KMQG Quilt Show 2019

April 5-26, 2019
Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild Quilt Show 2019
Opening reception: Friday, April 5, 5:00-9:00 PM
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. Please note, the Emporium is closed on Friday, April 19, for the holiday.

The Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild (KMQG) exists for residents of Knoxville and surrounding areas who have an interest in modern design and quilting. The guild’s mission is to provide a community where modern quilters can meet and share ideas while creating an environment that encourages creativity and acceptance. The KMQG was established in 2010 by Mary Beth Meadows as a member of the Modern Quilt Guild, which is made up of over 14,000 members in more than 200 guilds in 39 countries.

The exhibited quilts have all been made by Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild members using traditional means and featuring a modern aesthetic.

Visiting the Emporium:
100 S. Gay Street, Knoxville, TN 37902
We are located on the corner of Gay Street & Jackson Avenue in downtown Knoxville. We hope you will stop by for a self-guided visit! Admission is free, and exhibitions are generally appropriate for all ages. Parking information is available here.

December Meeting Recap

The KMQG December meeting was also our holiday party and our 2nd annual gift swap. As you can see in the photo above, our swap partners made some amazing gifts with the fabric provided to them, and everyone enjoyed what has become an annual tradition for the guild.

We also elected our leaders for 2019:

• Chairman: Elizabeth Rea
• Secretary: Sarah Elliott
• Education Coordinator: Melissa Wilson
• Treasurer: Christy Cooper
• Founding Directors: Mary Beth Meadows, Emily Doane, Jennifer Grace

Our QuiltCon charity quilt is nearing completion and will be sent off soon to hang at the quilt show in Nashville in February. After some brainstorming, we've decided to call it "Friendship Bound" in honor of the quilt that inspired it, named "Tennessee Friendship" by quilt historians Merikay Waldvogel and Bets Ramsey. The inspiration quilt was made in Newport, TN, in 1880.

Finally, the KMQG is excited to announce that we'll be presenting our work in a quilt show in April at The Emporium Arts Center in downtown Knoxville. The show will open on the First Friday, April 5, and will hang all month. Members will receive information in January regarding entry submissions, with quilts due in late February. Quilts of all sizes will be featured.

It wouldn't be a guild meeting without some show and tell, so here we go!

Made by Jennifer for Michelle Bolt

Yvonne made two charity quilt tops with fabric in the guild's stash

Made by Ana for Sandy D.

Ana with her sweet Christmas sampler

Phyllis' set of placemats for Ginger

Yvonne's trio of nesting buckets for Elizabeth

Next meeting: Saturday, January 19 from 10:15-12 at Westminster Presbyterian Church

KMQG Mini Quilt Challenge Show on June 1

The Challenge

Quilters “paint” with fabric, and as a result, our color palette has historically been limited by the colors available in textiles. Quilt historians have observed that the colors quilters use are often influenced by home design and decorating trends. Excited to try a color challenge, the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild reached out to students in the Color Theory class taught by professor Ashley Pace at UT’s School of Interior Design. Design students collectively chose one “on trend” color as the main color required in all the quilters’ designs. Then, individual students chose eight other secondary colors for their interesting interplay with the main color and relevance in modern design. Members of the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild were required to work with the main color Pewter, and then they drew one of the eight secondary colors at random. The challenge asked the quilters to use any quilting method and design of their choice to create an interesting mini quilt (less than 24” x 24”) that incorporates Pewter and at least one other challenge color.

This show displays a variety of piecing and quilting methods, and the quilts are as varied as their makers.

Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild's QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge 2018

One aspect of the Modern Quilt Guild's annual QuiltCon is the Charity Quilt Challenge. Guilds and individual members have the opportunity to make a quilt using the MQG's chosen theme and color palette. For QuiltCon 2018 in Pasadena, CA, the theme is Modern Traditionalism, and here's the MQG's definition:

"Modern traditional quilts can be made by:

• Updating a traditional block with modern quilting elements such as (but not limited to):
  • Playing with scale
  • Using negative space
  • Modern color palettes
• Updating a traditional quilt layout with modern quilting design elements such as:
  • Alternate gridwork
  • Use of negative space
  • Improvisation
• Using updated quilting motifs instead of using traditional designs such as feathers

Most (but not all) traditional quilts are typically built on a symmetrical grid structure of pieced blocks that are the same size throughout the quilt. Also, many traditional quilt blocks are ‘small’ or made of many small pieces. In addition, there are many traditional quilts that incorporate modern design elements such as Amish quilts or even the random and freeform blocks designs in crazy quilts." 

This is the color palette we were given to work with:

Armed with all that information, the KMQG got to work. We wanted to do something with a connection to Knoxville, East Tennessee, or the Smoky Mountain region, so we did some research on patterns and designs that identify with the area. We found a traditional pattern by Bonnie K. Hunter of a slanted star, called Smokey Mountain Stars, and took it as our inspiration.

Smokey Mountain Stars by Bonnie K. Hunter

Member Jennifer Grace sketched an oversized slanted star made of half-square triangles with a shattered appearance and an ombre color effect, and we were off to the races.

We divided up the star in such a way as to allow members to piece portions of it. Blocks are 6 and 12 inches square depending on placement, so the half-square triangles are only 2 inches finished.

Fabric was ordered, and member Elizabeth Rea cut kits for members to create their assigned sections.

The members' sections were assembled into the large star, which was surrounded by white space.

Member Pat Pike quilted it on her longarm machine with undulating waves to create movement and add texture while not distracting from the design. Melissa Everett added binding, strategically placing color at opposite corners, and a sleeve so that the quilt can hang with others in the charity challenge display in Pasadena.

This quilt and its inspiration reflect our guild’s home in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains and the beauty we see here every day. We hope everyone who sees it at QuiltCon enjoys it, and we look forward to donating it locally when it returns.

You can revisit our QuiltCon quilt from 2017 here. And check out our quilt from 2016 here.

Our 2017 Quilt Show

Find more information about our show and other exhibitions at The Emporium here. Quilts in our show will range from large to mini, including works created at workshops and in guild challenges. Members of the KMQG will attend the First Friday opening on June 2.

Spring Mini Quilt Challenge

Assignment: Fall Down a Rabbit Hole

Create a mini quilt inspired by a piece of art. Dimensions must be no smaller than 6” x 6” and no larger than 24” x 24”. Mini quilts are due May 20.

1. Pick a piece of art that inspires you. It may be classical or contemporary. It may be a two-dimensional work or a three-dimensional work. It may even already be a quilt! Feel free to use Google image search with any of the artists below until you find something that is inspiring and interesting to YOU. Please, “fall down the rabbit hole” of searching until something grabs your attention. When you decide on your art, print it out, or save it, and look at it daily for a couple of days.
   
   Frank Stella, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, M.C. Escher, Bridget Riley, Sonia Delaunay, Kenneth Noland, Lucienne Day, Maija Isola, Ashley Havinden, Ilonka Karasz, Agnes Martin, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Roy Lichtenstein, Donald Judd, Georgia O’Keeffe, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Alexander Calder, Richard Serra, Hans Hoffman, Chris Johanson, William LaChance
   
   
2. Create a mini-quilt that has an interesting “conversation” with this piece of art. It could be directly inspired by it. It could use similar shapes or forms but with different colors. Or it could use the same colors but in a more traditional pattern. Don’t judge your quilt in your head as you go, just be free to create. All that matters is that YOU like it, so work with some colors or ideas that you enjoy. Also, you could feel free to try something new or different to you, to stretch your self a bit. It is ok if it turns out differently than you first imagined. If you feel “stuck,” come to the April meeting and talk with your colleagues about it, getting stuck and unstuck is a part of the process. Remember, your quilt is only half of the magic, the excitement happens when you put the mini quilt and the art together. The idea is to see what exciting “conversation” emerges between them.
   
   
3. Bring your finished quilt to the guild meeting May 20 along with a printed image at least 4” x 6” of your artistic inspiration. We would love for you to share what inspired you and how you arrived at your mini quilt, what your unexpected detours may have been along the way. If you share your process on social media, remember that we may even play a game of matching images to quilts, so you might not want to give it away before May 20. Also, please add little triangle sleeves (tutorial in April) to the upper corners of the back so that we can insert a dowel to hang it in our June show.
   
4. HAVE FUN! It’s all about enjoying the journey and challenging yourself in a way that makes YOU inspired.

 

April Meeting Recap

Carving linoleum blocks

We had a wonderful workshop Saturday and enjoyed our printing time with Striped Light's Sarah and Bryan. We're excited to show off the handcrafted posters for our upcoming quilt show - stay tuned! If you are interested in learning more about the printing process or taking a class with them, their class schedule is available on their website, www.stripedlight.com. They've been so kind and generous sharing their time, supplies, tools, ink, paper, space, and expertise.

 

Sarah explains how to operate one of the presses

Sarah and Bryan get us started

The new QuiltCon East Charity Challenge for 2017 has been announced. You can find all the information here. Please start thinking about design ideas. We will be accepting design ideas through our June meeting. Please email us your ideas, with a sketch, so that we may put these in our meeting presentation. Then we'll vote to decide on which we'd like to become our quilt!

 

 

Local quilt shop Mammaw's Thimble continues its going-out-of-business sale, with 40% off and, at last check, still a good supply of solid fabrics.

Our quilt show, Traditional Craft, Modern Perspective, is just a couple weeks away, so be sure to get your hanging sleeves on your quilts. Mini quilts don't need sleeves, and we'd love to have as many minis on display as we can get. We want to fill a wall with minis! If your TN mini swap quilt is finished, it would be wonderful to have those as well! Quilts need to be delivered in a plastic bag or pillow case to Melissa's home or Emily's workplace (Educational Outfitters on Cedar Bluff Rd.) on Tuesday, May 3. (Contact Melissa at modknoxville@gmail.com for her address if you need it.) After the show, quilts need to be picked up Monday, May 9, from Melissa. Help us spread the word about the show so that we can share our quilts with a large audience! We'd love to turn this into an annual event.

Next meeting: Our next regular meeting will be May 21 back at Westminster Presbyterian. Bring your finished TN mini swap quilt for voting!