Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Did you hear??

So did you hear about the 100 Days of Modern Quilting that will be
taking place over at The Modern Quilt Guild.


It's a Call for Submissions, so make sure you head on over to The Modern Quilt Guild
to learn about how you can get involved.

Let's put St. Louis on the map and show those other MQG what we already know.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Randomness #4

Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know about a few things that are going on, in case you want to participate, know about, etc.

  • Wendy shared with me this site: Generation Q Magazine.  It's a modern/contemporary Quilting eZine.  This all started because Quilting Home Magazine is no more after Aug/Sept issue, so let's all rally behind Generation Q Magazine and show them that Modern Quilters need to be counted and are excited that a Magazine is finally noticing us.  Thanks Jan for the update.
BWS tips button


  • We now have a Twitter Account....yay!  Check us out @STLMQG and if you have a Twitter account, go follow us.  We are a little slow with the tweets as we are still learning, so bear with us.

  • Are you looking for more HABITAT fabric?  Go check out the Challenge tab along the top header of our blog, it will link you to some shops that carry some.  For those due-paying members who weren't at July's meeting and want to play along, I'll be bringing the fabric in August.

  • The Modern Quilt Guild has announced Project Modern Challenge #4.  This one could be the hardest of them all; but the most fun to make because it is called "Find Your Own Voice".  Click here to check out the rules and what it's all about.  FYI, Denyse Schmidt is the judge this round and September 30th is the due date.

  • If you missed the announcment in June, all of our meetings will now take place at the Kirkwood YMCA, there is a time change as well. We are now meeting at 10:30-1pm.  I'll be sending out an email reminder and highlighting this when the August Agenda is created.  Thanks to everyone for bearing with us during this transitional period.  I met with the Facilities Director earlier in the week and we are good to go.  The space is great...here's a sneak peek.  Oh, and the parking situation...we got that covered.  As some of our members mentioned, there is a church parking lot across the street, and behind/connected to it is a free parking lot too.  There should be more then enough parking; but as always, if you can carpool...I would advise it :-)


  • Did you hear the news, Shannon from Fabric Nosherie, wants to know what you want her to carry in her modern fabric shop that is opening in Webster Groves later this fall.  You can leave a list in her "suggestion box", found in the comment section of her blog post...or you can hop on over to Flickr and leave a list there, as she asked us to pull one together too as a group.

  • Did you get caught up in the Denyse Schmidt craziness when it premiered at Jo-Ann's Fabrics a few months back.  Well, get ready...because she has another line coming out called Sugar Creek.  See a sneakpeek here

  • If you are like me, you always want to participate in Quilt Alongs; but you have enough on your plate right now.  Regardless I wanted to share with you one that is starting soon, in case you want to save it for later. 
                  -  Summer Sampler Series
          

I think that's it for now, if you have something you'd like to share with the group, let me know.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Meeting Recap (July 9th, 2011)

Another fun-filled meeting, literally...I mean cake, giveaways and everyone walked home with a little something from Moda.  Who could have asked for a better way to celebrate our 1st Anniversary.

We started the day with 62 due-paying members and ended it with 70.  Hi !  New Members

Here's how it all went:
  • Sign-ups for the Surprise Sew-In (August 27th) will open August 1st.  To sign up, visit our blog and click on the Sew-In button that will appear.  Due-paying members only and the entrance fee is 1 Modern-style Fat Quarter. 
  • It's not too late to get in on the Golden Ticket Bus Tour (September 23rd-25th), starting at Fabric Nosherie in Webster Groves (opening in September) and travelling across several states. 
  • Mary Claire shared with us some tops that were already put together using some of the blocks that were collected for the Cross Blocks Gathering.  The guild did an amazing job, and we are now looking for donations of batting, and of course time.  If you are interested, please contact Mary Claire.  The Sew,Mama,Sew! $20 Gift Certificate was won by Candy G.
  • Fabric Folding & Storage Solutions Part 1, included Cindy Lammon and Gina S. showing some of the techniques that they learned from In Color Order and Turning*Turning.  There was a discussion which followed where several additional storage ideas popped up.  Part 2 of the program was a blog post which included contributions by Cindy Lammon, Gina S., Nancy L. and Candy G.  If your scroll to the post before this or click here, you can check it out.  Thanks Everyone!!!
  • The HABITAT Challenge has officially started.  Fabric was shown and distributed, rules were given and the response was overwhelming.  We currently have 33 participants; but it's not too late to get in on the fun.  If you missed July's meeting, I'll have the fabric with me in August too.  If you need a reminder of the rules or are interested in where you can buy more of the HABITAT fabric, check our the Challenge tab at the top of the page.  Here's what the fabric looks like for those that missed it.
  • Cake Time!!!  Thanks to Jessica and Linda for cutting and prepping, and the other ladies who helped distribute.
  • As mentioned in the Big Surprise post, we had some lovely prizes to give away. 
      • Bindings, Borders & Squares donated a copy of the Block Party book, a Heather Bailey pattern and a Bananafana pattern
      • The Quilted Garden donated 2 Gift Certificates each worth $15, along with a basket of other goodies
      • The Quilted Fox donated a skein of Japanese embroidery floss and another variety of embroidery floss
      • Mary Claire had some "Favorite Things" to giveaway to several winners
      • I donated some Fat Quarter bundles
      • Moda/United Notions donated mini-charm packs of Flurry and Countdown to Christmas to all of the members in attendance yesterday.

  • While the 1st anniversary celebration was wonderful, it was certainly time to have a Reality Check, just to reinforce that all of this just doesn't magically happen.  As Mary Claire put it, it "takes a village".  I would be most honored to continue as your President for however long you'll have me, and Mary Claire would love to be involved for however long you'll have her too; yet don't let that deter you from running.  We are just 2 people and when elections happened last year our group was still relatively small; yet as I mentioned earlier in this post, we are now 70 strong.   
    • We agreed to change our By-Laws allowing for an Election Officiate to collect names of those wishing to run for office/committees/etc.  Jamie Mueller is now that Election Officiate for this year.  If you'd like to have your name on the ballot, please notify Jamie no later then October 1st.  After which she will provide all names to Mary Claire and I, and a ballot will be created.  Campaigning and Elections will happen at the November meeting (11-12-11) in case you are wondering.  You must be present to campaign and vote in the election, as there are no absentee ballots.  More info can be found here on the process, positions, etc.  After reviewing the information if you have additional committees you think we need, or have questions as to the roles please contact me.
    • There was a discussion around guild involvement and how important it is to follow your fellow member's blogs, connect on Flickr, upload photos, comment on other's blogs/photos/etc.  Here is some information regarding this topic
  • Finally, the future of the STLMQG was briefly discussed.  It is my hope that we can continue to do more charitable block collections, that we can go on retreats and have tons more Sew-Ins, that we can host Speakers that appeal to the modern quilter, and one day have a quilt show that is truly our own.  One of our members even challenged us to be the best Modern Quilt Guild outside of LA...and why the hell not.  Yet, none of this is possible if we do not have a strong foundation and group dynamic. 
Our next meeting will be August 13th, at our new location.  The Kirkwood Family YMCA.  Our meeting time has changed too, it's now 10:30am - 1:00pm.  Address and directions can be found on the Meeting Info tab along the top of our header.  Of course, I will send out an email and make special note of this when it gets closer as well, we don't want any members going to the wrong location, do we?  The Rip, Rip, Ripping Challenge is due that month as well.

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Lastly, as our 1st year comes to a close, I wanted to take a quick trip down memory lane. 

We started online 7/30/2010 and literally that same day, a few crazy people jumped onboard (Mary Claire, Jamie and Cara). 

Our1st meeting was 9/11/2010 and as you can see in the photo below, while a few had left before Mary Claire took our 1st photo (See photos are always the last thing we think of)...our group was quite small. I think we only had 13 attend that first meeting.

 Photo courtesy of Mary Claire

Here we are a month later, October 9th.


 And here we are today:
Photo courtesy of Mary Claire

You cannot know how much you all mean to me, you have challenged me, pushed me to do things that I was previously uncomfortable doing, and allowed me to grow and learn new things...and I thank you all for that.  I am continually inspired by all of your talent and hope that the longer we stick together, the more it will rub off :-)  A special Thanks goes out to Mary Claire, for being my Quilty-WingWoman and for sharing your ideas and listening to my crazy ones.  I certainly could not have done it without you.

Looking forward to many, many more years.

See you all in August!!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

July Program: Fabric Folding & Storage Solutions

Hello everyone, and welcome to what I like to call being a fly on the wall.

I’d like to thank Nancy, Cindy, Gina and Candy for allowing us a peek inside their sewing rooms and for sharing with all of us the solutions they have found for that pesky problem ... storage.

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First up is Nancy, whose room is so bright and cheery.
Her hubby rigged up an ironing board surface along the wall on the right.
They added some wire drawers underneath so as to not lose any precious space.
That sewing machine extension table is to die for and look…more table space, a whole 6 feet of it.

What you may or may not have noticed is the way in which Nancy organizes her thread, on the wall and out of her way.  The same is done with her scissors.  One Christmas her husband received a magnetic strip for the wall that is usually for screwdrivers; but Nancy now uses it for her scissors.

Did you see the batting? I didn’t either right away; but it’s in the last photo up top in that clear tub. She has a wire shelving system spanning the perimeter of the room and keeps stuff she doesn’t use on a regular basis up and out of the way.

It looks great Nancy, Thanks for sharing!!

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Cindy is up next. She has a large ironing station too, are you seeing a trend here?
This is definitely something that you can make yourself if that standard ironing board you are using isn’t enough space. Cindy says that she just bought a regular wire shelving unit, then purchased a 20x60 piece of MDF board and covered it in batting and fabric. The shelving unit not only supports the MDF board (which isn’t attached by the way); but also offers a lot of storage, and as you can see she even uses S-Hooks for hanging other ironing necessities. Now let’s all look closely at Cindy’s fabric…see how it’s folded, you might have remembered her demonstrating this during the meeting today.  The process was learned from Jeni's blog: In Color Order.  She has some great videos on how to fold fabric of varying sizes as well as how to organize and build a fabric stash.

Thanks, Cindy, for sharing a great Do-It-Yourself solution.

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Gina has a lot of ideas to share with all of you readers, so sit back and enjoy.
This is Gina’s room. The wall unit and cutting station are from St. Louis Closet Company.
Now let’s zoom in and check out these great little baskets which hold all of her in progress projects.
Here is how Gina organizes her fabric, by color and in a drawer that is easily accessible. She uses a method from Turning*Turning for folding her fabric, which she too shared with us during the meeting.
Lastly, here is how she wrangled those pesky but useful scraps. She even organized them by color.

Gina has all of her scrapbooking, gift-wrapping, etc. supplies organized too in the same room. So if you want to steal borrow some of her ideas, you should ask her about it.

Thanks Gina, it looks great.

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Candy rounds out the bunch and it’s funny because she said that she was “embarrassed” as her fabric was organized not only by color; but also fabric type, etc. Well, Candy…you are in good company here with us.
Here is her wall of wire drawers, and yes everything is organized so nicely. These drawers are great, because, as she says, if she wants to look through all of it, she can pull the whole drawer out and take it to her cutting table.

Candy, thanks for sharing.

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Before I close this post, I wanted to share a few quick photos of my studio and how I wrangle my fabric.
That center drafting table is where I do everything, sew, cut fabric, and when it’s time to iron, I break out the "dorm-room sized" tabletop ironing board and press away.
This is where all of my fabric is stored, in an old filing cabinet. FQs are in that clear drawer system sitting to the right.
This is what is hiding inside the drawers…surprise!

While I’d love to be able to have my fabric on a shelf so I could see all of it at once, due to a drastically slopped ceiling that wasn’t in the cards, the filing cabinet was my solution. I too use Jeni's method to fold my fabric, although I get lazy about it sometimes and I end up having to refold it all anyway.

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Again, a big thanks to all of the participants.
and Candy

No matter if you have a dedicated sewing room, corner of the living room, share the basement, or even a garage; it’s finding the solution that is best for you. I hope this gave you a few ideas.

If any of this spurred further questions or you have a comment to share, ask away or hop on over to Flickr to continue the conversation.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Meeting #11 - July 9th, 2011

Hello Modern Quilters,

I hope everyone's 4th of July Holiday was grand, that's actually why this agenda is coming to you a little later then normal; but I'm sure you won't mind, considering the special occasion it celebrates.

Looking forward to seeing everyone Saturday!!

Date: Saturday, July 9th
Time: 9:30am-Noon
Location:
Bindings, Borders & Squares Quilt Shop
325 Droste Road
St. Charles, MO 63301

**Please consider carpooling. When parking, please do not park in the 3-5 spots directly in front of the shop, those are for customers***

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Agenda:

   -Welcome & Guild Business
   -Special Announcements / Quilting News
   -Cross Blocks Gathering (Blocks Due)
   -Program: Storage Solutions & Fabric Folding
   -Free Spirit Habitat Challenge (starts in July, ends in October)
   -STLMQG 1st Anniversary Celebration
   -STLMQG Reality Check
   -Next Meeting Date (August 13th)
   -Questions / Comments
   -Closing Remarks
   -Mix & Mingle

**Please note that we will NOT be holding Show & Tell this month due to the very busy schedule.

**Remember to bring your Cross Blocks, as they are ALL due this month.  Don't forget every block gives you a chance at the $20 SewMamaSew! Gift Certificate drawing...and let's not forget the purpose for this block gathering: Quilts for Project Linus and Joplin, MO.

**How are we coming on the Rip, Rip, Ripping Challenge?  Remember your item is due next month (August 13th).

**If you missed the Big Announcement, make sure you scroll down to the previous post.

**If you are participating in the Program this month (Fabric Folding & Storage Solutions), expect an email from me tomorrow (Wednesday) night confirming your participation.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Big Announcement -- Revealed

About 20 days ago, I posted this image with nothing but the words Coming Soon....





Well, it is July 1st and you probably want to know what all the Hoopla is about, am I right?

It's actually a two-part surprise...

Part 1...for those of you who routinely log-on and check Flickr, you'll note that I mentioned our guild's 1st year anniversary is July 30th, 2011.  It has been an amazing first year and we wanted to celebrate it with all of you, so we will be having a party, and not just any party...one with giveaways.  Mary Claire and I have been in contact with several people and are pleased to announce that we have secured some donations from The Quilted GardenThe Quilted Fox, Moda/United Notions, as well as a special surprise from both Mary Claire and myself. 

We look forward to seeing all of you Saturday, July 9th at Bindings, Borders and Squares Quilt Shop...make sure you have your party pants on...hehehe

Part 2...in honor of the outpouring of support that you all have already shown and will ultimately show during July's meeting when all of our Spring/Summer Charity Blocks have been collected (remember they are all due next meeting), I've been able to secure something that all of our due-paying members will want to know about. Ready...


Yep, that's right folks.  I've scored us another Sew-In Saturday.  Our first one back in May was a blast and while our next one on September 24th is still on schedule, I've now added a Surprise! Sew-In Saturday.  So all due-paying members, mark those calendars. 
Location: Brown Shoe Company - Clayton, MO
Times: 9am - 6pm
Date: Saturday, August 27th
Registration Required, Sign-ups begin in early August


That's it, there is the Big Announcement...or in this case Announcements (stressing the s).  I hope it lived up to the anticipation.