February Meeting Recap

 We had a great turn out on our February meeting. We welcomed 3 new members, bringing the PghMQG to 57 members!

Nikki had a great presentation about quilt blocking. She explained that during the quilting process a quilt may become slightly wonky, and the process of blocking will return the quilt to the perfect square shape and it will lay flat / hand beautifully.

Our members turned in their blocks for the Quilts for the Tree of Light Synagogue & First Responders Quilt. Cheralee, Karen and Laurie are coordinating a sew day to put the quilt together. Their goal is to have the top pieced before QuiltCon. You can email leaadership if you're interested in helping, and we will put you in touch with them.

The Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival is in Green Tree, PA this year. They will showcase the 2018 QuiltCon traveling exhibit and Cherrywood fabric Prince exhibit. Show dates are: March 15-17.

Our Inspiration Challenge with POP ART is due by the March meeting. Make sure you have a label with your information on the back and please add a "D-sleeve" hanging sleeve too. Here's a great tutorial for creating a d-sleeve. The mini quilts will be displayed at the Mt. Lebanon library in the summer and at the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza in September 2019.

We are discontinuing the UFO challenge and replacing it with something new! We would like to encourage members to try new things and step outside of their comfort zones, so we are planning quarterly challenges with varying themes. If you bring your completed challenge quilt to a meeting by the deadline, you'll be entered in a drawing at the end of the year. This year we've decided to raffle off a free entry at our 2020 retreat! The POP ART challenge will be your first opportunity to enter the raffle.

Spring Retreat registration is open to members only. We have limited spaces so make sure you register early! Registration is now open. Contact leadership if you didn't receive an Eventbrite email with the link to register.


Show and Tell!

Our next meeting is on March 3rd, and the topic is Getting Started in Modern Quilting. We hope to see you there!

January 2019 Meeting Recap

January Meeting Recap


We elected a new leadership team for 2019:

 Nikki Maroon - President
 Courtney Reed - VP of Programs
 Sandra Schott - VP of  Membership
 Amanda Hancock - Treasurer
 Zsofia Molgaard - Social Media

Thank you to Michele Krugh for her hard work as President and to Barbara Cain for her hard work as treasurer this past year.

Our QuiltCon charity quilt bound and complete. Thanks to all who made blocks, helped with assembly, and a big shout out to Nikki for the quilting and Amanda for binding the quilt and preparing it to hang at QuiltCon!

Our guild is working on a quilt for the Tree of Life First Responders. Members are asked to make 6" square (finished) string blocks using yellow, blue, and green with a white stripe in the middle. Blocks are due at the February meeting. Cheralee, Karen and Laurie are in charge of the project.

The Westmoreland Museum of Arts in Greensburg is currently presenting the nationally- touring exhibition : Circular Abstractions: Bull's Eye Quilts
 https://thewestmoreland.org/exhibitions/circular-abstractions/
It's a really great exhibit, and the museum has free admission. It's worth the drive!

The Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival is held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Green Tree. Show date March 15-17. Members get a coupon code for $5 off if you buy your ticket in advance.

The design inspiration quilt challenge is due in March 2019. The color palette is yellow, blue, red, black, white and gray for these minis, and the inspiration is pop art. The quilts must be 24"tall x no more than 48" wide. The mini quilts will be displayed at the Mt. Lebanon Library in the summer of 2019 and at the Pennsylvania National Quilt Extravaganza in September 2019.

The winner of the 2018 UFO challenge raffle is Courtney! Congratulations!!

Show and Tell

Mark your calendars for our retreat, Friday-Sunday, April 5-7 at the Martina Spiritual Retreat Center. More info coming soon.

We hope to see you at our next meeting on February 3rd. The meeting topic will be blocking a quilt.

January Meeting

Join us Sunday, January 6th from 1-4pm for our first meeting of the year! 

We'll be holding leadership elections and discussing what to we want to do for the year.

We will also have a prize drawing for the UFO 2018 Finish Along!
 
Our meeting will be at:
 
Holy Spirit Parish
608 Farragut St
Pittsburgh, PA 15209

To get to our meeting room, please enter through the glass doors at the lower entrance to the building. The street out front serves as a free parking lot!

September Meeting Recap

On September 23rd we met at the Holy Spirit in Millvale for our monthly meeting. We had a pretty good turnout for the rescheduled meeting.

Michele talked about

• the Toronto Modern Quilt Guild  invited our members to a workshop by Andrea Tsang-Jackson from 3rd Story Workshop in Toronto on October 3rd
• some members signed up for the Michael Miller fabric challenge, they received their bundles to work with

We have a few ongoing challenges

• Modern Minimalist Quilt challenge - due by the October meeting
• nametag challenge - due by the November meeting
• UFO 2018 finish along

Upcoming Programs  

• Improv Piecing workshop with Amanda  (@sewsewlife) on October 13th, 10-4 at Holy Spirit in Millvale. Lunch will be provided. Cost for members : $30, non members: $35
• Judi Robinson workshop in 2019. Date TBD
• continue to send us meeting topic ideas and workshop ideas

We briefly talked about the new Modern Quilt Guild website. You have to re-register to use the site and take advantage of the webinars, free patterns, and to be part of different quilting interest groups.

Also the Modern Quilt Guild is organizing a mini quilt swap for its members around the world if you are interested sign-ups are open in October.

QuiltCon quilt show submissions are open till November 30th 2018.

We had a technique workshop during our meeting. Members learned how to:

• inset circles by Amanda
• sew y-seams / partial seams by Michele
• make / use bias tape by Sandy
• sew zippers by Zsofia

Show and tell

Minimalist Quilt Challenge

We hope to see you on the October 6th meeting. We meet in Millvale at the Holy Spirit Church.

August Meeting Recap

On August 5th we met at our new location in Millvale. We had a great turn out, and welcomed several new members.

Michele talked about :

    -upcoming quilt shows with modern quilt categories:

• PNQE / quilt entry deadline is August 13th
• Beaver Valley Quilt Show / quilt entry deadline is Sept 22nd 

   -ongoing challenges

• nametag challenge / due by November meeting
• minimalist quilt challenge  / due by September 9th
• UFO 2018 finish along 

Nikki sent out a survey for the Jodi Robinson workshop to members. She needs your answers back so we can plan the workshop for next Spring. 

Zsofia did a small piecing and paper foundation piecing presentation. She talked about fabric choices, color inspiration, her favorite tools, thread and needles. She shared her process of working with small pieces and gave useful tips on how to set up your sewing space and machine for small piecing.

B. distributed the QuiltCon charity quilt blocks to members and talked about the pattern she designed for the challenge. She gave a short presentation on block assembly and fabric cutting. Can't wait to see the blocks they need to be returned by the October meeting!

Our members were busy sewing and quilting. Show and Tell was full of fun and colorful quilts.

Our next meeting is on Sunday, September 9th at the Millvale location. We hope to see you there!