The Twelve Months of SCMQG- A Year in Review

One more day until we ring in 2016! There is no better time to take a moment and admire the amazing creativity of the SCMQG this year. We have been busy, so sit back and enjoy some highlights.

In the first month of the  2015 SCMQG, the quilters finished creating a charity quilt called Connecticut Spin.

In the second month of 2015, our quilters brought to us, a February  peppered with hearts, Quiltcon excitement, charity quilts and a celebration of a new baby.

In the third month of 2015, the quilters brought to the SCQMG, Michele Muska sharing traditional and modern quilts. 

In the fourth month of 2015, the quilters came together to sew all the charity quilt blocks from the previous months.

In the fifth month of 2015, the quilters spread to the guild, an obsession of paper pieced blocks and HSTs.  

                                     

 In the sixth and seventh months of 2015, the quilters shared with us, a crazy love of hexies. 

 

In the eighth month of 2015 , the SCQMG members decided to gather, sew and create.

In the ninth month of 2015, our members shared  with us, mini-quilts for the Kate Spain/E-Z Quilt Challenge.

In the tenth month of 2015, the SCMQG quilters brought in plenty of goodies to share -bags, tuffets, quilts and swaps!

In the eleventh month of 2015 the guild members shared with us quilts for premature babies.

In the last meeting of the year, the SCMQG members celebrated a fun, talented group of quilters who are looking forward to another creative and productive year.

Holiday Sewing Fun

Our 2016 Charity Quilt

Celebrating a special milestone birthday

Block of the Month

Pillow and dress creations

A handmade wallet

A toddler memory quilt

A Star Wars quilt for hubby

Opening  and admiring our gifts

Wishing you a Happy New Year! May 2016 bring you fabric galore, fun sewing tools and time to sew! 

What Have We Been Up To?

Since our meetings are constantly brewing with challenges, techniques, and ideas, a photo montage of all the show and tells for the last two meetings seemed appropriate. Pictures (and a few captions) are worth a thousand words. As you can see below, every meeting provides a visual feast. 

A T-shirt quilt for Lori's son

Suzanne's English Paper Pieced Baby Quilt

Lisa's Garden Bales

Sheri's Jewels

Gail's Tuffett

Sharon's Hearts

Betsy's Swoon Bag

CarolAnne's  Halloween Spirit, Little Chickens,and mini-quilt

Maybeth's Crosses

Lori's Vintage Dress

Betsy's Baby Quilt

We will end this post with our charity quilt called "Wish Upon A Square".  It was donated to the Make-a-Wish Foundation whose auction will be held on November 7th.  Hope it goes to someone who will appreciate its beauty.

The Big Reveal: Merritt Parkway (Route 15) Bridges Reconstructed

The 2016 MQG Charity Quilt is on its way.  Inspired by the very bridges we go over and under on a weekly if not daily basis, the quilt interprets the beauty of the Merritt Parkway (Route 15). Back in the day, the Merritt arose from the vision of a parkway that would not only make travel through Connecticut easier, but also aesthetically pleasing. To this day, people travel its roads and admire the amazing and beautiful diversity of bridges within Connecticut's natural landscape.

Using the color palette selected by the MQG, we improvised blocks based on the bridges of The Merritt Parkway. We created colorful snapshots of our favorite bridges, attempting to capture the lines and curves of these historic bridges.

Discussing inspirational bridges

Wondering and thinking about how we will put it all together

Admiring the blocks

We will see where this modern interpretation of the Merritt will take us. Our next step will be to create a layout that frames the blocks and ties them together. Keep an eye out for updates on Facebook. 

Kate Spain and the E-Z Quilting Mini Quilt Challenge

So what has resulted in Kate Spain's joy? Could it be the stack of 16" mini quilts created by our quilt guild and shared with her this past Saturday?

But wait!  How did we get to this point? Let's backtrack and explain. It all began with a visit from Michele Muska, who suggested it might be fun for our guild to do a challenge using the E-Z quilting mini templates. 

Moda donated some, and by some we mean a lot of Kate Spain's new line "Canyon", which if you are interested, is coming out in October. With mini quilt templates and fabric in hand we were off to our creative spaces.

Several months later, we gathered to admire the results. 

The big reveal resulted in many oooohs and aaaaahs. Of course, questions and compliments abounded.

New experiences and insights were shared as well. Terrie used a diamond tool and learned about the intricacies of y-seams. Garen realized that she didn't love matching triangles. Lori created a field of plus signs and would have kept going but the guidelines called for a finished size of 16X16. "On the "plus" side," she said,"it was small enough to test my hand quilting skills."

Sharon used a mini-fat template to make her first ever mini-quilt. She took a larger version of one of her quilts and shrunk it down to size.  Betsy was inspired by a photo of Nancy Zieman of Sewing with Nancy showing a more modern way to use the template without points.  Carole Ann enjoyed working her 60 degree diamond in this pattern.

Suzanne used a mini fat cat template and triangles to create her handbags. She admired basket quilts made by Gwen Marston and her pieces reminded Suzanne of those works. Pinterest triggered a memory, she ditched the old plan and started anew and is happy she did. Rebecca also used a mini fat cat to create musical chairs with enough seats for everyone. Sue saw and constructed big triangles with her mini triangle.

From left to right here, Sherri, Kathleen, and Maybeth showcase Kate Spain's fabric line using a mini fat cat, square, and triangle templates respectively.

Our last group of mini-quilts displays hexagons English Paper Pieced by Michelle who tried hand sewing and hand quilting for the first time. Gail created beautiful shapes using the 120 degree triangle. 

This is when the mini quilts were revealed to Kate Spain last Saturday.

Kate Spain loved them so much she wanted to keep them for herself. She settled for a hug. (See first picture in this blog) Now these minis are taking a trip to Quilt Market with Michele Muska and E-Z Quilting.  How exciting is that!

Thank you Michele Muska, E-Z Quilting, Kate Spain and Moda for a very fun challenge!

Sew much fun in August

Those that could congregated at our creative hub- The Weston Library. Toting sewing machines,needles, rotary cutters, thread and more, we dove right into our various quilting and sewing projects. 

Maybeth ironing and examining a strip 

Suzanne sewing up her E-Z Quilt Challenge

Jessica cutting up her mini dresdens

Terrie binding a quilt 

Michelle making a mini bag

Lori creating a t-shirt quilt

Susan English Paper Piecing

In the midst of all this creative output, conversations about family, friends, quilting inspiration and ideas abounded.  One of our hot topics of the day was our entry into the  Improv with Intent MQG Charity Quilt Challenge. Wanting to keep it Connecticut themed, we decided it would be fun to make an improv quilt of the Merritt Parkway Bridges.  The intent part of it comes from us deciding on how we will use the fabrics. For example, do we all use the same background color or let that be part of the improv.  Other questions pertained to the size of our improv pieces, and  how many people will participate. Once we set up these guidelines we are free to play with our pieces(the improv part). So start looking at those bridges. Some of us have picked our  favorites already.  Take a look on the internet and become inspired!

Have you ever heard the song with the line "I'm falling to pieces"?  Well, for us it is more like going to pieces. Paper pieces, that is. It is addictive!  Terrie brought in the book The New Hexagon: 52 blocks to English Paper Piece. You create amazing blocks and join them together to create Millefiore Quilts, which in Italian means " a thousand flowers".  Pretty cool!

The day ended with a feeling of accomplishment. There is something to be said about working in a creative atmosphere with others and enjoying  yummy food at the same time. Luckily next month, we have the opportunity to gather on two seperate dates. 

Our monthly meeting will be held on September 12th. We will present our finished E-Z Quilting minis then.  On September 19th we will also be meeting at Christie's for some Shop Hopping. See you there!