 What a treat to recently gather for our first guild workshop in a very long time! Held virtually via Zoom, Melissa Marginet, our speaker from our December 2021 guild meeting, led us through her excellent Intro to Walking Foot Quilting workshop, all from her home in Beausejour Manitoba. Melissa is an excellent teacher. In just 3 hours we learned a lot about walking feet, thread, marking, useful tools and much more, AND we quilted our own 16" x 16" little quilt that we had prepared in advance. Course Description: "You will be guided through quilting a small quilt with your walking foot. You will learn the basic skills of walking foot quilting and plenty of tips and tricks to help you along the way to quilting all your own quilts on your home sewing machine." Melissa encouraged us to leave our microphones unmuted to more closely create the feel of an in-person workshop and that worked very well as we could ask questions as we went, and Melissa continued to share interesting information and photos as we did our machine work. Her encouragement us to embrace "consistently inconsistent quilting" is memorable! Look at all of the smiling faces at the group Show (without the Tell) at the end of the afternoon.  The Tell part was added when these quilts were shown at our January guild meeting! Some of the makers' comments included: "It was great learning and sharing and I loved seeing what others were creating. Melissa did a great job engaging us and making us feel comfortable to create what ever we want. My “a ha” moment and take away was when she explained that when using coordinating thread to quilt it creates texture and when we use bold or contrasting threads it emphasizes the design of the quilting. Brilliant!!!" "I enjoyed the workshop" "It was a wonderful and fun workshop." "This was an excellent workshop. I really enjoyed it and I learned a lot. I'll be trying this design on a quilt very soon." Melissa has written 2 books on walking foot quilting and she offered our guild members an opportunity to purchase them directly from her.  Melissa's web site is http://melissamarginet.ca
-- Janet Brownlee, Communications There were 8 ladies in the last of this year’s workshops on Saturday May 11. 12 had signed up but only 8 could make it to the class. Chris Gordon instructed and the ladies spent more than half the day cutting and gluing villages together. This workshop involved a lot of patience and creativity. I think the majority enjoyed learning a new technique, based on the work of Karen Eckmeier. -- Chris Gordon    On Saturday Dec 3rd, 13 keen ladies took a workshop at Island View Suites taught by Bridget O'Flaherty from Perth. The ladies had selected either the chickadee or cardinal as their pattern for the day, and Bridget taught them how to do Easy Peasy Thread painting by Numbers. The finished projects were about 8 inches square. -- Chris Gordon   The Big Bag workshop was held on Saturday November 10th. Seven quilters arrived at Glad Tidings Pentecostal Church, where Johanne Vajda instructed us on how to construct a "Big Bag". This bag is excellent to bring small or large quilts to "Show and Tell" or a large amount of stuff to a workshop or retreat. Pockets for either side of the bag were constructed prior to the workshop. Whether you use orphan blocks or make one specifically for the pocket it is interesting to see the workmanship and dedication in the finished product. By the time everyone left, the bags were virtually complete. A good time was had by all and they left feeling accomplished. Johanne provided handles and bottoms for those of us that required them. The variety of fabrics, colours and textures was very wide. Interesting how a bag can look so different depending on the fabric chosen. They all turned out beautifully. Hopefully members will be able to inspect them at our next Show and Tell. -- Johanne Vajda      Taught by Michelle Gagne, this workshop was held Tuesday, October 30th at the Glad Tidings Pentecostal Church. This workshop featured how to sew with precision featuring 4 different blocks, which could be made into a 24" square or a runner. Michelle Gagne had lots of techniques and tricks to share with the participants. I was really pleased to learn that my second try at this class involved an improved level of accuracy!! - Chris Gordon      On Tuesday March 6th 10 eager quilters arrived at Glad Tidings Pentecostal Church, where Johanne Vajda instructed us on how to construct a "Big Bag". This bag will be excellent to convey large quilts to "Show and Tell", or a large amount of stuff to a workshop or retreat. Pockets for either side of the bag were constructed prior to Tuesday. By the time most of us left our bags were virtually complete. That is MY kind of workshop. Johanne provided handles and bottoms for those of us that required them. The variety of fabrics, colours and textures was very wide. Hopefully members will be able to inspect them at our next Show and Tell. -- Chris Gordon        Click/tap an image in the gallery below to see it in full. On Saturday February 10th 11 keen quilters met with Mary DeVries to learn different ways to paper piece. We produced trees by the traditional paper method, sew-through-the-paper-on-the-line. Then we stepped up to more complex 8 part stars. Eventually we tried a freezer paper method which allows a pattern to be reused and we made strips of Flying Geese. Lots of detailed work, great fellowship at the Glad Tidings Pentecostal Church, where there are no stairs to have to lug machines up or down. Thanks Mary for a job well done with endless patience. -- Chris Gordon        Click or tap on an image in the gallery below to see it in full.  On Thursday January 18th, twelve eager quilters gathered at Island View Suites retirement residence in Arnprior for our second Sew Day to make blocks for the quilt we'll be raffling off at our 2019 quilt show. Mary deVries and Rennie Hickey are the genii behind this project and its stunning paper pieced wedge shaped blocks. 12 wedges will be joined to make a circle of buildings in the "community" this quilt represents. The quilt will be a real eye-catcher. While working in the activity room our group of quilters were visited by residents interested to see our work. We enjoyed pizza from Mama Rosa's for lunch. Thanks to Island View for inviting us to meet without charge. We appreciate the generosity shown to our Guild.   New Blocks!    Click/tap on a photo in the gallery below to see it in full. Fifteen keen sewers met at Island View Suites retirement residence in Arnprior for a Sew Day on Thursday Nov 16th. We worked at paper piecing wedge shaped blocks for the quilt we will be raffling in 2019. Mary DeVries and Rennie Hickey are the genii behind this project. 12 wedges will be joined to make a circle of buildings in the "community" this quilt represents. I worked on a school, church and house with a double window. The quilt will be a real eye-catcher. While working in the activity room our group of quilters were visited by many residents interested to see our work. We enjoyed pizza and salad from Mama Rosa's. Thanks to Island View for inviting us to meet without charge. We appreciate the generosity shown to our Guild. -- Chris Gordon    Click/tap on a photo in the gallery below to see it in full. On Saturday, May 6th, we drove to our class through the heavy downpour of rain. It was a perfect day to be inside doing a workshop. Our teacher, Katrina Kahn, was very energetic and knowledgeable about free motion quilting. We heard words like: shoulders down, breathe, practise, practise, practise repeated many times as we made our wavy lines, our e's and l's, pebbles (2 different ways), 1, 2, 3 teardrops, figure 8s, and ribbon candy. We were able to see how free motion quilting left the quilts and tablerunners soft and flexible. The workshop had us eager to try out samples and to come home to practise. Katrina's samples are pictured below. -- Gwen Pennings    |
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