This meeting was mostly about preparing for our upcoming quilt show on Sunday, March 13, 2016. The show planning served as impetus for our educational component, for our mini quilt swap, and lot of the chatter.

Sheila, our educator this month, demonstrated a little adjustment to the usual “double fold binding” technique that makes the process quicker and, according to Sheila, a little easier and neater, too! I’m going to try it for sure! It involves preparing the binding as usual but, instead of pressing it in half, simply … don’t. Sheila feels it makes for neater corners and hand-sewn finish without having the crisp seam down the middle of the binding. Jaclyn also uses this method and the only pressing she does is to press the binding out (away from the quilt edge) after machine sewing it on.

Sheila also showed us the lovely flanges she added to a couple of her recent quilts. She uses a 1″ strip folded in half and sews in to the raw edge of the quilt on the front. When the binding is sewn on, it leaves a nice flange detail. Easy and effective. Sheila chose to add a colourful “partial flange” to a part of her quilt that she felt needed a hit of colour near the edge. Brilliant!

And while we’re at it, let’s take a moment to admire the full quilt, one she just finished for her 6 month old Claire. I love the rich colours! You want to see the back, too, of course!

Sheila then provided instructions and talked us through the process of adding hanging sleeves to our quilts for the show. She provided some tips such as making sure to stitch down the sleeve on the ends.

This month’s “Book – Bolt – Blog” component was brought to us by Nicole who started by showing us a book she bought recently. After taking the Lucey Training (the longarm quilting machine at Periwinkle) she picked up a book in the shop that has been very helpful for her in choosing and mastering quilting designs. The book is Step-By-Step Free-Motion Quilting by Christina Cameli. It looks like a good one!

For “Bolt”, Nicole went OFF the bolt and reminded us that sheets can serve as quilt backs as well. She showed us the quilt she is just finishing and that she backed with a sheet she bought on sale at Target’s closing sale. Bonus, she has matching pillow cases for her quilt! She recommended that sheets with high thread count not be chosen and to also avoid sateen finishes because it’s hard to neatly unpick stitches sewn on sateen.

The Tula Pink FreeFall fabric, while lovely and soft, falls into the same category as “sateen finishes”. You don’t want to have to unpick any stitches made on it. Others have noted that it also frays easily and one person warned that the navy FreeFall fabric bled. It is recommended that a “colour catcher” should be used in the wash. One brand of these handy items can be found at Prairie Chicks in Warman.  Others noted that they haven’t had any problem with their FreeFall fabric bleeding, at least not in the other colours.

For “Blog”, Nicole introduced us Lucky Spools Media, a quilting publisher. Their version of the a “Block of the Month” is called the Mighty Lucky Quilting Club. It’s a 12 month subscription service. You can find them on Instagram and use #mightylucky to see all the creative things people are working on! If you like what you see, consider joining!

Kelly updated everyone as to where she’s at with the quilt show plans. Next Sunday (March 6), all members (whether they have quilts in the show or not) are invited to Heather’s house any time after 1:00 (for as long as it takes) to finish bindings, sew on hanging sleeves, make items for the sale table, help others with their last minute finishes, or just hang out and be a part of it all. If you don’t know Heather’s address, simply email her and ask. Since Heather’s house is where all the quilts are to be dropped off for the show, come on by and bring your show quilts, too! FYI … Heather speaking … Kelly likes to call this event the “Hangin’ Hoedown”! The only problem is that I don’t have any country music on my playlist so I don’t want to mislead everyone!

Next on our meeting agenda was the Mini Swap! All the minis made were put into a bag and each participant drew out one. These will all be in the show.

And then we moved on to everyone’s favourite part of our meetings … Show & Tell!

The first quilt of the 2nd traveling quilt round is finished and ready for the show! Way to go, Kim! It’s a beautiful modern maples quilt with blocks contributed by guild members. Kim wanted the blocks to be offset a bit so she added strips of fabric here and there for the effect. I love the teeny leaf!

We’ve been eagerly waiting to see Lisa’s finished traveling quilt (from the first round). She spent a lot of time adding filler blocks and fabric pieces to create this beauty! She even paper-pieced a little corgi at the top to commemorate one of her beloved dogs who died recently. She also paper-pieced SMQG and I only just noticed that she brilliantly added the numbers “twenty fifteen” in the top right corner (cut from the Ikea fabric she used for the backing). Clever! There are so many interesting things to see in this quilt! Well done, Lisa!

Elizabeth has almost finished her SteamPunk quilt. We admired the creative quilting that she did using Lucey at Periwinkle. The quilting design for the “gears and fog” is wonderful. She had purchased the pantograph for the gears but found that it wasn’t the size she wanted so she went through a rather complex process to adjust the size and then transfer the design onto the backing. It really is a wonderful compliment to her theme and worth the effort! The backing, FreeFall by Tula Pink in grey, really works well with the gears!

Darla showed us the very pretty butterfly she paper pieced for her Mom’s Christmas gift. It’s so bright and cheery. Her Mom loves butterflies!

She also showed us this “creature mini” she made for a swap she’s a participant in.

Darla is almost finished this pretty little quilt she made with a charm pack she was given for Christmas.

Edith made this cute runner for her daughter-in-law who likes sheep! Baaaaa haha!

Edith also made this happy little quilt using up her scraps (and some of Sheila’s scraps) of “Cotton & Steel”. She backed it in the popular and incredibly soft FreeFall by Tula Pink.

Three years in the making and Kelly has finally finished her “Elephant Quilt”. It’s big, exotic, and beautiful! I love the elephant fabric she chose for the backing.

Lisa made this wonderful bag for Darla as part of a group exchange they’re both part of. Lucky Darla!

Nicole has had babies on the brain for very good reason. In preparation, she whipped up a whole bunch of burp cloths! She must be expecting a lot of that kind of thing!

Lisa reminded us about the Prairie Piecemakers Quilters Guild Regina Quilt show on May 6 and 7, 2016. Who is interested in a road trip?  For those who might be interested in entering a quilt, you should know that entries are being accepted until April 1. Read the details here. Watch for a member email about the road trip.

On an added note, our charity quilt made it to QuiltCon! You can see a tour of ALL of the many charity quilts that were made using the same technique and the same fabric palette. It’s amazing how different they all are! So many amazing quilts! Here is the link to the tour video by Cheryl Arkinson. Our quilt is at 8:20 in this clip and Cheryl’s quote is, “This one is cool! Again it appeals to my mid-century modern heart.” Watch for our quilt! It was visualized and organized by Carly, quilted by Lisa, and many other members had their hands in making the blocks, binding and labeling it. The finished quilt will be gifted to a guest at Ronald MacDonald House where it will provide comfort, warmth, and hopefully cheer to someone who needs all of those things.

Our next meeting is Easter Sunday, March 27! Same time. Same place.