Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Westside Modern Quilt Club May 2016

May's Westside Modern Quilt Club meeting kicked off with a full house and a funny palindrome joke from Geri, and continued in good spirits from there. 
Announcements:
• The Sunshine and Stitches Shop Hop starts on June 18th. The Pine Needle is participating this year with a simple Friendship Star as our free block, and a patriotic, summery, Stars and Stripes pillow as our project in which to use your stars. Come in and get your Hop passport any time.
• The Row by Row experience will start June 21st and we have a charming row designed for participants. Geri will show it off at our next meeting.
• The State Fair still needs volunteers for the Quilt Walk. Your 4 hour volunteer shift gets you free entrance to the fair and free parking -- a perfect way to enjoy the fair, help the community, and save a little money (so you can spend it on funnel cakes!). Call us for contact information.
• The Pine Needle is also working on a special event with a Quiltlebrity in September -- stay tuned for more details.



Tribal Winds is the final name for our annual challenge. • The 2016 Challenge will debut at Northwest Quilting Expo in September 22-24, 2016. Our reveal party pot luck will be at 6:00 on August 31st at Millennium Park in Lake Oswego.• The challenge is open to anyone wishing to honor the heritage of the Northwest Native Americans in a Modern Quilt format (please avoid decidedly pictorial solutions). • Your piece must measure either 32"x 44" or 48"x 66" and use some amount of the Benartex fabric Sevilla in gold or gold and white. Hopefully everyone wishing to participate is already well on their way creating their quilts!• It must also have a 4 inch sleeve attached to the back of the quilt for hanging. 


Focus on Native American culture seems to be heightened right now, as the Portland Art Museum just had their Edward Curtis exhibit, and are now preparing an exhibit of fashions by Native American designers (more textiles -- yay!). The Lake Oswego Library's summer read is also about Edward Curtis and his work with Native tribes. We are lucky enough that Carol Langer, a quilter and friend of The Pine Needle brought several items from her family's collection. Apparently her husband's cousin was a rural mail carrier who's route included the Rosebud Indian Reservation, where he was friendly with the inhabitants and collected many beautiful pieces. Carol brought us a buckskin dress from the Winnebago Tribe, a child's vest decorated with porcupine quills, several decorative pairs of shoes, a small Lone Star quilt, and a beaded and fringed purse. Most items were from the 20s or 30s, with the purse dating to 1870. Thank you Carol for sharing these beautiful items!

Show and Tell:

Robin shared Paris themed placemats (sorry, the photo was horrible, but the placemats were lovely!).

Kathy W shared a quilt she started in Pam's Studio 429 class. The idea was to choose a shape and then play with changing it's size, proportions, etc. Kathy chose a hexagon and made this striking quilt:


Carol W Shared this graphic and bold graduation gift she made for a niece who loves lime green.



Sue B brought the wedding quilt she's working on for her son. He requested something simple with blue and yellow. We think her solution is gorgeous.


Jan brought her twilight colored Sequoia quilt which she made as Pam was developing the pattern. It was quilted by Nancy Stoval and is a real stunner.


Deslee shared a quilt she made from a poppy fabric that she loved. She used up every last bit of the fabric in this quilt and a matching bag.



Virginia Hammond was our presenter for the evening. She is writing a book about the US money system and has chosen to illustrate it with quilts! She focused on one of those quilts for her presentation. It will be titled "Wheels of Commerce" and is based on the La Passacaglia quilt from the book Millefiori Quilts by Willyne Hammerstein.




Virginia talked about her techniques and favorite resources for making this labor-intensive, hand pieced, quilt. She basically blew all our minds with her fussy cutting and fabulous (and often humorous) fabric choices. Below, she is showing how choosing just the right bits for the fussy cutting makes swiss cheese out of her yardage.



Here's a close-up of one of the wheels, highlighting the carefully chosen motifs in each shape that makes up the larger "block."


Hopefully Virginia's entire collection of money quilts will be able to travel to various venues and be seen as a show as well as illustrations for her book. Good luck Virginia! We look forward to seeing this completed quilt and to seeing what will undoubtedly be a spectacular show.

Thank you to everyone who joined us in May. We look forward to seeing you all in June.

1 comment:

  1. What a fabulous presentation that must have been! I'm so sorry I missed it. Hope I get another chance to see Virginia's masterpiece in the making.

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