Guild Day, Tuesday, July 15, 2025

 There were twenty members out today. Everyone was anxious to reconnect after our month of evacuation and hear where everyone went and the stories they had to tell. We were all happy to be back and get into  a more normal routine. 

Five quilts were pin basted and our hand stitchers sewed down the binding on Rae’s comfort quilt. 

                                  Thank you Moira and Iris, your stitching is much appreciated!

                                Sandra is working her free motion magic on a children’s quilt.

Donna is attaching the binding to our fall raffle quilt. We now have the tickets for it. If you do not have yours yet contact Cindy R. or any one in the guild and we can get some to you.

                            Myrna and the rest of us took a minute to sing happy birthday to Donna!

                                 Marg and Susan were busily pin basting another child’s quilt.

             Bev was pressing the final additions to a quilt top made of flannel from Marg H’s stash.

Susan was back to sorting a bin of bits and pieces, odds and ends, so they could be used in the construction of more quilt tops. Nothing goes to waste, especially orphan blocks!

Cindy spent a good part of the day checking and updating member information as well as distributing ticket books for our raffle quilt.

Comfort Quilts:

After today’s additions to our comfort quilt bins, we now have fifty-six quilts of various sizes.

Moira and Iris cut, pieced and stitched three rag quilts from Iris’s stash. She had more flannel than she could use so very generously, with Moira’s help, they stitched this quilt and the two following ones. Thank you for your work and donations.

                                                       #2, please excuse my poor focusing!

                                      #3, the borders they added are a nice finishing touch!

Marg was very busy stitching and quilting. She had quite a number of quilts she donated  to the guild. As someone said, “When do you sleep?” Her answer, “I love quilting!”

                                  #1 This one has a variety of fabrics and is backed with fleece.

                             #2. The writing on the large squares says I love grandma and grandpa.

                         #3 This was a paper bag mystery started by Marg H. and finished by Marg F.

     #4 Again Marg H. had some embroidered squares that Marg F. used to assemble this lovely quilt.

#5 A variety of fabrics were used for this quilt, corduroy and pleather among them, and then tied rather than quilted. This is going to be an emergency services quilt.

                                              #6 The focus fabric in this one has trolls on it!

            #7 This one says I love mommy and daddy. The number of beautiful flannels is unlimited!

                                                 #8 And this one has turtles on the focus fabric!

                                                   #9 Another version of the 6-hour quilt.

                                     #10 Cathedral windows in my favourite colour palette.

   #11 One more I love grandma and grandpa. Thank you Marg for all your hard work and creativity.

                          Rae donated this one. She cut, pieced and quilted this colourful little quilt.

              Rae quilted this one as well. We’re not sure who pieced it but agree that it likely was June.

                                                 Susan pieced this one and Audrey quilted it.

                                          Another pieced by Susan and quilted by Audrey.

Demonstration:

Lynn demonstrated the chandelier block and had kits prepared for members to stitch. This will be one of the quilts we will sell tickets on for our Christmas draws.

This is not a difficult square to piece but when set on point and assembled it makes a striking pattern.

Quilter’s Corner:

Lynn also shared her knowledge of the Juki machines with us on this month’s edition of quilter’s corner. These machines are not computerized but sew excellent seams. There is no zig zag stitch available but for piecing and free motion they do an excellent job. The machine does not have plastic in its construction including the various feet. Many quilters call a machine like this a work horse. The quild now has two of them and several of the members also. Lynn has owned one for several years and is our resident expert. Thank you for sharing with us, Lynn.

Show and Tell:

This is the second of Marg’s pieces that I neglected to photograph at our last guild day. It was a kit she had  in her store and this piece and the one you can see hanging beside it were completed by her this past winter. These are lovely, unique pieces.

Audrey and her daughter were doing some quilting during the evacuation and this Carpenter Star cushion was one of her projects.

Audrey’s second project was a wheelchair quilt for the Wawanesa personal care where her Mom is a resident.

Heather stitched this I Spy quilt for a special little three year old girl whose favourite colours are pink and purple. The label on the back says “You are Awesome”. She is going to love it!

Lynn shared the quilt she made for her grandson as a grad gift. What a beautiful momento for him.

The winner of the six month show and tell draw was Marg F.  Heather was the winner of the membership draw.

If you have the time, drop in to the Creighton Community hall where the SUN quilters are holding their retreat on July 21, 22 and 23. Mama Bears Quilt Shop will be there as a vendor. She may have just the piece of fabric you need (or want!)

Happy quilting!

Gladys

Guild Day, Tuesday, May 20, 2025

 Today we had 13 members coming and going throughout the day. Four comfort quilts were pin basted, one of which was quilted and had binding applied, thank you Lynn, for the quilting and Susan for the piecing. Another was put under the quilting needle by Sandra S. She spent the better part of the day doing free motion quilting. One of the final two is a bit larger than the others. It is a flannel  Five and Dime pattern with the blocks being pieced by Judy and joined by Susan, then Marg F. pieced the flannel backing and finally it was pin basted by a group of our members and will be longarmed by Heather. The fabrics came from Marg H’s stash. A truly collaborative effort! That leaves only one to be taken home and quilted.

                                    Sandra is contemplating her next pattern for free motion.

                                    Susan is sorting and matching fabrics for more quilt tops.

                     Here we see the group of members working on pinning the Five and Dime quilt.

Comfort Quilts:

This quilt was pieced by Sandra D. and Rae, then quilted by Heather. Rae and Sandra get together on Wednesdays and work on comfort quilts. This one was made from a cloth book panel. The pages are meant to be backed with batting, then joined to make a child’s soft book. They separated the pages and put them together with sashing to make a story quilt. The trickiest part was assuring that the pages were in order! This quilt with its soft purple is meant for a little girl.

And the little boys are not forgotten! This story panel of dinosaurs was made for a boy. The pantograph Heather chose is called Crisscross Applesauce. You can see how the lines of quilting switch from vertical to horizontal.

This is the Plus Pop top put together from the blocks that members stitched. The yellow binding finishes it very nicely.

This small hanging/table topper was pieced and appliquéd by Marg H. and was quilted and bound by Donna. Very attractive!

                            This happy quilt was pieced by Susan and quilted and bound by Lynn.

Marg used painter’s tape to mark this quilt. By stitching down both sides of the tape you can add eye pleasing appeal to a simple grid quilting pattern. The fabrics have different textures.

          Another simple pattern both in piecing and quilting results in a very attractive child’s quilt.

We now have twenty-two comfort quilts, one Quilt of Valour and three Hug Me quilts in the buckets.

Rae reported on her delivery of the Quilt of Valour to Jack Larson for his 99th birthday. He was very pleased to receive it and replied,  “Thank you everyone for coming and I’ll try to hang on till next year so you can come to my 100th”.

We were given a preview of our Fall Raffle quilt.  The pattern is called Butter Tarts and was written by Kathy and Lori of Highway 10 Designs. The fabrics for the top were chosen from the stash of Marg H.

                                           This will be a beautiful quilt for someone to win.

Show and Tell:

Marg stitched this beautiful hanging from a kit she had in her store. The flowers are three dimensional and add depth to the pattern. Beautiful, Marg! She had another similar hanging but I neglected to get a photograph as she had it already hung as part of our decor for the hall. I will do my best to remember to take a photo at our next meting. My apologies, Marg.

              This quilt by Marg is a beautiful example of English Paper Piecing. It is all hand quilted. 

Marg crocheted this Temperature quilt. The colours for a temperature quilt are chosen to represent the daily highs for a period of time, usually a year. With crochet it would involve a lot of colour changes!

This flimsy is one Marg constructed from the crumbs of another temperature quilt she was working on. No fabric bits go to waste!

Marg’s final piece was quilting of a different sort. While spending her winters in Arizona she spends a lot of time in the woodworking shop at their park. This bowl has an attic window pattern on it, which is of course a quilting pattern, the woods she used were wenge, oak, walnut, sepia and maple.

This is Heather’s completed retreat project. The quilt  pattern is called Bear Camp and she quilted it with a pin stripes quilting pattern.

This table topper is one Heather made from orphan blocks she had. The topper will be used at her workplace.

                  Zoey completed this quilt for her younger brother whose favourite colour is orange.

This quilt has a lot of triangles! Zoey did a lovely job of colour gradation from light to dark. Very well done, Zoey!

The last show and tell was Rae and search as I might I could not locate the photos! Perhaps I am losing more than just photos. Again, my apologies. My notes tell me she made two little doll blankets for a little girl to whom she gifted a larger quilt. I will see if I can get a photo.

Sandra made some pillow shams from the leftover bits and pieces from the memory quilts she made for her sister. She credits her no waste, Mennonite background with the idea of making the shams from the pieces that were left.

This quilt was Sandra’s entry in the Northern Juried Art Show. It was a recreation of family lore passed down over the years.In 1958 in Paraguay, a bolt of lightning struck a tree, her dad, and a cow. Her dad was the only survivor. Her quilt beautifully depicts the story.

Demonstration:

Marg demonstrated the 6-Hour Quilt to us. This is a quick and easy way to put together a quilt, small or large , and use up scraps of fabric, batting, polar fleece  or whatever.

This comfort quilt that Marg donated was made using the 6-Hour method. I will add the instructions she shared with us. Thank you for the pattern.

Quilter’s Corner:

In tonight’s quilter’s corner, I shared the method I used to put a scalloped border on my bird quilt.

This border was made using the Creative Grids Scallop Template. As you can see, the border has a waved edge rather than what I call a “bumped” edge. This is a fairly easy to use ruler and has deeper waves also. Keep in mind that when using a scalloped border your binding must be cut on the bias so it will curve neatly on the wavy edges. Once you have a measurement of the edges there is a chart telling you how big a square of fabric is needed to cut the amount of continuous bias binding you need.

If you decide to purchase the ruler, there is a very good set of instructions with it that tells you exactly what you have to do to get your border completed. 

This particular post took a long time to complete what with wildfire evacuations and all the ensuing confusion. Hopefully our summer will be uneventful!

Welcome back everyone and Happy Quilting!

Gladys