October Meeting Minutes

Meeting held at Inspire Quilting, 9 members present

Riley Blake Challenge:

• -          6 fat eighths provided by Riley Blake
• -          Item must be quilted and use improvisational piecing techniques
• -          Add any solids or Riley Blake prints
• -          Do not have to use all the fabrics
• -          No size limit
• -          Challenge Item due at December meeting

White Elephant Handmade Swap:

• -          December meeting to have holiday party
• -          Bring a handmade item to swap
• -          Only participate if you wish – bring an item and get to ‘play’
• -          Can be any type of handmade item, doesn’t have to be ‘holiday’ related
• -          No size limit

Improv Workshop:

-          Improv Log Cabin

o   aka wonky log cabin

o   Each round of logs going around the center tend to be the same color and value

o   Use of random angles instead of specific measurements

o   Technique similar to crazy quilting

-          Slice and Insert Improv

o   Start with pieces sewn together

o   Slice to add line/section of new fabric

o   Trim to square/finished size

-          Stitch and Flip

o   Instead of using measured pieces, similar to improve log cabin, place fabrics together and sew

o   Trim off excess and flip over for new piece

-          November meeting  - discuss MQG website

-          December meeting – Holiday party and White Elephant Handmade Swap

September Meeting Minutes

Meeting held at Inspire Quilting – 10 members present

Reminder: Big Tent to end at end of October

Education: Improv Quilting

• -          Technique that do not call for normal ‘block’ style or specific grid style quilting
• -          Using fabrics or scraps not in a particular order
• -          Use of cutting to change style of blocks
• -          Improv workshop to be held at October meeting

Sew and Share

August Meeting Minutes

·         Held at Inspire Quilting in Plant city

·         We are now officially Tampa Modern Quilt Guild

o   Guests can visit two times

o   Members must pay dues to attend meetings and future challenges/events

o   Double check with Elizabeth that email is correct to get on the new group page from national MQG

o   Big Tent group to close at end of October

·         Alternative Meeting Spaces

o   Once construction is complete at Jimmie B. Keel library we hope to begin meeting their again

o   If you have a local church, club house,  community center, etc  please check to see if the group can meet their to give alternates.

·         Meeting Education: Solids in Modern Quilts

o   Solids show off graphic elements

o   Sowing piecing in quilts

o   Gradation of color to show movement

o   Needs to be solid color, not a gradient color. I.e. batiks are not solid, tone on tone is not solid

Remaining meetings for 2013

We have two remaining meetings for 2013, both scheduled to take place at Inspire Quilting & Sewing in Plant City, FL - Saturday, November 9, 2013 at 10am and Saturday, December 15, 2013.

At our November meeting, we'll be talking about the new MQG Community site and how to use it. If you are a dues paying member of our guild and do not currently have access to the MQG site, please let us know!

For our December meeting, we'll be having a handmade White Elephant swap. Bring your wrapped handmade goody and head home afterward with another handmade goody, made by someone in the guild, as well as probably a funny story or two about the mad swapping that occurs after we open our items.

In 2014, we'll be working on varying our meeting locations. We'll be alternating between meeting at Inspire as well as some local libraries. Stay tuned for more info on that!

March 2013 Meeting Minutes

We had twelve members present at our March meeting!

At our March meeting, we discussed some news from the national guild, shared our Madrona Road projects and voted on a winner, as well as talked about modern quilting resources online.

The national MQG is moving toward a new membership model which will include yearly dues to the national organization. These dues will yield many benefits to us, and Elizabeth will be sharing more information on this at our April meeting. Benefits will include discounts and priority registration for educational events like QuiltCon and regional SewDowns, discounts with affiliated companies and sponsors, as well as access to a new centralized website for managing our guild as well as conversing with our guild. The new website will be rolled out toward the end of 2013.

Speaking of SewDowns, there are currently five different ones planned between now and the next QuiltCon (which will be 2015) - Philadelphia in September 2013, Portland in February 2014, Nashville in April 2014, Minneapolis in July 2014, Scottsdale AZ in September 2014.

There will again be a Modern Quilt Guild showcase at International Quilt Festival/Market this fall - entries open now through April 26th - for more info visit MQG blog - themodernquiltguild.wordpress.com

The Madrona Road challenge was a great success for our guild, with a total of nine entries. Thanks very much to Katie, Maria, Anita, Donna, Sandy, Ellen, Ann, Elizabeth and Bree for taking part in the challenge! Members can view the photos of all of the entered projects on BigTent in the Files tab. As a group we voted blindly on all of the projects, and Elizabeth's project was the winner. Maria and Ann tied for second place, and each received/will receive a bundle of fabric. At our April meeting, we'll discuss starting a new guild challenge.

This month's educational presentation, Find Your Tribe, was about finding modern quilting resources and community online. These educational presentations will become a recurring part of our monthly meetings. Members can log into our BigTent site to find a copy of the presentation.

Our next meeting is April 6th at 1pm at the Jimmie B Keel Library, and our educational presentation for this meeting will be What is Modern Quilting. Our May meeting will be held on May 11th at 10am at Inspire Quilting & Sewing in Plant City.

Our March Meeting

Our next scheduled meeting is Saturday, March 9th, at the Jimmie B. Keel Library in northwest Tampa, at 1pm. We'll be viewing all of the entires in our guild's Madrona Road Challenge and selecting a winner, so make sure to attend!

For more information about our March meeting and to RSVP, visit our new BigTent group.

February Meeting Minutes

At our February meeting, we met at Inspire Quilting & Sewing in Plant City, a lovely quilt shop with lots of beautiful space for us to sew in. We had six members in attendance at this meeting, as well as two visitors from the Orlando MQG.

We discussed the upcoming Original Sewing Expo in Lakeland March 14-16, the Madrona Road challenge currently underway, as well as the upcoming evening mixer planned tentatively for 2/26. We also discussed setting some basic bylaws for the guild and a steering committee for this task was gathered.

Our next meeting is scheduled for 3/9 at the Jimmie B Keel Library. The JBK Library is currently under construction and will be for the remainder of this year, so they are limiting the use of meeting rooms, so we may meet more often at Inspire, as they have offered to host future meetings in their spacious classroom.

The Madrona Road Challenge

Violet Craft's latest collection for Michael Miller Fabrics, Madrona Road, is the focus of the newest challenge hosted by the Modern Quilt Guild. Within our local guild, the guidelines for participating in the challenge are quite simple: you can only add solid fabrics (or additional Madrona Road prints) to what you receive from the guild, and you must make something with a quilted element to it. A quilt, a quilted pillow, quilted tote bag, you choose! To participate in the challenge and receive some of the fabric provided to us for the challenge, you must be present at our January meeting and Sew Day, to be held January 19th at 11 a.m. For more meeting details and to RSVP, check our Facebook group right here.

The final projects will be shared at our March guild meeting, scheduled for March 9th. Want to see what some of the other MQG's are doing so far with the challenge? Check out the Flickr group!