Sunday, August 31, 2014

Flaunt Your Finish: August 2014


Labor Day weekend is here and that pretty much signals the end of summer. Oh, it'll still be over 90 degrees in Oklahoma for at least 2 more weeks, but the kids have gone back to school and the days somehow feel different now. I view September like a mini-New Year's Resolution month. I want to get back on a productive schedule, reorganize and de-clutter, buy school supplies I don't need...

With end of summer vacations, getting the kids ready to go back to school, and the fact that a good portion of our members are feverishly finishing up projects for our 2014 Quilt Show in October and/or our November show in Budapest...we have just a few finishes to show you. We hope find inspiration and motivation to start (and complete!) your own projects. 

Please link up YOUR finish at the end of this post!

Oh, and as a little birdie told me on Facebook: There are 16 Saturdays until Christmas...eek!


Melissa S. has two finishes this month. The first is a fun chevron quilt that she made as a baby gift. There are so many ways to make a chevron quilt. I like the way Melissa used different prints in the same color for each row.

Her second project is this cute nap mat for Mother's Day Out that...wait for it...

...rolls up into this compact little bundle!  And what a fun choice of fabrics!

In the true spirit of Christmas in August, Agnes made this small mug rug. She was trying out a new fabric combination for a bigger project. "Boy, did it feel good to think of Christmas temps, when it was 100 outside!"

Bri has two projects this month, one of which is her project for the Budapest Show. This is completely unfair to Bri and I apologize to her...but, I'm not going to show her project just yet. I will tell you that it's cool, bright and modern, but I think'll it'll be fun to have a look at all of the Budapest projects in one post. #justdecided #nowarning
(Am I the only one who thinks hashtags work in a blog post?)

So...Bri's second finish is a chevron doll quilt for a swap.  Her partner asked for peach and soft green fabrics.  After looking through her stash a bit, Bri realized she had the perfect fabrics in her 30s collection.  She used KelbySews Easy Chevron tutorial"It was much quicker than making a bunch of half square triangles." 

Regina has had a summer knitting project: 12 baby hats for 'Click for Babies - Oklahoma'. CLICK for Babies is a North America initiative to help educate caregivers about normal infant crying, how to cope with crying and the dangers of reacting to crying in frustration by shaking or harming an infant. Visit their website to see how you can get involved in your area.

Regina's second and third...wait, and fourth....projects are blocks for a guild block swap and two banners for our October Quilt Show. But, hmmmm...now that I take a closer look, those blocks may be sewn together. Maybe she's keeping them for herself? I do love her mix of fabrics!


Please link up your finished project below. Remember, it just has to have been completed in the month of August. If you have a post on your blog written back at the beginning of August, link it up! We want to see what you've been creating! Grab a button from the side bar for your own blog to share with your readers. 

Thanks for joining us. MORE really is MERRIER!

Saturday, August 23, 2014

OKCMQG Michael Miller Challenge Projects


We're excited to finally share these projects with you! If you're not familiar with the Michael Miller Fabric Challenge, here's the gist of it.

Members of The Modern Quilt Guild are given (yes, given) six fat-eighths of whatever new fabric line Michael Miller Fabrics has chosen for that season's challenge. This year it was Petal Pinwheels.
The only real rules are: (1) it needs to be a quilted project; (2) you don't have to use all the fabric given to you; and (3) you can add any other Michael Miller print or any manufacturer's solid. 

Oh! And there are no buckets of freezing, icy water in this challenge!

A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'm not going to clutter up this post with less than sufficient words describing these marvelous projects. Find the quilter's name under the photo of their project. Congratulations to all our participants for creating such lively, modern and diverse projects!

By Laura B.

By Laura B.

By Laura B.

By Leslie C.

Ann S.

By Leslie L.

By Shana G.

By Jana H.

By Regina E.

By Regina E.

By Regina E.

By Diane C.

By Bri P.

By Bri P.

By Melissa S.

My Elizabeth R.

By Becky S.

By Angie B.

By Agnes S.

By Rosemary D.

By Shirlene D.

By Shirlene D.

By Stephanie Y.

By Trina K.

By Heather C.

By Heather C.

By Kristine P.

Katie C.


Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Meeting Recap: August 2014


After taking break from our general meeting in July, it sure was good to see everyone at this month’s meeting! And it was great to do it at our new location, Newchurch.

With summer winding down, August seemed like good time to have a casual meeting, so we all brought goodies to share. I believe all the snack groups were covered; salty, sweet, crunchy, chewy, creamy…did I miss anything?

As most of us like to sit by people we know, myself included, we decided to mix it up a bit and seat everyone at tables grouped by birth month. This gave us all a chance to meet and get to know new people or chat with those we don’t always have a chance to visit with. I loved it!

Completed projects from the MQG’s Michael Miller Fabric Challenge took up the bulk of our Show & Share. We’re excited to share them with the world! But….you’re going to have to wait just a bit. We want to share them all in one BIG post, so please check back with us on this blog to see all of the wonderful projects! Better yet, if you don’t have our blog in your feed reader already, please hop on over to our public Facebook page and give us a quick “LIKE”. We always link our new posts, so you'll hear about it there first!







SUZANNE shared this beautiful quilt that had been hanging around as a UFO. Someone wondered aloud, "Why was it a UFO?" Often times I think UFOs are those projects that we start and then find out along the way that we are less than thrilled by the way it's going. We all loved everything about this quit!

Congratulations to SHANA who announced she's expecting! Here's a start on a project for her little guy (Yes, it's a boy!) using Dr. Seuss fabric and a single Swoon block.

BRI made this quilt as part of The Sassy Quilter's Quilt-Along earlier this year. I love it's free-form shape!

This table runner by BECKY is pretty groovy. Notice the quilting that echoes the lines of the piecing. Really beautiful!

MELISSA shared this nifty little bag. It's the Sew Together Bag and you can get the pattern here on Craftsy or check your local quilt shop. Sure, it's cute on the outside...but wait. There's more...

...on the inside! Pockets, dividers and zippers...oh my!

EMILY had a few shares. First, this great Cargo Duffle Bag that she's going to use as a gym bag. I adore the fabrics and that straight line quilting. You can get the pattern free on the Robert Kaufman website.

Emily also shared her kids with us and they brought something to share as well. LIAM helped with this cool truck pillow...

...and DYLAN made this super cute ticker tape quilt. All. By. Herself. Mom ironed fusible web to fabric and Dylan cut and placed her pieces and then sewed them all on her own!

Our guild moms are doing a great job teaching their kids to sew and hand-craft. EVANGELINE made this adorable owl. She said she forgot her eyes, but I think she's still a very cute and artsy owl without them. She did a wonderful job choosing her colors and fabric too.

We've seen JEMELLIA's quilt here and there, so we were excited to see it just back from the quilter. Jemellia made this in a improv-curves class and has done a wonderful job. I heard someone at my table say, "It looks like art." That it is.

Whenever I ask my husband his opinion on a project I'm working on he always says, "It's your art. You decide." I love that he calls it "art" regardless of the project's end use. He's right, you know. We are making art. Functional art!

A big THANKS to our Charity Committee. I don't know the details of how they came about, but here are several completed charity quilts. Many of us remember this fabric from last year's Madrona Road Fabric Challenge.

You can't go wrong with a simple patchwork.

I heard several murmurs about what a great layout this is.

Random placement or planned? I always wonder...

This one reminds me of looking at flowers through the window panes.

Hmmm...this one is more intricate than I first thought. See how those shapes appear to overlap?

And that's a wrap for this month. See you again soon!