February Meeting Recap

Melissa's gorgeous transparency quilt

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our February meeting! We had a fabulous turnout for the wool applique tutorial.  If you haven't made it down to Mountain Creek Quilt Shop in Greenback, we highly recommend it! Thank you, Samantha and Janet, for guiding us through a fun wool applique mug rug project (designed by our own Emily Doane) -- and for bringing a pop-up shop!

Sign-ups for the Thoroughly Modern Mini Swap have ended. This is a great community-building swap for MQGs across the state -- Memphis Area, Music City (Nashville), Knoxville, and Chattanooga. Minis are due at our May meeting and we will vote on our favorite modern quilt and award a prize before you ship your mini to your partner.

 

Sarah's friendship stars

Spots for our quilt show, "Traditional Craft, Modern Perspective," are filling up so please complete the form to submit your quilt for consideration. Thank you to everyone who is going to show a quilt and help with other aspects of the show. We'll have LOTS more info coming soon!

Elizabeth's value-based baby quilt

QuiltCon West was this weekend in Pasadena. We will recap all of the winners at our March meeting.

 

Quilt of Valor 24" blocks are due at our March meeting, and we'll assemble the tops during our sew-in. You can also bring personal projects to work on. We'll play LRC with 3 fat quarters with Easter/Spring feeling (think pastels, polka dots, flowers). We hope to see many familiar faces and a few new ones too.

 

Taylor's salvaged quilt top turned finished quilt

We are looking into hosting a workshop with Shannon Brinkley, who has a great technique called scrappy applique. You can find her on Instagram, @shannonebrinkley, and online at www.shannon-brinkley.com. We'll update the guild when we know a day and price for the workshop.

Rosalind's amazing (and huge!) Amish-inspired quilt

In January we were short on time and forgot to set our quilting resolutions for the year, so we did it this month. We'll pull out our resolutions in December to see how everyone did -- and prizes will be awarded, of course!

Pat finished her Meadow Quilt! Way to go, Pat!!!

Next meeting: Saturday, March 19

Visit our Facebook page to RSVP

 

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!

January Meeting Recap

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our first meeting of 2016! We covered a lot of material and had a great discussion of our upcoming events for the year. If you were unable to join us, that's okay -- there's always next month! We will continue collecting dues via check or PayPal (modknoxville@gmail.com). We hope to see more new faces this year!

Our first order of business was to welcome our new officers:

• Chair: Michelle Bolt
• Special Events Coordinator: Melissa Everett
• Education Coordinator: Jennifer Grace
• Secretary: Elizabeth Rea
• Treasurer: Christy Cooper

Many members took home Quilts of Valor blocks to turn into larger 24" QOV blocks due back at our March meeting and sew-in.

Next month we will welcome special guest Terri Ayers of Mountain Creek Quilt Shop in Greenback, TN. Terri will teach us about wool applique, and member Emily Doane has designed a modern mug rug for the tutorial. We would like to be adequately prepared with materials, so please sign up in advance if you'd like to participate in the workshop. The guild would like to offset a portion of the cost of this event, with participants paying a nominal fee (no more than $10). Please bring cash or check to the meeting to cover your portion of the cost. All materials will be provided. Please sign up using this form: February Wool Applique Workshop.

One final order of business from the meeting: Our budget was approved for 2016, but it may need some adjusting for our Quilt Show collaboration with Striped Light, details of which came about after the budget was created. This show will take place May 6-8. We will be sending out a signup sheet for this event soon! Please be on the lookout, and get those modern quilts finished! You can enter one regular sized quilt and one mini quilt. If we don't have enough participants, we will then open up the floor for more submissions.

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.

July Meeting Recap!

Be sure to check our Facebook page for some pictures from the meeting!

Our July Meeting was an absolute BLAST!  We were hosted by Sarah Shebaro at Striped Light! Can you believe the amazing mini quilt Melissa made for her!? Beautiful work, Melissa!



The KMQG is so excited to be making quilt blocks inspired by Sarah's work for our QuiltCon Charity Quilt this year.  We thought it would really help our creative process if Sarah shared her process with us!  So she gave us a tour of her studio and even gave a demo of her printing process!  Check out Facebook for a few short videos of Sarah's printing in action (One!) (Two!) and please enjoy some photos of Striped Light and their beautiful work & workspace!  Striped Light also has many classes available for purchase.  I don't know about you, but their Letterpress Calling Card class is calling my name!



 

 














 





 

 

 

 



Announcements

2015 Dues
Dues are $40.00 for the 2015 calendar year.  If you haven't paid your dues, please fill out this Membership Application and pay your dues via PayPal or by check (details are on the application).  It's not too late to join! 

Stars for Stephanie
We're so excited to have 2 more quilt tops that have been completed in memory of our member, Stephanie Hicks. These will be quilted soon!  Thank you to everyone for your generous donations!  A special shout out to the Cincinnati MQG, the Music City MQG and the Central Jersey MQG who sent along blocks.  And of course our own KMQG members!  We have enough blocks to make at least 5-6 quilts for chemo rooms in the area.  Members are still hard at work constructing the quilts - we'll keep you updated on the progress.







Two Color Striped Charity Blocks

Pick any TWO colors from this palette and cut some strips and sew them together!  Strips can be any width, but each block must have only two colors and all strips in your block must be oriented in the same direction. Your inspiration is here!
Blocks must be 12.5" unfinished.


KMQG Summer Mini Quilt Swap!  
Thanks to everyone who participated in the mini quilt swap!!  The quilts were absolutely stunning!! Great work everyone! 
 

Fall Retreat!  October 15-18, 2015 at Whistlestop Quilt Retreat in Sweetwater, TN
SIGN UP HERE for our Fall Retreat!
Cost is $65 for Thursday night and $85 each for Friday and Saturday nights.  Total for three night reservation is $235.00 and two night total is $170.  Upon making a reservation, half of the reservation total is due asap.  The final half will be due August 22 at the meeting .  You need to pay deposit as soon as possible.You will be e-mailed with payment instructions.
We will be taking just 10 reservations with a minimum of 6.  Each person will get their own twin bed, but you will more than likely be sharing a room with 1-2 others. 
Priority registration for KMQG members will end on June 6, 2015.  So if you want to come, reserve your spot now!
We will have two potluck meals, but you will be on your own for the rest of the meals.


Technicolor Galaxy BOM
Are you participating?  We would love to see your progress!  And share your work on instagram with #technicolorgalaxy!


QuiltCon West is Now Accepting Entries!
Entries will be accepted until November 30, 2015.

QuiltCon West Charity Quilt Challenge
We love participating in the QuiltCon charity quilt challenges! This year is no exception!  You can read more about the MQG rules for the 2016 challenge here - (KMQG Rules here).  The quilts this year must be made in an "Improv with Intent" style. We have decided to visit local letterpress studio Striped Light and use their work as inspiration for our improv charity quilt!  If improv seems totally alien to you and makes you a little squirmy, fear not! The national MQG has hosted lots of great webinars; one that you might find useful for this project is Improv with Intent with Cheryl Arkison from July 2014.  You can find the webinar here. 

Upcoming Events

September 16-19  - AQS QuiltWeek in Chattanooga, TN


September 19 - 10:15 AM - 12PM - Westminster Presbyterian Church - Monthly Meeting 

October 15-18 - KMQG Fall Retreat!  - Spots still open! (No meeting)

November 21 - 10:15 AM - 5PM - Westminster Presbyterian Church - Monthly Meeting + Sew In to finish QuiltCon Charity Quilt! 

December 19 - 10:15 AM - 12PM - Westminster Presbyterian Church - Monthly Meeting 

February 18-21, 2016 - QuiltCon WEST in Pasadena, CA

February 23-26, 2017 - QuiltCon EAST in Savannah, GA!

Please e-mail us at modknoxville@gmail.com with any questions you might have.

KMQG QuiltCon Charity Challenge Quilt 2016 Details

Our fabrics have been distributed and the block making can begin!  Let's recap what our plan is:

 

 

Using improv with intent and inspiration from Striped Light's textile inspired work, as seen in the photos, create an 11 in x 17 in rectangular quilt block. Please use only the solid fabrics provided, if you need more fabric, all can be found at www.fabricshack.com :

Kona White
Kona Bone
Kona Ash
Kona Black
Kona Capri
Kona Corn
Kona Red

Feel free to use all the colors or limit the colors you use.  If you sign up to make a block and receive fabric, you must deliver the completed block to our November 21, 2015 meeting.  At the November meeting, we will construct the quilt top. The blocks can be as complex as you like or as simple but inspired by the shapes and colors in Striped Light's work.  There are many resources to help you begin, or we will also be working on these at retreat.  See more information on the QuiltCon West challenge here.  Sign ups are closed.

Please share photos on Instagram and tag with #kmqgcharitychallenge #quiltconcharityquilt

You can find more photos of Striped Light's work on their Facebook page or Instagram.  If you would like to see/purchase the prints they are available for sale at their shop located at 107 Bearden Place -- all one of a kind prints!

Most importantly, HAVE FUN!  Enjoy the process.  Take your time.  Melissa