Our June meeting was filled with inspiration and food for thought.
First off, Geri caught us up on details for the Tribal Winds challenge. Hopefully everyone wishing to participate is already well on their way creating their quilts!
• The 2016 Challenge will debut at Northwest Quilting Expo in September 22-24, 2016. Please print out the entry form from the NQE website (the link is on this page) and bring it, filled out, with your quilt to our reveal party. Write in Westside Modern Quilt Club in the Special Exhibits box. The $20 entry fee is waived for our Challenge quilts.
• Our reveal party pot luck will be at 6:00 on August 31st at Millennium Park in Lake Oswego. If your last name starts with A-L, please bring a main dish; if your name starts with M-S, please bring a salad of some sort; and if your last name starts with T-Z you may bring dessert.
• 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.
• It must also have a 4 inch sleeve attached to the back of the quilt for hanging, and must be bound or otherwise finished (facing, satin stitch, etc.).
As always, Show and Tell was fun!
Cathy brought her Floribunda fabric quilt. She created a design which used fat quarters as efficiently as possible. She still had a few leftover bits, so she incorporated them into a simpler, graphic, back, which she's decided she likes better, so it is now the front!
Kathy E brought a vintage hexagon quilt she recently purchased. She's thinking it's great inspiration for a more Modern version. The crafts(wo)manship was gorgeous.
Pat's been using up her stash fabrics. She brought a striking wall hanging made of neutral colored triangles, and a contemporary interpretation of a log cabin in a very Modern green, orange and grey scheme.
Deslie showed off her Fish Fish Fish quilt which features a lively, you guessed it, fish print batik.
Grace brought her shashiko placemats and gorgeously stitched "hexie" quilt, plus a fun bright quilt with a relatively simple design but great impact.
Jane showed two very different quilts, one with batiks and one a nearly whole cloth quilt made from a vintage tablecloth and osnaburg fabric. She did gorgeous long-arm quilting on both.
Susan brought her little sketch quilt from a Jean Wells Intuitive Piecing class, plus two more even tinier ones made from the leftovers. These little compositional studies are like potato chips -- you can't make just one!
Linda D brought the big color wheel quilt she made with a Tula Pink pattern, and her newest Billie Bag adorned with graphic crows.
Robin brought flower quilts! One was a brightly colored quilt from a Weeks Ringle pattern, which Robin quilted as if she were a bee flitting from flower to flower. It's full of charming loops and meanderings. The next is a big sunflower which she created using a Pine Needle kit purchased when she was just learning to quilt. The last was a lovely blue, white, and yellow quilt featuring flower baskets which Robin embroidered masterfully.
Geri showed off some of the new fabrics in the shop -- like a Marcia Derse alphabet panel, House of Hoppington by Portland's own Violet Craft, and especially our new batch of Australian fabrics which we've paired with the Me+You modern batiks to great effect.
Our guest speaker was Judy Livingston, a pattern designer and former buyer with Maywood Studio and EE Schenk distributors. She gave us an insider's look at what a fabric company looks for when designing fabric lines, and what a buyer keeps in mind when purchasing for a distributor (plus Geri got to chime in from a quilt store's point of view). She talked about new colors for old designs, creating designs from artwork, the batik process, and the difference between batik, silkscreen, and digital prints. I don't think many of us realized how long the process can be, and how many choices have to be made along the way. By the time the fabric reaches your local shop, it has been carefully tailored to that shop's needs. One of Judy's favorite projects was working with Maywood's Japanese-inspired line of taupe fabrics. To celebrate the 10th year of the line, she designed a beautiful quilt using all the fabrics produced for the collection over the ten year period.
Judy also spoke about inspiration and creativity. She gave us tips for cultivating creativity by simply finding ways to relax and percolate. Learning whether you find thinking about a creative project relaxing and can drift off to sleep letting your subconscious work at it, or find it invigorating and can use the quiet time before getting up perfect for planning an approach to a project, can help us better tap into our creative selves. As a pattern designer, Judy finds inspiration in many things. She likes to look outside of the quilt world, and often looks to nature for interesting color palettes. She showed a "dresser scarf" she made with repurposed pieces of an appliquéd vest -- which was a pretty creative use of fabrics she liked...
but that project then went on to inspire a new pattern design based on colors and Broderie perse flowers.
As always, the meeting was informative and inspirational. We look forward to next month's meeting the last Wednesday in July.
