OKC Modern Quilters: May 2015 Meeting Recap

Wow! May was a jam packed meeting with a wonderful program and many fantastic show and tells! Before we get into the pictures... just a few "reminders"...

- NEXT MEETING will be held at Oklahoma Quiltworks. We will be having a social and demo night so please bring a snack to share and be ready to have FUN!

- If you are not receiving email updates from the Modern Quilt Guild (remember, that's the larger group not our local chapter) you may need to go in to the Modern Quilt Guild site and complete your registration information. If you're unsure of where you are in the process and you have questions about that please email OKCMQG and someone will help you out.

- Speaking of technology, are you on Instagram? If so, don't forget to add #OKCMQG and #MQG on your posts. It makes it easy for everyone in the guild, and in the Modern Quit Guild, to find all of your wonderful work!

- If you are interested in participating in the "Road to Oklahoma" Quilt Block Lottery please click here or on the image in the sidebar to find out more details.

- We have a possible opportunity for a show at the OKC Museum of Art and Leslie has challenged us to create quilts with an alternate grid layout. There is great discussion happening over on the Facebook page of what this looks like. More details to come!

Now that we're through the business side of things, we had the wonderful Brenda Esslinger speak with us about her Fractured Quilt technique. Brenda is the author of two books on the Factured Quilting technique, which are available in her Etsy Shop, and she was kind enough to share a bit about how she discovered a faster and easier way to accomplish this look. She brought along several of her lovely quilts to aid her in describing the technique which involves cutting from several squares of the same image in a variety of ways to create this choppy slightly out of focus look.

Brenda has used this technique in so many unique ways, at times she uses her own pictures, or finds interesting prints or panels to try it with. The number of images you use, the width of the strips cut, the seam allowance used, and the direction in which the fabrics are cut can all affect the end result in dramatic ways.

And sometimes she discovers new techniques from cutting errors of her own or from the classes she teaches which create new and interesting effects.

There were so many beautiful and interesting quilts in Brenda's presentation and we so appreciate her taking the time to come and share with us this fascinating style of quilting.

And continuing on the pretty sewn items front we had a wonderful show and share as always.

Dana not only made her super cute dress, but she also completed a darling Box Car Tote (pictured above) and a WIP plastic zipper bag. How handy is that?!

Cathy was tired of awkwardly using her iPad in bed and created her own iPad Pillow! Genius!

Jennifer and Carol took a quilting class together and made these darling quilts! And you would NEVER guess that this was the first quilt for BOTH of them!!! Way to go!

Bob made some "Road to Oklahoma" blocks for the lottery, but then made a few extra for himself, and he created this stunning American quilt for Moda's Piece and Comfort Challenge, in which he placed 1st in Area.

Nancy made this lovely chevron quilt using half of a layer cake.

Regina is making sibling quilts and this one is for her brother. How fun is the bottle cap fabric?!

DeeDee made a jean quilt for her Son-in-Law and used mens shirts for the centers of the blocks. It's one heavy duty (and heavy!) quilt. :)

DeeDee also made this quilt in all solids which is so rich and saturated. The picture doesn't nearly do it justice.

And sadly this picture doesn't do Karen's One Block Wonder quilt justice either, but there are so many fun details and an amazing use of fussy cutting.

Ellen made her brother a fun fishing and camping themed t-shirt quilt.

Beth, color coordinated with her quilt, shared her paneled growth chart. She's more into the quilting than the piecing and oh boy is it fantastic quilting.