We are excited to announce that this year our Christmas in July evening meeting will be a member gift swap and ice cream social. We know that December is a busy month for a lot of our members and not everyone can attend our annual holiday party. We are offering an opportunity for members to make a small gift project to exchange at the July 5 evening meeting.

Now, we know July is pretty far away, but summer is sneaking up on us very quickly! For those of you who want to participate in the Christmas in July swap, we’ve created a Pinterest board with small project ideas. Feel free to make any small project such as, mini quilt, mug rug, coasters, zipper pouch, apron, fabric basket, needle book, pincushion; the possibilities are nearly endless.

We can’t wait to see what you make! And if you don’t want to participate in the swap, you are still welcome to join us for ice cream and socializing!

Please note: This post contains affiliate links. This means that, at no cost to you, the Boulder MQG will receive compensation for purchases made after clicking the link.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

The Boulder MQG Round Robin will begin in June 2018 at the evening meeting where center blocks will be passed for the first round. Final quilts will be returned at the October 2018 open sew. To sign up view the guidelines and rules, available here. Sign up available for all current BMQG members.

The next open sew is Saturday, May 26. Our monthly challenge is Spring Cleaning! Clean out your fabric stash, sewing notions, craft supplies, books, and patterns, and bring them for a free giveaway table that will be set out during open sew. No sales, please.

Our June 7 evening meeting will be all about Designing with Precuts. Claudia will walk us through how to actually make quilts with those jelly rolls, charm packs, and layer cakes. You can see some ideas on Pinterest too.

July 5 we will host our annual Christmas in July evening meeting. This year we will have a swap of a small sewn gift and an ice cream social. Please join us for a relaxed, social meeting and bring a gift to swap. We’ve created a Pinterest board with ideas for small sewing projects you can make for the swap. Check it out here!

Also, don’t forget about our fall show, An Exploration in Sustainable Modern Quilting. Your quilt submission does not have to be large, just a reflection of how you view sustainable quilting. We would love for everyone to submit and entry. Please see details on our website.

MAY MEETING RECAP

We had another great turnout for the May 3 evening meeting. We had visitors from several other local guilds and even out of state. We kicked off the meeting with our Polaroid Block swap. We had such a great turn out, over 80 blocks! Everyone who participated went home with new blocks. If you’re sad you missed out, you can still find the tutorial in the member area and stitch up some of your own.

For our educational program our members then took turns presenting their favorite quilting books and sharing projects made or inspired by those books. If you are interested in purchasing any of the books that were presented there are links provided below:

Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters: Choose & Use Quilting Designs on Modern Quilts

Step-by-Step Free-Motion Quilting: Turn 9 Simple Shapes into 80+ Distinctive Designs

A Quilter’s Ark by Margaret Rolfe

Home for the Holidays

Intuitive Color & Design: Adventures in Art Quilting

The Quilt Block Cookbook: 50 Block Recipes, 7 Sample Quilts, Endless Possibilities

All Points Patchwork: English Paper Piecing beyond the Hexagon for Quilts & Small Projects

Modern Designs for Classic Quilts: 12 Traditionally Inspired Patterns Made New

WALK: Master Machine Quilting with Your Walking Foot

The Fussy Cut Sampler: 48 Quilt Blocks from Your Favorite Fabrics

The Paper-Pieced Home: Quilting a Household One Block at a Time

Block Genius: 201 Pieced Quilt Blocks with No Match Charts (Landauer) Clear Instructions, Expert Advice, Accurate Measurements, and Exploded Diagrams for Classic 6, 9, and 12 Inch Blocks

Pathways To Better Quilting: 5 Shapes for Machine Quilt Patterns (Golden Threads Series)

Shape by Shape Free-Motion Quilting with Angela Walters: 70+ Designs for Blocks, Backgrounds & Borders

The beautiful projects shared by our members inspired us all. We also had show and tell for members who shared projects not made from the books that were presented.

We hope to see you for our open sew day on May 26. Please remember to RSVP so you are guaranteed a spot for your sewing machine!

Please note: This post contains affiliate links. This means that, at no cost to you, the Boulder MQG will receive compensation for purchases made after clicking the link.

The Boulder MQG will be doing a Round Robin June 2018 – October 2018, signups are open now and the center block is due at the June evening meeting. Signups and rules are available here, please read through the rules completely.

At the May 3 evening meeting we will be doing quilting book reviews and we need your help. Members will be presenting the books and participation is encouraged. We put together a list of questions to think about when picking a book, and we’d love to see any finished projects or blocks you’ve made from the book (photos are acceptable)! It would also be great if you could submit a book review for the blog so everyone can learn about your favorite books, you can do that here.

We had an amazing turnout for the April 5 evening meeting with a huge group of 21 people, including 4 new faces, coming to learn paper piecing techniques. And it was a great meeting to be at because we had a ton of amazing giveaways!

First, we had a giveaway for everyone who wore their name tags they made for the March open sew challenge, a 6 month subscription to the great digital magazine Make Modern and Protect and Grip Thimble* from Clover.

Barb generously donated two Add-A-Quarter Rulers* which are perfect for the new foundation paper piecing skills everyone learned at the meeting. Beadeux donated two hexie templates for English paper piecing, and we also had a pack of my favorite EPP needles, Black Gold Applique-Sharps*, to giveaway from Clover. A huge thanks to all the generous donors and congratulations to all our winners and we hope you’re enjoying trying out these great new tools!

Barb presented on foundation paper piecing and demoed Block 12 from Sewn by Leila’s Year of Scrappy Triangles. Barb had a lot of great tips and tricks for making paper piecing easier. You can print out this little cheat sheet to keep next to your machine.

Barb did a great demo and demystified the foundation paper process. Members can download the full presentation with step by step paper piecing tips in the member area.

It was extremely helpful to see foundation paper piecing in action and Barb sent everyone home with their own pattern to try it out at home. Laura L. and Julie have already been busy making theirs!

Next we switched to hand stitching while Rebecca showed off English paper piecing. Everyone received templates and glue sticks* and got a chance to try out making their own hexies.

Rebecca had a few tips for English paper piecing:

• It’s worth investing in a Fiskars X-Large Hexagon Squeeze Punch* so you don’t have to manually cut out the templates
• If you are glue basting, make sure not to fold the fabric too tight
• When joining hexies, don’t use white thread unless you’re using white fabric! Match the thread to the color of the fabric or use a medium gray, tan, or pink. These will all blend much better and your stitches will be less visible.

The next open sew is Sunday, April 26 and there will be paper piecing help available if you still need a little more guidance. Bring along a pattern you’ve been wanting to try or we will provide a simple block to try.