The autumn is here and our colourful surroundings are making us reach for our fall coloured fabric. Its a busy time with the holidays around the corner and it was a busy couple of meetings this month

Tuesday evening was again well attended and we had the pleasure of meeting Bridget O’Flaherty, the Sustainable Quilter (bridgetoflaherty.com) whose vision matches perfectly with our theme of the year. Based in Perth, Ontario and speaking to us via Zoom, this podcaster, teacher, quilter and free motion embroidery expert held us in thrall as she spoke about how we can continue our craft but also help the planet in our own small way. She spoke about the importance of Community, Materials and Benefits in quilting and looked at ways to use materials so that we lessen the impact of our craft on the environment. The aim is to return quilting, which historically relied of used fabrics, to its roots by using fabrics from sustainable sources and only resorting to new fabric when absolutely necessary. She spoke of using upcycling and thrift shops as sources of cottons for quilting, of fabric swaps and other means of reducing the amount of new fabric in our lives as the production of the cotton we use is a complicated and high cost process. Other topics included de-stashing and the use of fabrics certified as organic and sustainably produced. Visit her website for more information on these topics and for links to her other social media and podcasts.

The Tuesday meeting ended with the guild business update and show and tell whereas Wednesday morning started with this. Last month’s in person retreat was a success and quite a few items were made for the guild stall at the DDO Artisans fair the first weekend in November. Christine H handed out the prizes to the winners of the tool time raffle, yet another example of recycling and reusing within the guild.

After the break several members gave demonstrations of gift wrapping items, following on from last weeks reusuable wrapping presentation. Pat presented her lovely reusable gift bags and had quite a few pointers on ways to ease the process. Hopefully they will be gifted between family members and friends for years to come. Annick then demonstrated how she makes a snap closure bag with steel measuring tape. Ingenious and attractive. Finally Nicole showed us 3 ways to make reusable gift card holders. This months virtual retreat will enable us to try these for ourselves.

Finally the meeting finished with the opportunity to make a scappy Christmas decoration with leftover fabric and glue, producing varied and very individual results. If you would like to send me pictures of your ornaments we can start an unofficial gallery!

Now we can get to work on this month’s Quilting Bee challenge and look forward to our December meetings when we will have an ornament exchange made with recycled materials.

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 traditional 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 in the completion of 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 turning 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.