 Our guild had a wonderful day on Tuesday, May 20, as 17 eager participants gathered at the Horton Community Centre in Renfrew to take part in a Millennium Star workshop led by Helen Gunn. The workshop focused on a beautiful yet complex strip-piecing technique, and everyone was keen to learn. The community centre was perfectly set up for us, with individual tables for each participant and plenty of space for lunch tables. We were especially grateful for the many outlets and extension cords provided—perfect for our sewing stations! We started the day at 9:00 a.m. as Helen walked us through the detailed steps of creating the star.  Helen Gunn  Then it was time to get to work. The process involves nine steps, and most participants made it to step six by the end of the day. It was a sunny, and cool day, and, with plenty of natural light in the hall, we were delighted to spend it together, learning and creating.              A few standout stars, like Emma Russell, finished early—her completed block became a great teaching aid for Helen as she demonstrated the final assembly steps. We were so inspired by Emma’s beautiful finished star!  The stars that emerged were absolutely stunning—crisp points, vibrant fabrics, and plenty of shining talent on display. It was inspiring to see so many variations come to life using the paper piecing method.  We’re looking forward to seeing all the completed stars soon—hopefully during Show and Tell at our next guild meeting.
Great work, everyone! A special thank you again to Helen Gunn for arranging the hall rental and for teaching us this star strip technique! Keep those stars shining! -- Martha Palmer  On Saturday, March 15th, 14 members of our Arnprior & District Quilt Guild gathered to attend the Urban Runners using the Quick Curve Ruler workshop given by Katrina Kahn. The workshop and location, arranged by Lucy Shorey, our program coordinator, was located in the gathering room of the Arnprior library. The room, spacious for 14 people, included tables and bright windows. We all paired up in twos and set ourselves up for learning with Katrina in the center. Katrina, an experienced quilting teacher, was well prepared with a list of materials needed, including pre-cut instructions for creating the Urban Runner by Sew Kind of Wonderful. She not only knows the pattern really well, but she also is very familiar with the language and writing style of the pattern designer. She was able to guide us through the step-by-step instructions very clearly; one of the most memorable reminders to us was ‘use each sentence like a bullet statement’. The many steps were broken down clearly and understood by all of us. Using the curved ruler on the precut pieces was our first big task of the class. Seeing the benefits of the ruler helped us begin to appreciate the multi-use design. It has a beautiful guided curve and allows for some additional “oops” areas. We cut and completed at least four sections of our urban runner under Katrina‘s careful guidance and tutelage, and everybody was very happy with their results. Katrina also brought a number of the quilts that she had used from this pattern and the Sew Kind of Wonderful curved ruler designs, which were extensive in both design and colour. They were an inspiration to us all. We very much appreciated Katrina‘s skills, patience, humour and dedication to creative quilting. -- Martha Palmer     On Saturday June 15, seven guild members joined fellow guild member (and immediate Past President of our guild) Vickie MacNabb, for a painted barnboard workshop. Equipped with the necessary supplies and protective clothing, the participants set up their workstations in the bright and inviting hall in Bethel St Andrew United Church in Fitzroy Harbour. A very productive day!           Workshop leader Vickie Finished projects!       Vickie's completed barnboard quilt -- Janet Brownlee
 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.  |
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