Last call! 


Spring Retreat sign up closing on 3/16/2018 at noon! Open to members and non-members.
Here is the link :

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2018-pittsburgh-modern-quilt-guild-spring-retreat-tickets-42605133100

March Meeting

Join us for our March meeting this Sunday, March 4th from 1-4pm at

Assemble Pittsburgh
4824 Penn Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15224

Shawn Quinlan will be presenting his work.

UFO 2018 Finish Along
For those who were not able to be at the February and want to register their UFOs for our Finish Along, please bring them to the March meeting. UFOs must be at least partially started for this event. As you finish your UFOs throughout the year, you will turn in your ticket(s) and be entered in the fun end-of-year prize drawing.

Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival Volunteers
We’re still looking for volunteers to support our Guild while hanging out at a fun creative arts festival!  We are looking for volunteers to man a table during the three days of the festival to help us raffle our quilt, show off our minis, and do a hexie pin activity on Saturday. Here are hours we need to cover:
Friday, April 6, 2018 – 12:00 Noon to 7:00 PM
Saturday, April 7, 2018 – 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Sunday, April 8, 2018 – 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM

Please mark your availability here or email Michele (pittsburghmqg@gmail.com).  We’ll then make a volunteer schedule with 2 hour shifts. (Volunteers will not need to pay an admission fee.)

Modern Solids Challenge Minis
There’s still space if you want to have your Modern Solids Challenge Minis (the ones we made in the guild logo colors and displayed together at the Mancuso Exhibit) displayed at  Threadbare Maple Festival on March 10^th and the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival. Email Michele (pittsburghmqg@gmail.com) to volunteer your minis will be included and you must be able to bring your mini to the March meeting to be included.

February Meeting recap

Upcoming Programs:
1.  Spring Retreat March 23rd-25th - Registration is open! Let us know if you have a friend
     who isn't a member, but would like to come!
2. Survey - Check your email and fill out the workshop survey! If you have workshop and
     meeting topic ideas let us know!
3. We kicked off our UFO 2018 Finish Along! So far we have 17 members signed up with 85
     projects to finish! Currently the oldest UFO is from 1978 and the member with the
     most has 11 UFOs to finish. Members who weren't at the February meeting can bring
     their UFOs to the March meeting to get registered. Let's make it happen and finish those
     stashed away projects!

General announcements
1. Discussed our April meeting at the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival. We will need volunteers to work our table at the festival. Stay tuned for information!
2. Three Rivers Quilt Show applications are open and due by March 21st! Make sure you check it out and enter your quilt. They have a modern category!
3. B collected the blocks for our inchies challenge quilt. She is going to assemble the quilt top. Can't wait to see it!
4. Stacy collected the Hohl challenge quilts
5. We welcomed 6 new members

Show and Tell

Gail had put together a very informative presentation on sewing machine maintenance. She covered:  machine cleaning, tension problems and threading just to mention a few topics.

Our next meeting is scheduled for Sunday March 4th at Assemble

February Meeting Announcement: Machine Maintenance & UFO Finish Along

Join us for our February meeting this Sunday, February 4th from 1-4pm at 

Assemble Pittsburgh
4824 Penn Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15224

Gail is going to talk about sewing machine maintenance. 

______________________________________________________________________________

We will also be starting another year of the UFO Finish Along! 

Since we all probably have some UFOs (unfinished objects/project) laying around, we want to help you find motivation to finish them up or get rid of them!  To do this, we will be running the UFOs Finish Along again this year, with a fun end-of-year prize drawing! 

In order to participate, you must bring your UFOs to the next meeting for us to log. UFOs must be at least partially started for this event. 

As you finish your UFOs throughout the year, you will turn in your ticket(s) and be entered in the prize drawing.

______________________________________________________________________________
As always, bring your quilts for show and tell and we'll see you then!

On our February meeting Gail is going to talk about sewing machine maintenance. If you have any specific questions please send an e-mail to, pghmqg.programs@gmail.com .She will answer questions at the meeting as well.

The Pittsburgh Modern Quilt Guild has enjoyed participating in multiple previous

QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenges. We’ve learned to solicit design ideas from our

guild members and form a committee to organize the quilt making (buying all the fabric
 for the quilt, making packets for members to make blocks from, etc.)

An informal brainstorming session on the theme of Modern Traditionalism resulted

in a lot of fun design ideas, including focusing on one traditional block and using a

lot of low volume prints.

I loved the idea of deconstructing a traditional block by using color untraditionally to 
highlight only some elements of the block. I envisioned a confetti of colors across a

low volume quilt.

The traditional Greek Cross block stood out as a great starting point with its mix of

half-square triangles, rectangles, and squares. Since many members had enjoyed

the challenge of improv piecing in some of our guild’s previous QuiltCon charity quilts, 
we left it up to the members if they wanted to use traditional or improv piecing

to make their block(s).

One of the best parts of making a group quilt is seeing the quilt come together

during a group sew day. It was great to see all the variations among the blocks our

members had made and how well they all came together as a quilt top.

Then, of course, it’s amazing to see how the quilting ties everything together and

transforms a quilt! Long-arm quilter

Nikki Maroon (http://www.thegirlwhoquilts.com/)

used straight-line quilting to create the cross and HST elements of one large

Greek Cross block using contrasting thread.  The “background” areas of the large

Greek Cross block were quilted with graffiti quilting to add visual interest without distracting

from the impact of the straight lines.

We are excited to have our guild quilt hanging at QuiltCon in Pasadena, CA this

year. We are also hoping to enter it in a few local shows in 2018 so that more of our

members have the opportunity to see the quilt on display!  And finally, in the

coming months we will discuss as a guild where we would like to donate the quilt.

January Meeting Recap: Annual General Meeting and Leadership Elections

Our new leadership team for 2018:
Michele Krugh, President
Nikki Maroon, VP of Programs
Sandra Schott, VP of Membership
Barbara Cain, Treasurer
Zsofia Molgaard, Social Media

Thank you to the 2017 team:

We finished off our WIP challenge for 2017. In all, 35 projects were finished up. Cheryl had the most completed projects, Sharon had the oldest completed project from 1998, and the winner of the free admission to our sewing retreat was Aimee!

The Quilt Con quilt is bound and complete! It looks great and we're getting ready to mail it out.

We're working on the Inchies challenge quilt for the Pittsburgh Creative Arts Festival. If you took one of the block kits don't forget to complete your block by the next meeting.

Our next meeting will be February 4th 1-4pm at Assemble. Gail will be teaching about machine maintenance.

There are several upcoming local quilt shows.
Three Rivers 2018 Quilt Show
North Pittsburgh Quilters Guild

hohl challenge:

Show and Tell:

(If you don't see your quilts here please don't feel bad! I was having some issues with the lighting at our new meeting place and my camera and didn't get clear photos of the some of the quilts.)