Michael Miller Challenge

At the April monthly meeting, Members of the Maritime Modern Quilt Guild received their fat 1/8th packs containing the challenge fabric for the Michael Miller Challenge sponsored by the Modern Quilt Guild.  Each member received 6 pieces of Michael Miller  fabric

• The challenge runs from March 2014-June 23, 2014.
• Winners announced July 8, 2014
• Members may make anything they want as long as it is quilted!
• Add in any solid or Michael Miller printed fabric.
• You do not need to use all the fabrics given to you.

Now, what to do, what to do!   There have been a few ideas floating around.  Anxious to see designs popping up.

April Sew In!

Our April Sew-In was a ton of fun with lots of sewing and information exchanging, lots of stories and laughing.

5 happy MMQG members showed up with their machines  to spend the day at Linda's house.  Here are Jeanette and Aimee hard at work cutting and sewing. Jeanette got a whole quilt top sewn up!  Can't wait to see how she quilts it.

Aimee was making lots of colourful hexagons with her Accuquilt Baby..

Linda just can't seem to stop sewing tiny scraps together and making them into pillows.

Maybe a rectangular pillow this time.  All those Amy Butler scraps are put to good use

Linda shared her newest project - a wallhanging for her Dad 

Everyone loved Linda's iron...it sure does a great job on getting those pieced blocks nice and flat.

    

Adrienne's project was taking shape with lots of yellow scraps being sewn into long strips

Dominique had a relaxing time just handquilting away on a project that has been lanquishing for a while.  We all know about that!

Just the cutest!

helping Adrienne decide how big to cut the border for her Bee quilt top. 

Another successful Maritime Modern Quilt Guild  Sew-In Day!  Maybe you could join us next time!

April Meeting and Show and Tell

April Meeting

Last night, at our April Meeting, we enjoyed an information session with Sarah Lyon, Director of Philanthropy at the Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia and also a confirmed social media geek (her words!)  Sarah shared her Power Point presentation on how social media will help our guild to grow with lots of statistics and hints.  Thank You Sarah, it was a learning experience for us and we thoroughly enjoyed your talk.  Because we "are makers", our wonderful Adrienne whipped up an awesome cushion to present to Sarah as a little thank you. 

Sarah Lyon showing her new cushion

                                                              
                                                      Here is our Show and Tell

Adrienne's Giant Star .

Anja's little quilt made with leftovers from another project.  Too cute!

Another strip quilt by Anja. 

Adrienne's  gorgeous  "Summer Tracks" 

Linda with her "Soul Searching" quilt top waiting to be quilted.  A scrapbuster.

This is Jenn's latest amazing project...can you guess what it will be?  I will tell you at the end of this post.

A very springy, modern quilt by Sandra

Jeanette's sweet cosmetic bags.  She is getting ready for her sale at the East Coast Momma Collective sale later this month.

Jenn's new quilt is a hockey rink!  Isn't it just wonderful. Can't wait to see it all finished.   I know a few boys, big and small, who would love a quilt like this.

New members are very welcome! We would love to have you join us. 

Housekeeping Items

We are going to vote on our Bylaws at this weeks meeting (Thursday April 10). The bylaws are on the members only page for you to review.

Also, the position of Secretary is open on the executive. Many thanks to Leigh Anne for her contribution so far, but with Leigh Anne dialing in for each meeting it can be hard for her to capture the whole conversation around the table. I hope someone else in the membership will be interested in taking on this role.

AND - a reminder that we are also Sewing In this week on Saturday. Check out the meeting page for details. Again Linda is hosting! Thanks Linda!

See you on Thursday

April Meeting

Our April Meeting date is just around the corner. I am excited to share that Sarah Lyon will be joining us to talk about Social Media. How we can manage our Social Media, tips for how we can keep information up to date and fresh so that it is interesting and useful, not only for our current members, but also to attract new members!

In her own words, a little about Sarah:
By day I am the Director of Philanthropy at the Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia. My department holds events, campaigns and does communications. In my off time I am the Public Relations Advisor for the Dartmouth Shore Girl Guides and a national blogger for Girl Guides of Canada. I also am a member of the Halifax Food Bloggers and seem to be an early adopter of online media (a habit that can annoy your significant other when you want to document everything you do)

Of course we will also have Show and Share so bring your modern sewing project(s) and let us ogle them!

Date: Thursday April 10
Time: 7-9 pm
Place: Alderney Gate Public Library Dartmouth, Maxine Tynes Room
Teleconference Number for our away folks:  1-877-385-4099 Participant Code: 9910144 #

Looking forward to seeing you!

A Sew In Report - Yes we really love fabric

What a great Sew In yesterday! First great thing about the day? Linda! Linda graciously hosted our day in her home in Halifax. We sewed in her kitchen. If this is not Maritime, I don't know what is?!

She also gave us a tour of her quilting studio, which let me tell you is more than one room and holds so much fabric goodness. Oh and just a few sewing machines:) We saw it at the top of the stairs and it didn't take long to convince Linda of a tour. We even got our very own private Trunk Show. Linda had over forty quilts in her home, displayed everywhere and they are all gorgeous! It was just plain inspiring!

Linda's Project for the day, amazing Kaffe Fassett prints and that Chartreuse! Ooooh

Our other extra special treat for the day was that Leigh Anne was in town from PEI! It was the first time that our Leigh Anne got to sew with us, so great! Leigh Anne was working on some scrappy strip squares. So much delicious fabric and when they got on the design wall - AWESOME!

Dena also came in from Lunenburg for the day. Her kissing fishes project was awesome! I love to see how folks use Batiks (mainly because I can never figure out how to use them).

Jennifer was doing some hand binding. Check out these delicious pinks for a wee girls baby quilt.

I was working on a Union Jack Pillow. A custom order, but man I can tell you I could make these all day.

And I started working on a other project that I have been procrastinating about. Leigh Anne told me I could not leave until I had five seams stitched. It was the motivation I needed to get going

Another great feature of the day, Books! We all brought some of our books to share. So much fun checking out everyones books stash. It is a great idea to have a chance to look at those books you think you might like before making the plunge to purchase. On the other hand it meant I went right home last night and hit Amazon!

Books, Books and more Books!

Being the fabric aholics that we are, Leigh Anne's surprise of door prizes was wicked! For those of you who don't know, Leigh Anne is Ella's Cottage and she has a great Etsy store with a focus on Moda Fabric and her own hand made items. The door prizes were FQ custom bundles (8 FQs in a bundle!!!) that Leigh Anne made up, or the option to paw through a bin of FQs that she brought along. Because there was only four of us we all got a prize!

Custom FQ bundles from Ella's Cottage! Yay Door Prizes!

Dena picking out her door prize

Once we had our prizes, we also went though the bin, and at a sale price of $2 per FQ, we cleaned Leigh Anne out! Her load is lighter for her trip back to Charlottetown.

I mean seriously people, sewing, books, fabric prizes, shopping, stash and quilt tours and gabbing. What a perfect day!

Special thanks again to Linda for opening her beautiful home, and a shout out to her husband for making the space so welcoming, and thanks to Leigh Anne for making the special trip and making our bags a bit heavier with fabric!
Adrienne

Saturday Sew In March 22

It's time for March Sew In! I am already thinking about what I will bring to work on....

Here are the meeting details:

Time: 10:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Place:  6 Keystone Court, Fairview Halifax

We are meeting in Linda's home this time. Thank you to our very own Scrapmaster for hosting us!

What to Bring: Your MMQG Member Card, a modern quilting project to work on (or several!) including all your tools and sewing machine if needed, your lunch 

There are plenty of tables and chairs in the room, but if you have an extra electrical cord, I say bring it along!

Hope to see you there!