As many of you know, the VMQG is participating in Maker Faire again this year, June 10th and 11th. This will be our 7th year at the Faire and we’ve been there every year since it started in Vancouver!

We need help in two different ways – volunteers, and quilts to display.

If you’d like to volunteer, you can sign up RIGHT HERE. We especially need volunteers for Saturday, June 10th, but we also have a shift available Friday night (for set up) and Sunday afternoon. Volunteering in our booth is a great way to share your love of quilting with others, and don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of time to check out all the other amazing booths too!

If you’re not able to volunteer, you can still help us represent our guild by lending us your quilts.

We always have a nice crowd happening at our booth and what we need from our members is a selection of modern quilts to display.

(It’s important to realize that people might be touching your quilt.  If you’re not ok with this, then please don’t contribute a quilt for display at the booth.) 

Feel free to lend us quilts in varying stages of completion, so that we have examples to show people of how quilts are put together, and remember that quilts that are “geeky” in any way are always incredibly popular!

If you’d like to have some of your quilts on display in our booth, you can bring them to the Jacquie Gering lecture on Friday, May 26th at MEC Head Office, 1077 Great Northern Way, Vancouver.

Amy will be at the lecture to receive your quilts. If you aren’t able to attend the lecture, but have the perfect quilt for our display, feel free to email our 2017 Maker Faire coordinator Mel at makerfaire@vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca to see if arrangements can be made. Quilts will be returned at our June guild meeting.

Jacquie is co-author (with Katie Pedersen) of Quilting Modern: Techniques and Projects for Improvisational Quilts, author of Walk: Master Machine Quilting with Your Walking Foot, and a leading figure in the modern quilting movement known for her dynamism as a teacher and for the improvisational energy of her quilts. Jacquie is co-founder and former president of the Kansas City Modern Quilt Guild, and she just ended her term as chair of the Board of Directors for the worldwide Modern Quilt Guild. In 2014, the International Association for Creative Arts Professionals named Jacquie its Teacher of the Year, in recognition of her outstanding ability to nurture students’ creativity and to inspire them with the joy of modern quilting.

Her lecture on Friday, May 26th, “Quilting Modern: Honouring Tradition,” will lay out her personal journey as a quilter, from her Mennonite roots to her explorations as a modern quilter. Lecture tickets are $15 for VMQG members and non-members alike, and tickets will be available at the door.

The doors open at 6:30, and the lecture starts at 7pm. Come join us at MEC Headquarters, 1077 Great Northern Way, Vancouver. The venue is wheelchair accessible, has free parking in the back, and is very close to the VCC-Clark skytrain station. We hope to see you there!

Several people have mentioned to us that they wish they had more variety in their stash, especially among low volume prints, since they look so great mixed together.

So! We’re going to try something new, and if it’s a success, maybe we’ll do it again!

At the June anniversary meeting, we’ll be swapping Fat Quarters of low volume fabrics.

What’s a low volume fabric? Low volume fabrics are often described using words or phrases like muted, low contrast, low key, and quiet. They’re light coloured fabrics that will show up as a solid or as a near solid if you were to take a black and white photo of your fabric stack. They usually have a neutral coloured background, and the prints are not super bold or loud. Low volume can be tone on tones, or it can be subtle prints. For more ideas about low volume, along with some pictures to help understand, check out this colour theory 101 and low volume post (scroll part way down for the low volume section), this post on Craftsy, or this blog post that shows some samples of quilts made with low volume prints..

Here’s how the swap works –

You bring a gallon ziplock bag clearly labelled with your name with 4 fat quarters in it. (see photo above)

Each person can bring up to TWO bags – that means 8 fat quarters, but keep them in separate bags for ease of swapping.

These need to be MODERN low volume prints. Please bring fabric of a quality that you would like to receive.*

Please limit the variety of prints per bag to two, for ease of swapping. (ie, please don’t bring 4 different fat quarters!)

Fat quarters can be either US or Canadian, either size is fine. If you bring Canadian size FQs, be aware that you might receive US size FQs back.

When you arrive at the June meeting, there will be a table set up to drop your bag(s) off. Amy will swap the fat quarters between the bags, and after the meeting, you’ll come back and pick up your bag, with 4 new FQs in it!

Easy peasy, right? We’ll do what we can to make sure you don’t get the same print back, but please feel free to swap among yourselves if you end up with something you already have.

*It’s not fun, but we reserve the right to not swap your fabric if it doesn’t fit the guidelines. We have to be fair to others who do.

We have a a great meeting coming up this month, with a special guest speaker Kathleen Riggins, membership renewals, and our annual executive elections.

Because the meeting is so jam-packed, and we want to leave lots of time to learn from Kathleen, our Show and Tell time will be extremely limited.

As such, we’re extending the Unfinished Objects Challenge deadline until out November guild meeting!

For a refresher of the UFO challenge, you can check out this blog post from 2015 (same rules in 2016!) The important thing is that the finished item must be shown at Show and Tell to be counted – which means we’ll need lots of show and tell time, since so many people will have finished UFOs to show, right? 😉

If you’ve already finished your UFOs in preparation for our October meeting, good for you. That just means you’ll get to start something new that much sooner!

VMQG member Terry Aske has advised us of an exciting opportunity to view “Soul Journeys: the quest for completion and connection” by arriving early to the VMQG October 17, 2016 meeting.

Access to this exuberant textile art exhibit is available from 6:00-6:30 pm in the Unitarian Church Sanctuary and in the Fireside Room (in Hewett Hall where we meet, back behind the kitchen). The spaces where the show is exhibited will be in use from 6:30 on, so you MUST arrive between 6 and 6:30 to view it. Holly Williams will be at the meeting early for this purpose.

If you can’t make it to the meeting early, the exhibit runs from October 18-November 12, 2016. You can meet the artists at a reception on October 23, 2016, from 3:00-5:00 pm, or alternately, telephone the church at 604 261-7204 to arrange a viewing time.

For more information, check out the blog of one of the artists, Katie Stein Sather, where she shares her artist statement for the show.

Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild is excited to announce an upcoming workshop with our very own Krista Hennebury!

Krista blogs at Poppyprint Creates and her book Make It, Take It was published by Martingale in January 2015. Krista has long been a popular teacher within VMQG and other guilds in the lower mainland, but in the last few years quilters outside of our area have been able to learn from her as well, as she traveled to Alaska, Inuvik (NWT) and Sweden (and more!) to teach.

This workshop is especially exciting because it’s brand new, and VMQG members will be the first ones ever to take it. Read below for a description of the workshop, and how to sign up!

Speed Date with Improv is a face-paced one day workshop for the improv-curious quilter who’s ready to let go and work without stressing, obsessing or second guessing!

In the morning we’ll work our way through several fun improv piecing techniques; Krista will demo each technique, then you’ll return to your cutting mat and machine to try it out for yourself before the bell rings for your next improv demo-date. Later in the afternoon, we’ll play on the design wall, searching for serendipitous intersections of line and shape in a final layout. You’ll learn how to jigsaw your piecing together into a pleasing abstract composition that will serve as a mini-improv sampler reference for future work.

Students are encouraged to work with solids and limit their fabric palette to black, white plus one colour for high contrast visual impact and definition of line and shape. Discussion will also cover the work of improv master quilters and recommended resources for further exploration of technique.

When: Sunday, November 20, 2016

Where: Room C, Croatian Cultural Centre

Time: 10am-5pm

Cost: $55 for members, $60 for non-members

Sign-up: Please send your payment via etransfer or paypal to treasurer@vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca and then email Amy at amy@vancouvermodernquiltguild.ca to sign up. (If you pay via etransfer, please also send an email to treasurer with the password you chose!)

Sign ups are open to members at this time, the class will be open for non-members after our October meeting (if spaces are still available)

We are pleased to announce that our own Nancy Chan won our Quiltcon Charity Quilt that was raffled off at our fabulous first ever Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild Modern Quilt Showcase which was held at the PipeShop in North Vancouver on August 27 and 28, 2016.

The Vancouver Modern Quilt Guild raffle draw for BC Gaming Event License #87059 was drawn on Sunday, August 28, 2016.

Proceeds from the raffle will benefit Mom2Mom Child Poverty Initiative. We will be rounding up our donation to $1,000.

Congratulations Nancy!! Thank you to everyone who worked on the quilt!