Hello! My name is Sheila, and I am thrilled (read impossibly nervous) to be guest blogging for the Saskatoon Modern Quilt Guild! I’ve “had” a blog for a year-ish now. You can find me at stitchedbysheila.wordpress.com. Truth be told – this is my VERY FIRST blog post EVER! Hence the impossible nervousness…. Since I had the camera (because who doesn’t have an iPhone these days) at our April meeting, I was nominated to make this post. Ok. I’m ready!

Thank you to everyone who dawned their rubber boots and umbrellas, braving the torrential downpour to join us for our April Meeting! We sincerely apologize for making you enjoy the scent of fresh rain while we sorted out the key situation. (Thanks Kelly!)

A little business to start our meeting off right. Three new members! Fantastic!! Always love to see new faces at our meetings! Our MQG pins and membership cards also arrived – double bonus! Now to make a bag to pin my pin to… I digress. And the challenge fabric was distributed! Michael Miller Fabrics has generously donated fabric from the new line Petal Pinwheels to the MQG Fabric Challenge of 2014.  We were all given an assorted stack of fat eighths to start with. The rules are: make something quilted using this fabric, any coordinating solids, and any other Michael Miller prints. Sweet! I love this line to pieces and had already bought a few yards of it from our LQS Periwinkle.  Isn’t it fantastic?!

Petal Pinwheels – my fabric is cut and I’m ready to get started on my challenge piece.

Now, on to who everyone was anxiously awaiting! We were so lucky to have had Monika Kinner-Whalen from My Sweet Prairie at our meeting to expose us to the vastly beautiful world of embroidery! She is such an incredibly talented person and her work has been featured in magazines!  A huge thank you to Monika for the introduction, the instruction, and the inspiration into the world of embroidery!

I was so impressed by all of the books and embroidered art that she brought to show and really motivated me to give it a try! I had brought the top of a cushion cover that I am making for my daughter’s bedroom, so when the hoops and thread were passed around, I got down to it! …. thirty minutes later I had a leaf! Don’t get me wrong – I love my leaf! Add this to the WIP pile and maybe I can give the finished cushion to my daughter to decorate her first apartment 😉

My leaf!

The Guild Challenge for April was Perfect Points. Aimed to encourage us to focus a little more on the precision of our piecing. And the members did not disappoint! Check out these points!

Carly’s One Block Wonder

Sheila’s quilt in progress for her daughter’s big girl bed.

I cannot remember who’s behind this quilt – it is magnificent though!! Perfect points for sure! Challenge accepted and accomplished!

Erin’s Challenge piece! Perfect Points!

And to end the meeting off right with a little inspiration on a rainy Sunday afternoon, sending us right back to our cutting mats and machines. Enjoy the Show and Tell!

Our newest member Tarra! And the sweet cowboy quilt that she made for her son.

Stroller quilt for a new baby and matching doll quilt for the big brother, made by Jaclyn.

Kelly finished a quilt!! 😉

Beautiful QAYG

Kim’s Cushions

Kim’s Cushions

Another amazing quilt made by Patti.

You’ll have to excuse the photos in this post. I had some major camera issues right before the meeting and had to resort to my iPhone for official picture taking. As a result some of the pictures are not very good and some are missing completely.

This was our first meeting in Periwinkle’s new location on Broadway avenue and we had a full house! It was so nice to see many familiar faces and a few new ones as well. The new space at Periwinkle is much larger and we are just so happy we get to use it. We even went on a little store tour after the meeting to check out the new space.

After a little business the wonderful Lisa lead us on a binding lesson. She made some great samples and I think everyone took something away from her talk. She also provided us with a list of resources which I have added to our resource page. Be sure to check it out.

We also gathered up our pouches which are en route to the East Midlands MQG as part of a swap we are doing with that guild.

We also showed off the results of our scrap challenge, in January we challenged members to swap a plastic bag full of scraps with another member and see what they could make. Some of the pouches above were part of the challenge as well. There were a few other pieces as well and unfortunately I don’t have pictures of them all. Everyone did a great job!

At the end of the meeting we also did some regular show and tell. We love to see what you are working on.

Thanks again for a great meeting everyone! Hope to see you next month.

P.S. Here is a sneak peek of our banner. It’s coming along nicely. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to the effort.