The October evening meeting was very well attended and several new members introduced themselves. What a pleasure to welcome new faces to the guild.

The in-person speaker was a local inprov quilter, Émilie Trahan from Joliette, who uses fabric from thrift shops to produce her amazing quilts. She shared her quilting history and process with us and displayed many of her works. She came to quilting after finding a quilt in her grandmother’s effects addressed to her. Now she produces inprov quilts from upcycled fabric in an amazing range of colours. She described the act of inprov as creating something new, it takes courage but it is fun, exciting and gratifying. It feels like playing, you feel your way and make mistakes but it is not as repetitive as tradional quilting, theres not so much pressure as there is no “right” way and as you have to be “in the moment” it is almost like meditation. Although there are stages when completing a project such as inspiration, direction and preparation, she said that you have to trust in the result, that it will be Ok and that you will learn something. For more information you can find her on Instagram at mili.tra

For the Wednesday meeting we had another in-person speaker this time from a  Longueuil based company, Next Chance. This local company was founded in 2020 and is making their values into action by saving fabric from the landfill. How apt when our theme is Quilting with the planet in mind! A vast amount of new fabric produced finds itself in the waste pile, as much as 12%. This company collects that fabric and produces reusable gift wrapping. They have products for furoshiki, the japanese art of wrapping with fabric, as well as bows and other decorations. We had a demonstration of the technique and it’s clear that many fabrics could be used for this. And it doesn’t have to be 100% cotton. Their products will be on sale in Simons stores from November. Why not check them out and support a local company and help the planet. More information can be found on their website, nextchance.ca , including a demonstration of gift wrapping techniques.

As everything else discussed at the meetings is pretty much covered in the newsletter, that’s it for this month. I have to get on with my square for the quilting bee….

Just a quick note to those members who enjoy a quilting related read.

A copy of Circle of Quilters, number 9 of the Elm Creek Quilts novels by Jennnifer Chiaverini, is currently circulating among the members after being included in the Tool Time Raffle.

If you are interested in having your name added to the list, either contact me (Chris Basra) or add a comment to this post.

For info https://www.amazon.ca/Circle-Quilters-Creek-Quilts-Novel-ebook/dp/B003P9XHZI

Both meetings were well attended with several new members and a guest coming to the evening meeting. After welcoming everyone back after the summer and celebrating the success of the quilt show and the display of the “sky’s the limit” challenge at Atwater library until the end of September, we moved to this year. Our next quilt show will hopefully be in two years but fundraising will start this month with a stall at the Beaconsfield Artisans Fair on Sept 21, 12-5pm. Why not volunteer?

New for meetings this year are name tags for all members. Julie P, the new membership contact person, has been very crafty and made a tag for everyone. They also identify new members and members of the executive.

The executive has a lot planned for this year with both online and in person retreats, outreach kits for NICU and Ronald McDonald House quilts and placemats, and a full program of speakers, activities and work shops. Also at our evening meeting, 2 new members stepped up up to take on the evening hospitality coordinator role. Well done. Now we only need a Vice president to complete the executive.

After quilty ice breakers, the coffee break and the pickle jar draw the evening meeting continued with Nicole Brisse presenting the second half of her talk on the feather course she took last year using a development grant from the guild. What beautiful work and the course sounded excellent. Quite a challenge but the results are amazing and quite inspiring.

Next Pat presented this years theme, “Quilting with the planet in mind”, highlighting ways in which we can care for the planet while still enjoying our craft. Many of this years events will examine these ideas of choosing sustainable materials, using scraps, upcycling etc. As well as other ways to help by car pooling for meetings and shop hops, the lending library for tools and our tool time raffles. All ways to reuse and recycle.

Finally, Melanie reintroduced the Quilting bee and told us that we already have enough registrations for 4 hives. Registration finished today (Friday 6th) and we should be hearing from our Bee Keeper in the next few days with details of our hives and Queen Bee timetable. It will run from October to June with each worker bee making one block per month for each Queen Bee. Melanie’s power point with the instructions for participants is available on the website under Program.

Show and tell concluded the meetings with lots more fun coming next month with an in person speaker, inprov quilter Émilie Trahan from Joliette, at the evening meeting and Next Chance, a company providing fabric wrapping, at the day meeting. Both very on point for this years theme.

See you there.

That’s a wrap

The BQG quilt show at Beaconsfield Recreation Centre last weekend was a success. It was well attended on both days with many visitors coming to look at the almost 120 quilts on display and taking advantage of the vendors stalls, the raffles and silent auctions and the tea room. The new venue worked well although it was a smaller space and we had to turn away some of the quilts offered, we were told by some that it was the perfect size for a weekend outing!

The visitors choice award went to Ellen Lageveen for “Home Grown”

Our member’s choices were:  First place to Helene Scheffer for “Kilauea”, second place to Nicole Rowland for “Caswell” and third choice to Janet Guay for “Jacobean Tropicana”.

The raffle quilt was won by Robin Simmons.

A huge thank you to the organizers and all the volunteers who helped to make this possible.

So its the end of another rich year of quilting…or is it?

Of course not. We still have our show on June 15th and 16th. Its going to be Great!!

The meetings this month were held as usual but with different focuses. After welcoming Julie, a member visiting from the UK, this month’s evening meeting focused on a Zoom presentation by Brandy Maslowski, “The Quilter on Fire” podcaster and a quilt judge and juror. Originally a firefighter, Brandy is now an art quilter and teacher, traveling the world to “educate, speak and ignite creativity with the tag line More Joy, Less Overwhelm“.

Her presentation, “The Gentle Judge”, led us through the differences between being a juror and being a judge, what each are looking for when they make decisions and the processes they employ. Basically the juror whittles down the 1000s of entries to a show using the criteria of entry, often using photos of the entries. The aim is to weed out entries which don’t completely match the brief.

Once the final selection is made the judges will examine each item individually and make a decision using the criteria of the show. Brandy recommended that a guild holding a judged show needs to compile a judging binder beforehand, something she has helped guilds compile. The judge will start with the general appearance of the quilt, is it clean and cat hair free? Following this she will assess the visual impact such as the use of colour, the design elements etc. and finally the workmanship. If an award is to be made then two further evaluations are made on Degree of Difficulty (DOD) and complexity of Design (COD). Brandy finished her presentation with a chance for us all to look at two examples and see if we could identify any issues. However as she stressed, the judgement is not a personal one. The judge does not know who created the quilt or the story behind it and the judgement is not negative but rather a positive suggestion for improvement. For more on quilt judging go to the National Association of Certified Quilt Judges (nacqj.com)

Following our snack break Melanie presented the program for next year. There will not be any challenges but there will be a Quilting Bee. This sounds like a lot of fun and sign up sheets will be going out soon. The idea is to form hives of 9 people who will spend the 9 months of the quilting year creating a series of monthly blocks for the Queen bee. Each member of the hive will have one month as the queen and will receive all the blocks made in that month. She will be able to choose her block and must supply her worker bees with instructions and recommendations for her block. Sounds like a lot of fun and maybe quite a challenge for some of us.

Show and tell wound up the meeting with a brief reminder from Fay about the St Jean stall at Centennial Park on June 24th. Volunteers welcome.

The guild AGM formed the first part of the day meeting. This was followed by coffee and snacks and then Pat presented the information about the Quilting Bee. It was also mentioned that Summer sew -in days will continue and a new zoom link will be added to the website. Some members then enjoyed a picnic lunch in the park

Have a great summer and see you at the show..