Monday, 27 July 2026

Guild Day, Tuesday, July 21, 2026

 We had seventeen members in and out of our doors today. There were various work crews busy today. Eight quilt sandwiches were pinbasted and waiting for members to take them home for quilting, Audrey was busy fashioning frankenbatting from all the falloffs, two quilts had binding attached for handstitching, Lynn was busy assembling kits for three yard quilts and the fabric kept rolling in! Three different people  donated fabrics for the guild to use. Gail Baker brought several bags of fabrics as well as books and magazines in an effort to reduce her stash, Pat Hall brought her mother’s (Adele Kristof) quilting fabrics which she had kept for fifteen years and had not taken up quilting herself, and Maureen Persadsingh also brought in some of her fabrics. Thank you ladies for your donations, we will certainly use them and the recipients of our quilts will also be happy for your generosity.


                                     Basted quilts ready to take for quilting, three yard quilt kits


                                                                 Handstitching required


                                                        Freebies for members to peruse 


Comfort Quilts:


                                        Piecing by Phyl, quilting and binding by Sandra D.

   
Assembled by Susan who is always going through the fabric bins and coming up with special creations. I am not sure if the quilting was done by her or someone else.

Wildfire Quilts:




These two quilts came from Ontario. So many guilds and individuals have donated quilts for our wildfire victims that we are at the point of having enough quilts for Denare Beach and are now expanding to other victims in our greater area who lost their homes. Many thanks to all who donated to this cause.

The tops for our Christmas raffle quilts are almost complete, just a few more blocks to be returned for the second one. 

Our fall retreat will be held on October 2nd and 3rd. There will be a vendor, Julie from The Empty Bobbin in Swan River will be bringing her wares for us to purchase. She always has a lovely selection of fabrics, patterns, notions and kits available for anyone who needs any sewing supplies. So if you quilt or craft and need something to finish your project, drop by Northminster Memorial Church and see what Julie has to offer.

A note from Marg F. she will be sharpening scissors at next month’s guild day at a charge of $2.00 a pair. She can also sharpen pinking shears so if you have dull scissors or shears bring them to the church during the day.

Phyl also had a donation for us, two bags of assorted coloured threads which will be very useful for those jobs that require a colour other than white or cream. Thank you, Phyl!


Show and Tell:


Karen is a lady of many talents! She crafted this lovely frame for her Grandson, Keaton. The frame contains all the relevant information on Keaton’s birth. Beautiful work, Karen.


To go with the frame, she created this card. A very special frame and card, handmade by a loving Grandma, a treasure for a special little boy.

                             
                              Because Grandma is a quilter, Keaton will also have this lovely quilt.


Of course older brother cannot be left out, so he will get this beautiful dinosaur quilt. Heather will be tasked with doing the longarming of these two quilts.


Earlier this year the North Star Quilters Guild lost another of its charter members. Evelyn was a regular attendant of our guild days and meetings and we all miss her dearly. Shortly before her passing she donated this lovely quilt top to the guild to be used for whatever the guild deemed appropriate. Heather did the quilting on her longarm and the quilt will be donated to the Flin Flon Arts Council who will use it as a raffle fundraiser.


Bev purchased the kit for this quilt at a craft sale in Cranberry Portage a number of years ago. Her granddaughter will be the lucky recipient. What a beautiful gift from Grandma!


Phyl created this table runner and placemat set for husband’s niece using the Highway 10 Designs pattern, “Detour”.


This quilt by Phyl is called “Cobblestones”. She did the edge to edge quilting using her embroidery machine so there was a lot of hooping involved. Note also that she has a unique binding using all the colours in the quilt.


Audrey went to Quilt Canada in Winnipeg and gave us a report of the fabulous quilts, hangings, etc. that she saw. She took part in two little workshops that were offered and this little case was one of them I believe this was a felting project. It looks like it is her rotary cutter case.


Another workshop was the sewing of a mug rug and then you could enter your name to win a big fancy machine. She was sorry to report that she and her daughter did not win😢.


Zoey shared the quilt top she stitched for her brother’s mother-in-law. This is a Highway 10 pattern called City Slicker. The black is very striking! 
She also showed us a photo of a quilt she made for her niece. Both the quilt and her niece were beautiful!


This is a bag made from a man’s shirt. The pockets become an integral part of the bag. Marg had a number of bags to share with us, using many different fabric types, whatever she had at hand, no two alike except for shape!


                                                         Shades of gray and black


                                                           Silk fabric from Thailand


                                            A leftover flower panel from a previous project


                                        She makes leftover fabric squares look amazing.


                    Marg made this quilt from fabric packages she purchased from stores in Arizona.


Marg sewed this quilt from the crumbs of her temperature quilt. That quilt had been made completely of half square triangles and each of those HST’s had two triangle fall offs. So what do you do with all those fall offs? You make another quilt! This one is not a temperature quilt, just a “use all the scraps” quilt. It is really remarkable how a quilter can take bits and pieces, add a larger background piece and create something totally different. Marg is a master at this!


The last one Marg shared with us was, in her words, the most difficult pattern she had ever done. When Marg says that you can be sure that it is an advanced pattern even though it looks deceptively simple. The problem was to get the colours to flow around the friendship stars. Beautiful work,Marg!


I stitched this quilt using a fat quarter bundle from the fabric line called Meander. The Whirlwind pattern is fat quarter friendly and sews up quickly. I used fourteen fat quarters to get the forty-two squares. This will be a gift for my grandson and his wife.


Patty made this sewing machine pad using a bath mat for backing. The rubber back will prevent slipping and the extra stitching above the pockets makes it easy to fold down over the edge of a table.


                                                                           Voila!

That concluded our meeting except for our membership draw which was won by Lorna G. which was very fitting as this was her final meeting with us before her move to Prince Edward Island.

We will miss you Lorna!❤️

Happy quilting!
Gladys







  




















Saturday, 20 June 2026

Guild Day, Tuesday, June 16, 2026

 Hello everyone, welcome back to our blog page! As usual we had a busy day with members and some guests coming and going throughout the day, 19 in total.

There were five quilts assembled and pin basted today. One almost complete quilt had binding applied in readiness for hand stitching. One quilt top that was laid out last month was stitched together and will be sandwiched and pin basted next month.


         
           Bev is folding a pin basted quilt that will be available for taking home to be machine quilted.

     
      June and Beverley are browsing some articles that Marg brought in which she is offering for sale.


                                       Sandra and Patty are preparing for tonight’s meeting.


Cindy is completing ticket books for our fall raffle quilt while June is slicing watermelon for members to snack on. We certainly appreciate the coffee and snacks for those little break times during the day.


Lorna and Marg are working on a quilt commemorating Flin Flon’s one hundredth birthday which will be hung at City Hall. These ladies are doing an excellent job on this assignment.


                         Meanwhile, the pin basting crew is hard at work on another quilt sandwich.


                       And yet another quilt sandwich is being pinned! Many hands make light work! 


                                                     Our fall raffle quilt is complete! 


 Here we have a close up shot of the quilting, fabulous job, Heather! The name of the panto she used is “Resplendant”.


               Here is all the information you need to give yourself a chance to win this beautiful quilt!


Comfort Quilts:


Marg brought in four quilts she made up and donated to the guild. Thank you, Marg. There will be some lucky people who will receive theses quilts.


                                             Number 1 will be appreciated by some little girl.


This is the back of number one. Marg was able to find this material in a thrift store. This is quite a unique piece of fabric.


                                                                     Number two.


                                                           Number three, a dinosaur Mahjong.


                                        Number four. Check out the beetles on the brown fabric!


Show and Tell:


Marg has been a busy lady! This quilt has corduroy, minky and I’m not sure what the dogs are but it is a very tactile quilt.


                                 This one is a lovely example of what can be done with a panel.


Marg’s third quilt is a perfect example of “lots of quilt math”! As she said , it took a lot of figuring to get those borders to match, what angles to cut and then to mitre the corners!  Perfection!


Butterflies and dragonflies, my favourite insects! They make a beautiful focus fabric with the chandelier blocks and faux piping (flange) binding.


Marg’s final quilt was one made from leftover panels she had from the  Reflections project we did a number of years ago. I hope no one ever asks me how we did the project as I have no memory of the process, but use the resulting table mat I made regularly.


                       Myrna shared the fish purses she made for our booth at the Cranberry Markets. 


I am continuing to work on Christmas gifts for my family. These are placemats from a kit I purchased at Mami’s in Duck Lake. I managed to make six placemats, a table runner and a mug rug from what was supposed to be four placemats and a table runner, although I did have to buy additional fabric for the binding!


                                                                        The table runner.


                            Lynsie shared this lovely quilt, entirely made from half square triangles.

Bev shared her fish purse with us. Her grand daughter’s remark was, “Grandma! Your wine bottle will fit in that!” Another use for this purse!


                       Laurie shared the bookmark and boxy bag she stitched for our market booths.


 This is Laurie’s Roman Holiday quilt which she made in the beginner quilter class. Beautiful job, Laurie!


Program:

Cindy refreshed our memory on the construction of the chandelier blocks which we will be using to make our second Christmas raffle quilt.


                                 The Christmas fabrics for the quilt come from Marg H’s stash.


Quilter’s Corner:

Sandra demonstrated putting a zipper in a designer pillow using a binding strip.


She uses zippers by the yard for her cushions, but any kind of zipper, as long as it’s the right length, will do.


                                     This example is just an ordinary Walmart type of zipper.


               This is a zipper by the yard with a special pull on it for the Halloween lover’s cushion.

This way of putting in a zipper adds a special touch to the back of a cushion. Note the striped binding material and the silver coloured zipper teeth.


The winner of the Membership draw was Donna.


Before heading home, we picked up our block packets for the Christmas quilt, some more projects for the markets or a quilt sandwich to machine quilt. See you all next month. 

Happy quilting,
Gladys