Wednesday, January 18, 2017

4-Patch Butterfly Blocks for The Restoration House

UPDATE: We have extended the collection of these blocks through April 8!

Hello KMQG members!

It's time to work on blocks for our next quilt for The Restoration House, and we're going with a 4-patch butterfly block that is 12.5 inches unfinished.


Please follow the tutorial available here: http://www.inspiremegrey.com/2017/01/4-patch-butterfly-block-tutorial.html

We ask that you please use solid fabrics in cool colors -- blues, greens, purples -- and white solid fabric for the butterflies. Blocks are due at our meeting on Saturday, April 8 March 18. If you want to make blocks but can't attend the March meeting to turn them in, please email modknoxville@gmail.com to make alternate arrangements. Thank you!

Monday, January 16, 2017

January Meeting Reminder



Our next monthly meeting is this Saturday, January 21. Please join us as we kick off our 2017 programming! An updated list of meetings and special events are available on our blog, http://knoxvillemqg.blogspot.com/p/event-calendar.html, and we're collecting 2017 membership dues of $40 for the year (payable via PayPal to modknoxville@gmail.com or by check or cash at any meeting). With paid membership, you get to join in our challenges, charity projects, and special events, and you also get access to a lot of great free stuff from our national organization, www.themodernquiltguild.com! We hope many of you can join us for a great year of learning and sewing.

When: January 21, 10:15 social, 10:30 meeting begins
Where: Westminster Presbyterian Church, 6500 Northshore Dr., Knoxville
Agenda:
  • Show and tell
  • Left-Right-Center game -- bring 3 fat quarters of Cotton and Steel manufacturer fabrics if you want to play!
  • Voting on 2017 guilder leadership and budget
  • Setting our quilting resolutions for 2017
  • Annual Yard Sale -- bring items you would like to destash and sell to others plus cash to shop!

Friday, January 13, 2017

Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild's QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge 2017

For the Modern Quilt Guild's QuiltCon East 2017, the QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge for member guilds was "to work collaboratively to create completed quilts using a predetermined color palette while crafting a design that plays with scale." Here's the palette:



We were delighted that this challenge was open to prints and other fabrics within this palette, and so inspired by the watercolor print below, we decided to set out on a process that involved painting our own textiles as a group.



Project managers Melissa Everett and Emily Doane began to develop a macro/micro pattern that proceeded from large stripes to smaller stripes, and then group members tinkered with the design to add color and movement.





After testing dyes to achieve the desired palette, Melissa and Emily led members through a fabric painting process at our September guild meeting.




We laid the fabric out in the sun to help speed up the drying process, and as it dried, the color variations and shades of the dye started to reveal themselves.



After the fabric was dry and the dye was set, guild members gathered at our November meeting to start piecing the stripes together. Each person was responsible for a different section of the quilt in order to keep all the strips and stripes straight according to the pattern.




Throughout the process, members remarked on how the colors played off of one another and expressed interest in more experimentation with fabric dyeing, so we're planning a workshop on fabric dyeing as part of our 2017 programming. We look forward to sharing our finished quilt with attendees at QuiltCon East 2017.