Monday, August 22, 2016

FWMQG August 2016 Meeting Recap

If you missed August's guild meeting, you missed action, education and beauty. But don't worry, we took pictures of it all!!

After we got the business out of the way, we talked about #quiltsforpeace. So many people from all over the world made it happen. At the time of the meeting, many of our members had sewn together blocks, put together quilt tops, donated batting, basted quilts, quilted and bound over 20 quilts. To reward all the hard work, we asked Fat Quarter Shop for a donation of fat quarters so we could give them to members who made this possible. But just handing them to members would be so boring. We are not boring.
Ann asked people to stand up for blocks, Jeanne threw fat quarters at them. Ann asked people to stand up if they had put quilt tops together, Jeanne and Ann threw fat quarters at them. Ann asked for the ones who quilted and we threw fat quarters at them. No one was hurt during this giveaway, although it did look like Jeanne was pitching too hard. The last four fat quarters were given to Tammy who drove all over the DFW metroplex collecting Police Department patches and signatures. (Fun fact: Did you know it takes as long to drive across the DFW metroplex as it does to drive across Connecticut?!)
Thank you to Fat Quarter Shop for their generous donation and for all the members who donated their time, skills and supplies for a great cause.

Lazara, our chairperson for our QuiltCon charity quilt, told us the tickets were in for "Modern View of the Trinity" quilt. IF you want to sell tickets, please contact us and we can get them to you. If you have any ideas on where we can show off this beautiful quilt, we would love to hear from you.

We had a few bring in fat quarters for their Pillow Swap. If you did not bring your's, and you want to participate, please send the fat quarter to P.O. Box 121781, Fort Worth, Texas 76121. Secret partners will be assigned at the September meeting. The question of size was asked. We said 16" for the pillow size. Remember, you do not have to provide the pillow form unless you want to. No pressure!

We had several guild members participate in the Triangle challenge. Four of them added triangles to their Medallion quilts. Two made small quilts. Two made name tags. Then one of our crazy members made her quilt with 1,000 triangles! They were all beautiful work.
Members skills demonstrations: Jeanne talked about pillow covers, and learned more from the members than she discussed. Thank you. Carolyn showed off perfect mitered corners and Donna talked about inset circles. We all learn from each other.
As usual, show and share did not disappoint. Chris gave us a glimpse of her free motion felting project along with two paper pieced houses. Shelley has been busy entering her quilts in shows and came away with a first place mini quilt and best of show on her son's "Drago" dragon quilt. Linn brought her circle and Gravity quilts. Donna showed the finished quilt from the Jacquie Gerhing workshop. Cathie made a butterfly mini quilt. Tammy showed us two quilts, sock monkey and Abacus. Trish followed the Quartered Strips tutorial from Missouri Star Quilts to make her beautiful teal quilt. Lazara was Puttin' on the Ritz mini quilt and giving us Hugs and Kisses with pretty backing. Inspiring!

At the meeting, I had my hands full doing different things, so a big thank you and shout out to our newest Junior Modern Quilt Guild Member, Ellie. She took most of these pictures for me and did a great job!

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

#quiltsforpeace Update


This is from Lee, the President of Dallas Modern Quilt Guild:


"When the Pulse nightclub shootings happened, the Orlando MQG helped our hearts to heal by asking us to make hearts in rainbow colors for them, DMQG answered that call by committing to 5 complete quilts, and I am proud to say we are looking at a minimum of 9 completed by our guild (we have an amazing group).

Then when tragedy struck in our own back yard on July 7th, it seemed the natural thing to make quilts for our city to help us heal.  Ann (President of FWMQG) called me that morning and asked if Ft. Worth MQG could help Dallas by assisting in a block/quilt drive.  Because we were all familiar with the http://cluckclucksew.com/2015/01/making-heart-blocks-in-multiple-sizes.html (thank you Allison for allowing us to use your pattern) it seemed an easy enough process to whip out blue with white background hearts.  I went to work making our first two blocks and spreading the word to our guilds through Instagram.  McKinney MQG then joined us and three guilds have been working together to rally our members to help us complete 20 quilts.  These quilts are to go to the following:  5 quilts to each of the Fallen’s Head of Household, 7 to the injured officers, 2 to the injured civilians, then 1 each to Chief Brown, Dart Chief Spiller, Mayor Rawlings, City Manager Gonzalez, Mark McCullers (SMU officer that drowned that same week), and Matt Pearce (Ft. Worth Police Officer shot 7 times last March).

Well….  that’s how it started, and then there was Baton Rouge.  Really?!?!  Another ambush so fast?  Our hearts started breaking again, and we decided to add 6 more quilts to our count.   Baton Rouge MQG was relieved to hear #quiltsforpeace would be sending them blue heart quilts for their fallen and injured officers.  They were already working on a plan to make quilts for Alton Sterling’s family.  I told them we would also like to send a quilt to Alton’s family.

“When your heart hurts, you make a heart," is the message that Ann passed along to me from one of  Fort Worth's board members, Jenn Haxton. #Quiltsforpeace is sincerely that, quilters that are coming together at a time when our hearts hurt.  Our message is one of Peace, Love, and Healing.  It has been amazing all the hearts, quilt tops, quilts, supplies, and donations that quilters from all over the world have sent to us to help us complete out mission we certainly could not have made it all happen with out the Instagram community.


If you are keeping track, we basically needed 27 quilts minimum.  I am happy to say we have over 40.  Today, we decided we would also give another quilt to every fallen officer’s parent.  We want to wrap them all in everyone’s love to help their healing process.  We are also looking into sending 2 quilts to the San Diego MQG for their fallen and injured officers. Our total just jumped to 34 quilts minimum."

Thank you Lee for the update!