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Our final meeting of the quilt guild 2016-2017 season featured a delicious pot luck dinner and a great opportunity to visit with fellow guild members before our summer break. Show and Tell, as always, featured several lovely quilts made by our talented guild members. And we easily surpassed our goal of 25 Canada 150 themed preemie quilts for the tiny babies born in 2017 and cared for at the Rich Little Special Care Nursery at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital. A selection of these adorable little quilts were shown at the meeting and are pictured below. Thanks to everyone who made one or more of these lovely quilts!  The meeting and dinner was enjoyed by 55 guild members and one guest. Many members registered early for next year and 2 very lucky members were rewarded when their names were drawn to win free memberships. Due to the success of the quilt show fundraising, an extra free membership was offered this time. Congratulations to Barb Devries and Marilyn Erskine! Happy summer everyone and we look forward to seeing you in September! Our Quilting in the Valley 2017 featured over 340 quilted items made by members of our guild, the memorable Canada 150 exhibit of unique quilts made by eastern Ontario quilt guilds, door prizes, vendor mall, tea room, and our "Quilter of Distinction", Edna Snyder who recently celebrated her 90th birthday! To visitors to our show, thank you for coming and we hope that you enjoyed your visit. And to our guild members who provided quilts for the show, volunteered over the weekend, or on the organizing committee, all your contributions were truly appreciated. Show visitors voted for Viewer's Choice, Best Baby Quilt, and Best Other Quilted item. Prize winners are pictured below  Rennie Hickey's "Summer Beauty" double bed quilt was voted "Viewer's Choice"  Shirley Cavanagh's "Baby Blessings" quilt, made for her daughter, was voted "Best Baby Quilt"  Mary DeVries' "Lone Pine" framed wall hanging was voted "Best Other Item"  The Raffle Quilt was won by Pam Gavinski of Braeside What a fun night this was! We all pitched in to construct quilt tops for the Canadian Quilters' Association (CQA) Big Quilt Bee. Our guild is joining guilds from across Canada to make quilts for Ronald McDonald House Charities, in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday. Our guild members have been busy constructing these 12 1/2 inch blocks which incorporate at least one piece of a special Canada fabric. Approximately 135 blocks were constructed at our very successful "slab block" workshop in early February, and many more were brought in by guild members. After an exciting evening of sorting the blocks, designing the layouts, pinning blocks, the whirring of several sewing machines, and activity at various ironing stations, our guild members assembled the blocks into 13 quilt tops! Way to go quilters! Refer to the CQA web site for more information, including instructions for the blocks using the “slab block pattern” compliments of Cheryl Arkison, and sample blocks. See the teams at work, and the final results in these photos.              The February 4th "slab block" workshop was a resounding success! In a few hours, 12 guild members produced 134 blocks for quilts destined for Ronald McDonald Houses across Canada as part of the Canadian Quilters' Association's Big Quilt Bee in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday. Quilt guilds from across Canada will be making and donating 12 1/2 inch blocks incorporating at least one piece of a special Canada fabric. Our guild is delighted to participate in this exciting project.
 Brigid Brigid reports, "We had lots of fun and laughs .... although the room would also get very quiet at times when everyone was hard at work. We had lots of the residents drop by to see what we were doing and they all enjoyed having us there as well. It was a great day of socializing and teamwork... not to mention how productive we were. I had no idea how many blocks we would have." And from Beth, a guild member and resident of Island View, "I enjoyed the day and I also learned a few more things about quilting. Several staff have said they would like the quilters back. They were impressed with the idea of helping people with the quilts."  That makes a total of 187 slab blocks which we'll begin piecing together at our February 22nd guild meeting, "hands on" charity night. Refer to the Canadian Quilters' Association (CQA) web site for more information and instructions for the blocks using the “slab block" pattern” compliments of Cheryl Arkison. Our Canada 150 Quilt Our guild's Canada 150 quilt has been completed! Designed by Brigid Whitnall, it features ideas submitted by our members - trilliums (Ontario's flower) in the centre, red and white log cabins and a connected diverse community of women. The blocks were made by guild members and it was beautifully quilted by Mary Stanton. This quilt will be featured at our quilt show on April 29-30, as part of an Eastern Ontario Interguild Canada 150 travelling quilt show. The collection of approximately 16 quilts will visit about a dozen area quilt shows, and at fall trunk shows. Tips and TricksTo kick off the new year our January meeting focused on tips and tricks for improving our quilting. We rotated through 5 demo stations manned by our own creative and talented guild members and came away with tremendous new ideas. Mary deVries showed us how to reduce bulk in our seam allowances, and how to use scraps while at the same time eliminating thread ends, saving time and thread.
Joann Vlaming showed us a great method for accurately sizing half square triangle blocks, including a tip to trim them before pressing them. And there's a ruler that can help with this.  Pat Campbell demonstrated a clever method for making continuous prairie points, and tips on attaching bindings. 
Chris Gordon showed us how to attach a 2 colour binding with a narrow flap of "faux piping". Chris provided these notes on this technique. This is a binding made with 2 colours – the faux piping colour is the wider width. One strip is 1 5/8 “ wide, the second is 1 3/8 “ wide. If the length is long make a full length of each colour before you combine the 2 colours. Stagger the joints.
A website with a tutorial is www.littlemissshabby.com/2013/11/scrappy-faux-piped-binding-tutorial. Her binding is 1/8 “ wider in each colour, but the technique is the same.
Fidget QuiltsFidget quilts are small lap quilts that provides sensory and tactile stimulation for the restless or "fidgety" hands of someone with Alzheimer's or related dementias. They provide sensory or tactile stimulation through the use of fabric colors, textures, and the use of accents or simple accessories such as pockets, laces, trims, appliques, buttons, secured beads, ribbons, braids etc. Sue Shute invited us to help make "fidget quilts" for local residents afflicted with Alzheimers disease. She's hosting drop in hands on quilting sessions on the last Tuesday of every month from 10 AM to 2 PM at Quilting Quarters in Almonte. Quilts will be distributed in the Arnprior and Almonte areas.   Dana Szucs Hayden, of SeaSew has created a pattern for this Canada 150 birthday logo paper pieced block. Click on the image to download the pattern for free. Update January 17, 2017 We've received some feedback of confusion and errors in this pattern. Our president Brigid has now completed this block (thanks Brigid!) and she reports the following: There were two small issues, two of the pieces were not marked as far as colour, but when you look at the colour picture you know it's a purple and a white. The other thing with paper piecing is that you are working in reverse. The picture online shows the yellow and orange on the left, but the emblem is correct with those on the right like I have them. Here's a photo of Brigid's block.  |
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