Guild Day, Tuesday, September 16, 2025

 Today’s work crew spent the day pin basting a total of eight quilts. Lynn was busy putting together the Chandelier blocks for one of the Christmas raffle quilts so it is now ready to go to the longarmer for quilting. In total we had sixteen members at various times of the day. 

                                   Laying out chandelier blocks to establish colour placement.

                                                         Time to stitch the blocks together.

 

                                                 More blocks being laid out for another quilt top.

                                                            The pinning crew is hard at it!

                                       Iris and Marg are hand stitching binding to two quilts.

These seven quilts are now ready for members to take home and machine quilt. These tops were sent to us from Eileen. Not only did she piece the tops but she also added backing and binding for each one. Thank you so much for your donation, Eileen.

Comfort Quilts:

The blocks for this quilt came from Marg H’s stash. They were put together by Rae and Sandra D. and it was then quilted by Heather.

These Five and Dime blocks were made from flannels in Marg H’s stash and put together by Susan. I believe Marg F. did the quilting.

                  Marg stitched this quilt from fabrics she found at Goodwill when she was in Arizona.

Each time a member shows a piece of work for Show and Tell, they enter their name in a draw. Marg won the last draw and received a fabric bundle. She took that bundle and added a few pieces to make this quilt. The curved pieces that make the pinwheels were cut using a curved ruler.

      Marg stitched this quilt from a package of batik fabrics made up by Susan, our master fabric sorter.

There were enough batiks in the package for Marg to make a second quilt. This one was made by the dryer sheet method in which you stitch strips of fabric on a used dryer sheet, trim them, add a sashing strip and join. You can use muslin or other light fabric rather than dryer sheets. That eliminates the scent and waxiness of dryer sheets.

                                          Zoey pieced this lovely star top from batik fabrics. 

            A number of years ago Audrey won some fabric and stitched this lovely soft coloured quilt.

                                               This is Audrey’s version of the Jellyroll Race quilt.

All these quilts are meant to be donated to Denare Beach wildfire victims. We will continue making these quilts as there are many wildfire victims in our area.

As well, Audrey had two more flimsies to be completed for emergency measures crews to use.

Show and Tell:

                              Lynn, Moira and Iris made this lovely Christmas quilt for a co-worker.

Heather has used this oversize bear paw pattern before in a different colour way. This version is meant for one of her co-workers and her husband. 

Rae made this quilt from five inch squares. The pattern is called Confetti. She will be donating it to the guild for donation. Thank you, Rae!

This quilt was made from a jelly roll and was used by Rae on her chair in BC because the chair always felt cold without it. The fabric patterns are well suited to Vancouver Island.

Every year Rae donates a quilt to St. Ann’s bazaar. This year’s offering is called Hocus Pocus and is very appropriate for the time of year. A beautiful quilt, Rae.

Sandra has again created an entry for Norva’s square foot category. She calls it “Spiralling Out of Control”. Very aptly titled Sandra!

Patty stitched this Lone Star quilt for her son and daughter-in-law. This is to replace the first Lone Star that was lost to the wildfire.

                         Cindy chose this table runner as her evacuation project. Beautiful, Cindy!

Quilter’s Corner:

Audrey demonstrated the Go Cutter the guild has. She showed us how the fabric is put in and went through the binder to let us know what dies we have. This is a quicker way to cut shapes when they are an unusual shape or if many pieces are needed. It’s a big time saver when making a rag quilt as all the snips around the edge of the block are already cut! Thank you, Audrey!

Program:

Susan demonstrated and gave us the instructions for the Folded Corners block. This block looks complicated but when broken down into its components it is quite simple. The background for this block will be white or beige with a light, medium and dark of the same colour to make the central pattern. Thank you, Susan, this is a block that several of us have wanted to try.

We closed our meeting with the membership draw which was won by Evelyn.

Our next gathering will be our Fall Retreat on October 3rd and 4th. On the 4th we will be making the draw for our Butter Tarts quilt!

If you want tickets on this beautiful quilt, we will be selling them at our retreat. There will also be The Empty Bobbin quilt shop in attendance with a wide variety of fabrics and notions. The guild will be displaying their donation quilts in the Sanctuary for everyone to see. We hope to see you there!

Happy quilting!

Gladys

Guild Day, Tuesday, August 19, 2025

 Our activities shifted into second gear today. We are getting closer to our donation date as well as working on quilts for our Denare Beach fire victims. Those completed tops that Marg H’s family donated to the guild are going to make a big difference in our ability to reach our quilting goals.

Our twenty members had plenty of jobs to work on and were cheered on by two guests. Five quilt tops were readied for Heather and her long arm machine with backing, batting and bindings. In addition, six quilts were pin basted for quilting. Marg will be quilting three of them and I will quilt one.

Marg quilted two today and Lorna quilted two, none of which were from the six pin basted today! Sandra D. worked on piecing blocks that Phyl had put together. She also put binding on one that Marg quilted earlier.

                                                      The pinning crew is hard at work. 

Backing fabric has to be prepared for piecing which is a necessary step when the material is not wide enough or long enough to fit the quilt top.

                                                        The machines were humming!

                                        Marg is busy pressing binding for one of the quilts.

We were happy to see June back at guild day. She and her husband Keith were one of the families who lost their home to the Wolf wildfire that decimated Denare Beach. She was presented this “squiggle” quilt as a token of our concern for her loss. She had a number of quilts from which to choose but this one made her think of waves in water and birds. 

Lorna brought a special guest with her to our meeting. This lady is the “Stitch Bitch” and was put into Lorna’s care at the SUN retreat. She is to spend the next year with Lorna and go everywhere with her. The only stipulation is that Lorna must add something to her possessions before she is passed on to the next person. You will note that she has a baby and a suitcase. Because of Covid, the suitcase contains a mask and also a passport so she can travel!

Comfort Quilts:

Audrey gave us an update on our comfort quilts. We have three Hug Me quilts, forty-three comfort quilts and five new ones handed in.

                                             This lovely flannel one was stitched by Susan.

                     Phyl quilted this one but no one present this evening knew who did the piecing.

                                          Susan did the piecing and Sandra S. did the quilting.

                                         Lorna did the quilting, not sure who did the piecing.

                                                 Pieced, quilted and bound by Eileen M.

                                       Another quilt pieced by Susan and quilted by Sandra S.

This is the flimsy that was pieced by Phyl then assembled by the work crew today. When finished it will be an emergency services quilt.

There are many more tops from Marg H. that  need to be completed as well as a bag of tops from Eileen. Many thanks to these ladies for their work and generosity.

Show and Tell:

            I started this set of placemats and hot pads two retreats ago and finally got them completed.

This is my version of the three yard quilt pattern, Roman Holiday. I did enlarge it so it would fit on our bed. The binding has an extra wide flange and is applied by machine. This quilt was stretched on my table ready for pinning when we were evacuated.

This is Marg’s version of the Oatmeal Raisin quilt pattern. I know this pattern was by someone  on Facebook but cannot remember the site. I believe it was a quilt-along and there were many different colour ways. Marg made a beautiful choice of colours and quilting. This will be a gift for her nephew and wife to be.

Bev is part of the quilting group at their park in Arizona. This winter one of the projects required making a quilt from 12 1/2 “ squares they were given. She added some more squares and this was the result. Very attractive!

Bev purchased the kit for this Christmas quilt from 440 before it closed. She liked it so much that she decided to make one for each of her sisters as well. Sadly she was unable to complete all the quilts before her eldest sister passed away. The quilt is lovely, Bev. Evelyn would have loved it.

This butterfly was one of the projects at the SUN retreat. Squares are placed on a grid which is then folded and stitched so that all the seams on the back are enclosed.

Another SUN project was this little pouch. It has several interior pockets and is perfect for carrying a small sewing project. Beautiful choice of fabric, Lorna!

    Zoey stitched this quilt from a jelly roll. She did the machine quilting as well. Beautiful job, Zoey!

Cindy was working on this butterfly quilt at one of our retreats. There are 192 stitch and flip corners in this quilt!

The kit for this Halloween pillow cover was purchased for Heather by her mother when the Empty Bobbin quilt shop was a vendor at our retreat. It’s a Prairie rose pattern and she used the Clamshell panto to quilt it. Heather loves Halloween!

Quilter’s Corner:

Sandra demonstrated how she put a facing on her quilt for the Northern Juried Art Show. For some projects a traditional binding finish may not give the effect you may want so a facing would be a viable option. This starts with a triangular (square folded diagonally) piece in each corner, then applying a strip on each side. This is done on the front of your project. You then press the strips outward and top stitch on the strip close to the seam.

After reinforcing and trimming off the corners, you then turn everything to the back of your work. Give it a press and hand stitch the strip after turning under the raw edge. The result is a neat finish for your work without having a binding showing on the front. Thank you, Sandra.

The membership draw was won by Marg. Our Fall Retreat will be on October 3rd and 4th. There will be a catered meal on the Friday and the Empty Bobbin from Swan River will be our vendor. We hope to see you all there!

We will be set up at the Wild Things Market during Culture Days selling tickets on the Butter Tarts raffle quilt. 

In the meantime, enjoy our nice weather and keep working on those projects!

Happy quilting,

Gladys