Guild Sew-in

I don't think I mentioned it, but I recently joined a quilt guild...a MODERN quilt guild. Now I know you're thinking, "Ummmm - Jill - your quilts don't exactly fit the modern label." But since I want to try some modern looks, I figure the best way to learn is to join a guild that focuses on modern quilts.

So the guild had a sew-in yesterday. I decided to just bring work I could do by hand. I didn't know what the set-up would be for sewing machines and I don't have any super-long extension cords. Plus, I didn't want to lug my heavy, old, heavy, mechanical, heavy machine there. (Did I mention that my sewing machine is old and heavy due to all the metal inside? No computers in that baby. Maybe one of these years, like after my 11-year-old is graduated from college, I'll get a new machine. LOL)

I had a great time. Of course, I probably did more chatting than sewing, but that's okay. Isn't that one of the points of this type of thing?

The first thing I worked on was my name tag to wear at the guild. I had done some prep work at home: used my light box to trace my name onto solid white fabric, then sewed the four logs of the asymmetrical log cabin onto the center. At the sew-in, I used red embroidery floss to stitch my name. Then I hand sewed the front to the back, with a layer of batting inside to give it some substance. Finally, I stitched a safety pin onto the back.

After I finished the name tag, I started working on my 3rd McKenna Ryan 12" mini quilt from her Out and About series. This one is called Room with a View. After our trip to Yellowstone and Grand Tetons this past summer, I bought two other kits from this series. I realized that the space I want to hang them in is big enough for a third mini-quilt, so I went back to the shop and got this one. The bonus is that each kit was 30% off! I don't think most people would consider this a "modern" quilt, it's more of an art quilt, but it was something I could work on without my machine. I figured if the quilt police kick me out of the guild for not working on something modern enough, then it's probably not a guild I really want to be a member of! As it turned out, there were several people working on projects that might not necessarily fit in the "modern quilt" label.

I traced most of the pieces onto Lite Steam-A-Seam 2, and that's as far as I got. I think this little quilt has a lot more little pieces than the other two did (or maybe my memory is going bad!).

Lots of other quilters are linked up to Judy's to show what they've been working on. Have fun looking at all the eye candy.

Happy stitching!