Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Flaunt Your Finishes for May

Let's see what our members have been up to this month! It's a season of gift giving, and it shows in this month's submissions.

First up is Ann S. She says-

Completed the set of wine coasters and placemats for a May bridal shower gift preceding the June wedding. The coasters are a redraft of the fantastic ones made from three folded hexagons on top and one on the bottom. I remade these using octagons instead because of the shape of the bride-to-be’s engagement ring. THAT was a shape no sewist could pass up (and maybe inspiration for a future quilt for the couple). From one charm pack, I made a set of eight wine coasters (centers unfold like petals and will hold a wine glass stem) with Essex Yarn Dyed Linen in Flax on the reverse. Placemats are the same linen with accents from a second charm pack.

Due to recovering from my hand surgery, dear Debbie Wanzer helped me trim them out mid-process! What a great friend!


A great friend, indeed! What a lovely gift.




Next up we hear from Agnes, who did another graduation gift quilt. What lucky grads! She said she wanted to use a new pattern-

This is half-rectangle triangles in mostly purple fabric. It was fun to put to use some of what we had learnt at Beth's color wheel class!


She also turned out an adorable dress. The model is pretty amazing, too!

Then this sweet Good Deeds Dress free pattern on Craftsy (by Elysium Patterns) caught my eye. I had to do a quick pattern test to see if it would work for a charitable project. It has no buttons or zipper, and you can make it with ready made bias edge too.

Trina has been a gift giving machine! And how lucky are these recipients?

Her awesome nephew is receiving an equally awesome arrow, Cotton and Steel quilt for his birthday. Future heirloom!


And her niece turned 15 and received another Cotton and Steel arrow quilt- wowsa! What a great aunt.


And check out this amazing quilt for the principal at her children's elementary school. Perfect for a Deer Creek principal! What a great appreciation gift! 


Chanda added a great seasonal wall hanging to her rotation with this halloween piece. 


And since Chanda is a school librarian whose office has an owl theme, this is a perfect, bright addition to her school. 


Celeste finished this mug rug made for a swap between the MoDerns from The NAQG.


Ann W (your humble author) finished up a purse for myself. I've been wanting to make something for myself using these great Hawthorne Threads fabrics!


Keep on sewing, friends!

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Melissa Averinos Workshop- Coming October 9th


The Oklahoma City Modern Quilt Guild is happy to welcome Melissa Averinos to our guild to do her famous Faces workshop and also be at our October meeting.



We'd like to welcome members of the public to sign up for her workshop and attend our meeting as a visitor in October (cost to attend our meeting as a visitor in October will be $5. Most months it is free).

Click below to sign up for her workshop on October 9, 2016 from 9am - 4:30pm. There will be two three-hour sessions with lunch in between. Please arrive at 8:30 a.m. so you’ll have time to get settled in to your work area.

Class will be held at Journey Quilt Company at 16502 N. Pennsylvania in Edmond, just north of 164th/15th Street.





If you have registered/paid but cannot attend, please notify us as soon as possible. We will attempt to fill your spot from our waiting list and issue a refund only when ‘your’ place is sold. If there is no waiting list, we will notify you so you may attempt to fill the slot and transfer admission on your own. Please notify us so our class roll is accurate.
Melissa with her BEST IN SHOW winning Quilt- My Brother's Jeans- at Quiltcon 2016

If the class is SOLD OUT, you will be directed to a page with an email address to add your name to a waiting list should an already-registered student not be able to attend. Additionally, if for some reason PayPal accepts payments after class capacity of 16 is filled, only the first 16 registrations will be honored. Those erroneously charged will be refunded.

Further/revised details and materials list will be available to students closer to class date.

We are excited to host Melissa and offer the opportunity for members and the public to learn from her! 

Thursday, May 19, 2016

President's Challenge for 2016- Modern Color

Have you looked in your stash and said, “I must really like color X?”

Well, have I got the challenge for you! For the 2017 Winter Quilt Show in January, it would be awesome to show what you can do with color. This will be the fourth year OKCMQG will be showing a Modern collection of quilts at the WQS—and I would like to issue a challenge. It is pretty simple: make a quilt using your favorite color.

Here are the guidelines.

Size Whatever you want...well, at the very least a mini (24” x 24”) and feel free to make it larger (remember—we HAVE SPACE just for you)

Color Must be at least 75% of one color family and 25% other color(s), or ALL one color family.



Style Modern, with identifiable modern elements

Due October 10 Meeting - This is a 6-month challenge

That’s it. Need inspiration? Check out our Pinterest Board- “Color Quilts” 

Our goal is to fill up our WQS space with all of your Modern Color challenge pieces* so the greater the participation, the bolder the impact!

Want to see your entry in print? Submit a high-res photo of your challenge piece and the Guild will vote (in October) for the image to represent our “Modern Color” display that’s published in the WQS program!

-Shirlene, OKCMQG President

*Along with Modern Color challenge pieces, new quilts that were not displayed in the 2016 WQS will be accepted for 2017 WQS.

Monday, May 16, 2016

Learning Color Theory at our May Meeting with Beth

At our May meeting, we had the great pleasure of learning about color theory from Beth!

She led us through the historical and scientific development of color theory-


Then we got to play an engaging, hands on game that helped us get out of our color comfort zones!


Everyone got to take home paint chips to create a new fabric bundle inspired by the activity.

Our members have been sharing their creations on Instagram using hashtag #okcmqgcolor . Check out some of the beautiful ideas! Agnes has even taken her project to completion!



From Ann S.







Here is some more info from Beth about where she got the idea for the activity and other research:



Here is a link for some Radiolab podcasts on color. The first one is just a combination of the following three. Learn more about what I briefly covered about Newton, and more fascinating details about people with a mutated yellow cone and the linguistic emergence of color (red is always first, blue is always last). Find out what happens when a scientist never tells his daughter that the sky is blue.
http://www.radiolab.org/story/211119-colors/

Here is the checkerboard optical illusion and proof that squares A and B are the same.

Here's a pretty good video describing Sir Isaac Newton's prism experiemnts.

The paint chip and fabric translation exercise we did at the end of the meeting was based on Anna Maria Horner's Creativebug class called Creating Color Palettes with AMH. I think many of you are familiar with AMH's great fabrics. I loved this class because it is short (30 min) and embraces more wiggle room for combining colors. If you take this class (look for coupons to get a month or two free trial with Creativebug), and want more details, take Joen Wolfram's Craftsy class.

The Color Play for Quilters Craftsy class by Joen Wolfram is about 2 hours covering paint mixing and extensive discussions about terms such as hue, tint, tone, shade, value, saturation, luster, luminosity, and more. Joen gives very rigorous and thorough explanations and often utilizes hand-dyed fabrics to precisely capture true tints, etc.

Joen's class is based on the Ives color wheel and uses the 3-in-1 Color Tool. Check our wonderful LQS's, but here is a link so you know which product I'm talking about. This tool is the one with cards that flip out with many tints, tones, and shades, plus the green and red viewers to help with value.

Heather Jones also has a Creativebug class called Color Theory for Modern Quilters. She's another quilter you may be familiar with and is a fan-girl of Josef Albers (the Bauhaus artist who wrote "Interaction of Color" and painted the series Homage to the Square).

Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr are a husband and wife quilting duo who have been making modern quilts for a long time. They have design backgrounds and bring a great aesthetic to their quilts. They have written many books on how to apply color theory to quilts, but I found a lot of overlap to their books. Of particular interest to our guild with the upcoming monochromatic challenge is their book "Transparency Quilts." Their books describe activities like picking colors while listening to music, which just didn't fit into our meeting format, but I thought would be interesting to try some time.

Friday, May 13, 2016

May Meeting- Show and Share and ACE recipients

April showers bring May quilts! Let's see what our members came up with this month.

Diane brought a beautiful, color inspired quilt just in time for our color theory meeting!


Karen bought an apron kit from Hawthorne Threads to see how their in-house printed fabric washes- we like! They have such great in-house designs.


Mary brought this beautiful, modern piece. Love those colors and the simplicity!


Regina brought some projects she made from the book Sew Organized.  We could all use some extra organization pieces!


Emily used her scraps to make this fantastic Sparkle Punch quilt. What a gorgeous, scrappy piece! 


And check out this stunning scrap buster. She assures us that she still has plenty of blue scraps. :) 


Karen and Kathy both brought Color Wheel minis that they made. I love how people got excited about our color theory class!


Diane teaches a beginning quilt class at the Mustang Public Library, and this was the first project she led her class in. What a great table runner and first project for budding quilters.


Jennifer made a beautiful Firelights Lane quilt from designer Sassafras Lane.  Beautiful colors!



Debbie, Elizabeth, and Agnes learned to make these great star pillows from Ann in their small group.


Agnes made this awesome charity quilt for Anna's house with donations from Trish!


Elizabeth couldn't resist making a Klee's Trees quilt- love it!


In honor of our color theory meeting, Becca brought this awesome paper pieced flying geese color wheel. 


And let's give a (virtual) round of applause to this month's ACE pin recipients!


Agnes- Charity
Debbie- Art
Elizabeth- Education
Becca- Art
Melissa- Art and Education 
Tisha- Education

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Challenge from our Sister Guild in Budapest!

We are so lucky to have a sister guild in Budapest, Hungary. Our member, Agnes, has done a wonderful job as a liaison and mentor for that group of quilters! They have blessed us with gifts and participating in swaps. Now they are challenging us with a swap!

Here is the great unboxing of the swap, which happened at our May meeting:





If you can't hear it well enough, they prepared and sent 23 bundles of true indigo fabric, with help from famous Hungarian Quilter Anna Dolányi. Our members are to make a piece with this fabric and any others of their choosing, including embellishments. They will hang in an October show and be judged by Anna Dolányi herself!




The fabrics are truly dreamy. I can't wait to see what our members come up with. Many thanks to our friends in Budapest for encouraging our creativity in new ways! 


Monday, May 2, 2016

Show and Share/Flaunt Your Finish Super-Post!

April showers bring April sewing! Here's what our guild members have been hard at work on this month.



Ann S, Debbie W, Agnes S and Ellen M are in a small group and made projects using Anna Marie Horner's Field Study. Bold and diverse! Lovely!

Elizabeth and Becky are in the same group but didn't make it to the meeting- lovely work!









Bob brought a stunner! He made this using a doily he received from his friend in the Budapest Modern Quilt Guild. I love the see-through look. He calls it "Ring Catcher."



Trish bought these boots at a recent quilt show and had to share- they're quilted! Swoon.



Mandy made a beautiful attic window quilt. It really looks like a sunrise, especially with the hand stitched sun rays coming from one corner.


Ranette made this stunning Jen Kingwell quilt! If you didn't know, Jen Kingwell will be doing a class this summer at Oklahoma QuiltWorks- the class is sold out, but you can sign up for the waiting list or come to the Trunk Show on May 31.


Agnes S made this beautiful Colored Happy Quilt (free pattern here) as a graduation present. Agnes says- 

I started doing this square stippled stitching , which is quite time consuming, but I think looks good with modern quilts. Also, the name of the recipient is quilted in cursive on the border, which works well with this dark blue fabric.

Agnes has also been using scraps to make some amazing pouches!



From Agnes-
One is a modified, appliquéd feather á la AnnaMaria Horner, on an Essex linen base. (... everything looks good with Essex linen).  The other is a repurposed designer upholstery fabric square with felt 1/2 inch hexies ( idea from @modernhadcraft's IG feed).



Leslie made this great baby quilt for a high school friend, which is a great modern twist on a classic. She just started using Bloc Loc half square triangle rulers and now swears by them! Finished up with machine quilted, half inch lines, this looks fantastic.




Last but not least, Beth shows off her brilliant quilting skills with this beautiful Sew Scary panel.

I don't usually use rulers or contrasting thread, but decided to play around with the small solid sections of the border to make them fit better with the print. I know it's a Halloween theme, but I'm going to hang it in my sewing room year round!
Experimenting leads to great art!

Thank you to everyone for sharing your beautiful work, and thank you to Beth for her help in compiling this month's information. Keep sewing!