2016 QUILTCON Charity Quilt

We are excited to announce that the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild has a quilt hanging in the QuiltCon Charity Quilt challenge this week in Pasadena. This year’s theme, was “Improv with Intent.”

In July 2015, the KMQG entered into an artistic collaboration with local artist Sarah Shebaro, co-founder of Striped Light, a letterpress studio in Knoxville. During a delightful guild meeting at her studio, Sarah gave a demonstration of her printmaking process and introduced us to her most recent series of prints. 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by the shapes and forms of Sarah's work, the guild took a limited challenge palette of white, off-white, sunflower, tomato red, light teal, grey, and black and let each member try her hand at improvisational 11-x-17-inch blocks, echoing the form of Sarah's prints. Members incorporated elements of the prints, triangles, stripes to create poster-sized blocks that were clearly inspired by Sarah’s prints.

Over the next several months and through a retreat and conversations on Instagram, guild members assembled their own improvisational blocks.

We gathered in November to assemble the quilt and settled on a design that echoed the form of posters hanging on a wall. Jennifer Grace pieced all our blocks together, Pat Pike did the quilting, and Emily Doane bound and labeled it. Thank you to all who had a hand in this charity quilt!

Inspired by our process, Sarah Shebaro is undertaking another series of work based on our quilts, and the collaboration will continue until a local unveiling with our guild’s show at the Striped Light Studio in May2016. Stay tuned for details on our show!

Fall Meetings Recap

As we kick off a new year with the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild, we want to review some of our best moments and accomplishments from the second half of 2015. Check out our Facebook group page for more photos, including loads of show and tell.

Lynn Rinehart visited our November meeting and gave an informative presentation on quilt appraisals.

We completed seven Stars for Stephanie quilts and donated them to chemotherapy treatment rooms at UT Hospital in memory of member Stephanie Hicks.

We completed two more quilts for The Restoration House of East Tennessee, our local charity project. These quilts are presented to single mothers and their children when they leave the organization's transitional housing and begin new lives of hope and promise.

We pulled together to create "Improv with Intent" blocks for our guild's submission to the Modern Quilt Guild's Quilt Con 2016 show.

In October, some of our group enjoyed a few days of sewing at the Whistlestop Quilt Retreat in Sweetwater, TN. The Whistlestop made us feel so welcome and comfy, and everyone had a great time starting new projects, making progress on WIPs, and even adding to the "finished" pile. We look forward to another great retreat at Whistlestop in 2016!

We were so happy to welcome designer Lizzy House to Knoxville in September. Lizzy's Meadow Quilt Workshop was amazing and drew quilters from not only here in Knoxville but also Nashville, St. Louis, and North Carolina, among other locations. Our Meadow Quilts are in various states of completion, and we look forward to seeing more finishes in 2016. Each one is so unique!

Finally, on the business side of things, we revised our bylaws and created a 5-person board to guide our development and activities in the coming year. The board positions are Chairman and Community Relations; Education Coordinator; Programming and Special Events Coordinator; Secretary and Communications Manager; and Treasurer.