her latest book “Anna Maria’s Blueprint Quilting”.
Barb mentioned that on “The Quilt Show” there was a masterclass consisting of spliced together videos of scrappy quilter experts talking about their work. It’s called Working with Scraps / Scraps Masterclass: (https://thequiltshow.com/watch/scrap-quilts/working-with-scraps-scraps-masterclass)
Chris had fabric that she had created using Spoonflower (https://www.spoonflower.com), a company that makes custom fabrics (and wallpaper). She had them print blocks of a collection of fabrics onto one piece of fabric. Spoonflower allows you to choose which fabric patterns as well as the type of fabric you want them printed on.
Leann and Janice had each made an American Heroes Quilt using the striking pattern that consists of one large star as the body.
Susan’s Scrappy Mountain quilt consists of horizontal rows of a creamy sky background with colorful “mountain ranges” created using scrappy triangles of many sizes. It is so stunning.
Jo Ann’s baby quilt of pinks and yellows was quilted with a really pretty diagonal crossing petal motif that gave movement to the lovely soft quilt and helped keep the minke back under control.
Upcoming Events:
The next Featherweight meeting is February 24th from 9-3 at Judy Dohm’s.
The Free Motion Quilt Group will meet at Denise’s house on Monday, March 31st
Our next sew day will be April 8th.
Our next Quilt Guild meeting will be April 15th.
Respectfully submitted,
Anne Bell