February meeting - never too young

You are never too young to attend the Edinburgh Modern quilt guild :-) can I have an awwwwww! What a cutie! Please meet Matthew, the next Luke Haynes?? Who knows, watch this space. Lesley, Matthews mother waited less than a month before coming back to the guild, that's dedication! we missed you Lesley!

 

Oh dear, it is safe to say that only one thing could tear our members away from this cute young chap, yep the draw for the charity quilt!!

Do you remember the quilt we made for quilt con last year??

The wonderfully talented Jo Avery made another which featured in Love Patchwork and Quilting. This second quilt was being raffled to raise funds for the Edinburgh Clothing Store. Love Patchwork and Quilting were so generous not only giving a donation but also a raffle prize of a years subscription! Jo very kindly donated a gift voucher for Mybearpaw. With all those amazing prizes on offer its no wonder the raffle tickets sold like hot cakes.

Sooooo *drumroll*

 

Can you sense the anticipation!

Three lovely winners were chosen and over £750 raised for a very worthy charity. That's a win win situation! Well show and tell might seem like an anti climax after that, but the members managed to keep the excitement going with some stonking makes.

 

First up all the fun and sweet bee blocks for Tatyana.

 

Bee blocks for next month, lovely one for Barbara.

Robin calls house for her bee block!

Righty Ho, let's get cracking with show and tell. We all love a sew together bag, how amazing is this from Janice? gorgeous fabrics.

 

Jacquie always picks colours I think I wouldn't like then makes something stunning out of them, I don't like brown but would arm wrestle you for this quilt!

Simple blocks made stunning by great fabric choice, very modern quilt from Audrey.

Are any of you in the blueberry park mini swap on Instagram? If so you might be lucky enough to get this classic improv from Jo Avery! I'm in the swap and keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

Our resident long arm maestro Tatyana had us swooning over her flowering snowball quilt. Stunning piecing, amazing quilting, this one has it all.

 

 

Awwww another cutie! This was the doggie pincushion Sheena got from the Gartmore retreat swap, he seems right at home here.

Ok, I'll admit I uploaded the pictures out of order, just checking you are paying attention! Yep it's Jacquie again! This woman is a machine! A sewing machine .... Sorry :-) again, colours I would not have picked but what a fab combination, Jacquie you always challenge my perceptions thank you!

Wow, I have always wanted to do trapunto and after seeing this from Barbara I want to do it even more, this. Was from a class by Phillipa Naylor.

More simple shapes from Jane, but how mesmerising this colour combination is.

Gartmore finishes featured a lot in this on this show and tell! Here is Ann with her lovely fresh charm pack quilt.

Quite a few of the group have made the modern medallion by Jo, here is Lesley's version, I'm loving it.

Another Gartmroe house finish from Fiona, I'm drooling over all this Kaffe.

Good grief Jacquie!! Do you sleep?? :-) yep another beauty, all those geese, beautiful colours, what's not to love.

Close up of Tatyanas flowering snowball, I did mention I uploaded these out of order! Look at that quilting!

Another Gartmore house finish from the fab Helen, another pattern from Jo, lone star rising, this was in Love Patchwork and quilting a few months ago, look through your copies if you want to make it! It is rather fabulous.

We stay in ?Gartmore for our next show, Robins incredible porthole quilt, I sat behind her while she was putting this together, it's a work of art.

Whaaaaaat?? Another from Jacquie?? Ok it's official this woman does not sleep, she just produces incredible quilts!

Let's dot back to Tatyana for her sooooo sweet heart quilt.

You getting dizzy? We switch back to Sheena for her very sophisticated bag, started at the stitchgathering and finished at the Gartmoer retreat.

I wanted to finish with this. How happy does the lovely Janice look? Well I would be happy too if I had made this incredible quilt top with Liberty fabrics. I saw this coming together at the Gartmore retreat. It is stunning.

 

charity quilt - take 2!

Many of the EMQG members attended the third annual Stitch Gathering last weekend. We were delighted to see the launch of the EMQG quilt raffle.

You may remember the quilt we made for the QuiltCon charity challenge last year. Here it is before we sent it to Austin to be exhibited.

It was a team effort made over a number of 'sew-ins' and quilted by our master long-armer (and treasurer!) Tatyana Duffie. You can read more about it and the whole MQG challenge in this post.

After QuiltCon all the quilts were donated to local charities. This one went to local charity The Yard. You can read all about this in a post on our EMQG blog here. The MQG will be exhibiting another charity quilt challenge at QuiltCon 2016, we are not taking part this year (having a year off!) but you can read all about this year's challenge here.

Jenny Fox-Proverbs, the editor of Love Patchwork and Quilting, saw our quilt at QuiltCon and fell in love with it. She asked our leader Jo Avery (who also organises the stitchgathering event) if she could create another version as a pattern for the magazine, with this quilt also for charity (the magazine also gave a generous donation to get things started!).

So here is the EMQG charity quilt version 2. You can do a little 'spot the difference' puzzle if you like!

Jo's aim was to rationalise the design without losing that improv style. As before it was quilted by Tatyana in the same stunning design. Tatyana is now taking commissions and you can contact her here.

So again a real team effort - designed by EMQG, pieced by Jo and quilted by Tatyana!

And we are now raffling the quilt for charity!!

First prize is the quilt, second prize is a £50 myBearpaw gift voucher (can be spent in the shop, online or on classes), and third prize is a year's subscription to Love Patchwork and Quilting - thank you so much to them for their help and support!

All proceeds are going to the Edinburgh Clothing Store
"The Edinburgh Clothing Store is a charity run by volunteers, offering clothing, shoes, bedding, etc for people in genuine need. It's a free service and no money changes hands." for people in genuine need.

Raffle tickets are £1 each and you can buy them from Jo's Edinburgh shop or online here. They will email you your numbers so no postage costs. Draw will be Tuesday 9th February 2016.
I really hope you can support us in raising money for such a worthwhile cause, our target is £1000! And you never know you may win this amazing quilt!

Quiltcon Charity quilt

The EMQG completed the Quiltcon Charity Challenge earlier in the year. The idea was to use a set palette of colours, and come up with a modern quilt design, for display at Quiltcon, the annual conference of the Modern Quilt Guild. It was then to be used in some way for a local children’s charity. All our members donated fabric, blocks, time and love making this quilt, and it got some special treatment on Tatyana’s long arm machine.

Lesley suggested The Yard in Edinburgh as the receiving charity, as she has known a few people who have used it.

The Yard is a purpose built indoor and outdoor adventure playground for children and young people with disabilities.

The Yard is an amazing space, catering for all ages and abilities. The children can use the sensory room, kitchen, art room, play space and outdoor adventure playground seven days a week. What is lovely is that it is a place that families can play together with the support of volunteers, and kids of all abilities can come and enjoy play at the same level.

The Yard also supports children right the way through into adult hood, with various youth groups and clubs available to allow them to feel more independent.

You may remember The Yard from the BBC programme DIY SOS, when the place was overhauled in under two weeks with the help of volunteers from all trades across Edinburgh. However, it still costs over £600,000 a year to run The Yard, with a combination of permanent staff and volunteers. They receive a small amount from the council, and require to fundraise the rest.

Edinburgh Modern Quilt Guild have donated their Quiltcon quilt made for the Quiltcon Charity Challenge 2015 to the Yard. Anna, the fundraising manager was delighted to receive it, and the volunteers suggested it would be well received by the children, as it is a great weight for snuggling.

It’s final purpose is yet to be decided – whether by the children, as some art on the wall or as a fundraising piece for them…but it will certainly be put to good use.

QuiltCon Challenge quilt - sneak peek!

Our QuiltCon Challenge quilt has been transformed by our very own Tatyana, it is now probably mid-air on its way to the show. Here is a sneak peek at the wonders Tatyana has worked.

QuiltCon Charity Quilt, the final push

Two nights of hard graft (aided and abetted by chocolate and cake, sewing is hungry work you know) had produced a copious amount of 4.5, 8.5 and 12.5 inch blocks but we still needed one final push to get our vision for the QuiltCon charity quilt realised.

Jane, Helen, Anne and Fiona stepped up to the mark and in what can only be described as a marathon piecing session they pulled together the previous 2 nights of sewing.

Almost running out of the background fabric, a little creative cutting saved the day!

We particularly loved the selfie taken at the end of the session, look at the clock in the background! A huge thanks to these ladies and in particular Jane who took the quilt top home to finish off the last of the piecing.

The top is now with our very own amazing long arm quilter Tatyana. Watch this space to see what wonders she works with our quilt!

QuiltCon Charity Quilt Challenge - getting started

To say we were excited about entering the Quiltcon Charity Quilt challenge is an understatement! The thought of having our quilt displayed alongside others from Modern quilt guilds at the Quiltcon was too good an opportunity to pass up.

The brief is challenging but with enough scope for each guild to have their very own unique interpretation. Looking through the #quiltconcharityquilt feed on instagram shows the huge variety of interpretations.

The colour palette was set, the fabrics purchased and donated, we simply had to get together to sew the blocks, and sew we did! Two dates were set for the guild members to meet and sew in our guild HQ - mybearpawcraft we made 3 different sizes of blocks, 4.5, 8.5 and 12.5 improv squares, showing off the fabulous colour palette chosen for the challenge.

The first nights crew, sewing up a storm.

A fabulous selection of blocks from the first night, this done in only 2 hours of sewing! The grey fabric background is going to be the actual background of the quilt

A second nights sewing produced even more blocks, but still not enough to fulfil the needs of our quilt.