December 1st 2015 Guild Meeting - Kona Challenge

This month's guild meeting was all about celebrating the holidays with good friends.  This included exchanging holiday gifts and Cotton and Steele fat quarters.  

Our Kona Challenge Quilts were due at this month's Guild meeting and we managed to get them all hung at Sew Vac today.  I think all 12 quilts are just spectacular.  Congratulations to everyone who submitted a quilt.

This is a quilt contest, so be sure to go into Sew Vac to see the quilts up close (there is some truly incredible free motion quilting going on here) and then vote for your favorite. 

Each quilt is made of 100% Kona Cotton Solids. 

This shot includes 8 of the 12 quilts submitted.  Due to limited wall space, you are seeing only a portion of the quilt for all but 1 of the above.  

This shot includes 4 of the 12 quilts.  You are only seeing a portion of the 2 middle quilts

A better view of the top portion of Diana's quilt. Just beautiful!

We also had some great Show and Tell at the guild meeting. 

November 3rd 2015 Guild Meeting with Serena Brooks

I think I just found my "new favorite" quilt artist!

Serena Brooks presented a slide show at yesterday's guild meeting which outlined her journey, inspirations and process.  She also brought several of her fabulous quilts to share with us.  It was such a treat to get to see her artistry up close and to hear her speak about her quilts.

Serena's journey as a quilt artist started in 2005 when she made her first quilt for her daughter's 4th Grade class and then her creativity and artistry just took off from there.

Her earlier quilts were typically collage quilts and constructed by fusing fabrics together using Wonder Under.  She often uses fabrics recycled from thrift stores and she also dyes and/or paints her own fabrics.  When painting, she uses Golden GAC 900 mixed with Acrylic paint.  Also, she often uses Photoshop to help her design and construct her quilts.  Her techniques were inspiring and we're looking forward to scheduling a class with her.  Now, as a guild, we just need to agree on which type of class we'd like her to teach first!

Be sure to check out Serena's website, to see examples of her artistry. 

The following are some of the quilts she shared with us:

Serena painted fabric and then incorporated that fabric into this beautiful quilt

Serena is explaining how she makes her kaleidoscope quilts. The next 2 quilts below were made from the fabric in this photo.

Amazing quilt.  It's hard to believe it came from the above fabric.  

By the way, Serena puts wire in the binding of her round quilts to keep them from folding or drooping when held up like this.

These two quilts are named Math Homework 1 and Math Homework 2.  Love them!

This quilt is a meticulous re-creation of a watercolor painting that Serena did. It's amazing that she was able to recreate the looks of her watercolor brushstrokes using fabrics.

How fun and marvelous is this?  I love it.  I want to try this!

Some more of Serena's beautifully painted fabrics that are then cut up and re-pieced together to get this beautiful effect.  

Strip piecing taken to a whole new level!

An interpretation of Serena's Mid Century Modern childhood home.  

This quilt is called Bullseye and is even more amazing in person.  This one is pieced (NOT fused).  The quilting is all straight lines but Serena had a lot of starts and stops for thread color changes when quilting.  

I'm so inspired by her artistry, I even went out and bought some Wonder Under today to try experimenting with fusing a la Serena.  

Now for some Show & Tell from out talented guild members!!! 

  

2016 Quilt Con Charity Quilt Update

The design team met two days ago and we made some good progress.

We laid out the "background fabric" created by Carol, Alicia, Becca, Lorena, Tami, Sharon and Tami.  All of the blocks look great together!  A big "thank you" to the "background team."  We quickly realized that need to make a bit more background fabric, but we think we dug up enough additional fabric (thanks Deb!) to get us to a twin sized quilt. Kim will start sewing the background fabric together and incorporating the additional fabric over the next couple of weeks. 

We're going to proceed with a "landscape shaped" quilt with 3 scrappy hearts on it in the following colors.

Also, we sorted through the fabric donated by our very generous guild members (thanks everyone!!) and are now almost ready to start sewing up the "fabric" for the applique hearts (we just need to shop for a bit more blue and yellow fabrics).  We agreed that we better be in the same room as we sew the hearts so that there is some consistency between them and so we can make design decisions together. 

More to follow in a couple of weeks............

Momen+ Shopping Spree on Saturday October 10th

I think it's safe to say that we all had a great time shopping at Momen's 6th Annual Sale followed by lunch at the Red Car Brewery.  We're already trying to decide where our next shopping trip should be...... 

October 6th 2015 Guild Meeting with Latifah Saafir

We were honored and pleased to have Latifah Saafir (co-founder of the Modern Quilt Guild) come to our guild meeting to show us her spectacular quilts and to help guide us in the creative process. 

Latifah shared her story with us and it sounds like she has a great family and a wonderfully unique educational background.  Her major in college was Engineering and she was formerly known as "The Quilt Engineer".  She attributes the creative side of her personality to her dad and her "just do it" attitude to her mom.  All I can say is "good job" and "thank you" to her mom and dad!

Latifah encouraged us to:

• Look for inspiration everywhere
• Museums
• Architecture
• Tile patterns
• Fashion (which is usually a couple of years ahead of things)
• Fabrics 
• Nature
• Just driving down the road
• Observe your surroundings.....

• Keep an inspiration journal (capture sketches, photos, patterns, colors, textures)
• From time to time, disconnect from other people's ideas (Instagram, web, etc.) and just focus on your own ideas
• Don't let perfection stop you or slow you down.  
• Let accidents happen.  Imperfection can lead to beautiful accidents.
• Take classes and then explore and play with the new techniques you've learned.
• Try something new, let go, don't overthink it
• Just do it!

Now for some pictures.......

This is one of Latifah's earlier quilts.  She pointed out that this quilt helped her realize that even the width of your binding needs to be a design decision.  A quarter inch black binding just wouldn't have suited this quilt.

Another of her earlier quilts is based off of the traditional clam shell pattern.  However, Latifah's version is called Glam Clam and is 100% pieced versus appliqued.  

Also, she will have a new ruler coming out later this year for making this quilt (and other curved shapes) and I know I plan to buy it and try it out.  If you can't wait for her ruler, go to her website for Tips on Cutting your Glam Clam Quilt and a video for Pinless Piecing of your Glam Clam Quilt.

This Medallion Quilt was a definite "crowd favorite" at our guild meeting. You can find this quilt in Janice Zeller Ryan's and Beth Vassalo's Modern Medallion Workbook.  It is constructed in wedges and is a mix of paper piecing and appliqued bias tape.  I love the colors.  So fun!

A couple more wonderful bias tape quilts.  The 1st one features some novelty fabric which Latifah really enjoys using.  The second one combines both the Six Minute Circle technique on the right side and bias tape on the left side.  

Latifah encouraged us to learn various techniques and then play with and experiment with them as she did is these two quilts.

On the above quilt, notice Latifah's signature free form grid quilting pattern.  While the lines are free form, she controls the quilting process and keeps her lines from drifting too much by spacing out major and minor quilt lines throughout the quilt, then coming back and quilting between these guidelines in a free form manner.

The following are two versions of her Molehills quilt pattern which is available on Craftsy. The second one was inspired by a tile pattern she saw in Vegas.  

The following is another Glam Clam quilt.  This time Latifah explained that the fabric choices in this quilt were somewhat accidental.  Many of the fabrics in this quilt just happened to be sitting next to each other in her sewing area and she realized it was a great combination and she just "went with it".  

Here's a sampler quilt designed by Latifah.  Notice that it has some unifying factors i.e. each block has a splash of pink and one fabric that is repeated in every block.  

Latifah encouraged us to check out Sherry Lynn Wood's book The Improv Handbook for Modern Quilters.  Here's a bias strip quilt that Latifah did for the book.  It's absolutely amazing.  I fell in love with the greens (Kona Cotton Solids) when I saw this quilt at a demo that Sherry Lynn Wood did at Sew Modern a few month ago.  

  
It was a wonderful night and we can't thank Latifah enough for sharing her love of modern quilts and her exceptional talents with us.  To find out more about Latifah, visit her Latifah Saafir Studios website.

To finish up the evening, the following are some Show and Tell photos:

And last but not least, thanks to Alicia, Carol, Tami, Sharon, Tami, Becca and Lorena for helping out with our 2016 Charity Quilt.  They each completed their improvisationally pieced fabric panels which will become the background of our quilt.  I think we're off to a great start with the quilt!

2016 Quilt Con Charity Quilt - Kick Off

We kicked off the 2016 Charity Quilt at our guild meeting on September 1st. Thanks to the following members for volunteering to help create the background of our Improv quilt:

• Becca Knight
• Lorena Soto-Puckett
• Carol Opstad
• Tami Wolfe
• Tami Kendra Romito
• Sharon Drobka
• Alicia Czuzak
• Kim King

For more details regarding the quilt, see the Activities tab of the Long Beach Modern Quilt Guild website.

Also, check out Becca's Instagram page (Modquiltgal).  It looks like she has been having a lot of fun with her bundle of fabric.  She converted her Fabric Kit from "just a bag of fabric" to some really neat improvisational log cabin blocks.  
 .              

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else creates! 

Coffee Break at Grounds

We had such a good time sewing together today at Grounds, that we're going to schedule another one!

September 1, 2015 Guild Meeting

A big "thank you" to our 2015-2016 Artist in Residence, Natalie Barnes of Beyond the Reef Patterns for inviting us to participate in her Mystery Medallion with a Modern Twist quilt project.  We are looking forward to sharing our wonderful creations with her over the next few months as she shares the mystery blocks with us.

Natalie is holding a pillow which will be the center block of the Mystery quilt.
Lorena is holding a Cotton & Steele mini bundle that Natalie gave to each of us.

Also, several more "thank yous" are needed.  This time to our fabulous guild members who shared their expertise and enthusiasm with us.....   

Tami Wolfe gave us an overview of Zentangle and we all gave it a try.

Zentangle!

Zina Clark and Diana Field shared several of their quilts with us and they gave us an overview of how they approached the quilting process.  The quilts were gorgeous and it was so interesting and inspiring to hear them describe how they approached each quilt. 

Zina was going for a waterfall effect with her quilt
 that she entered into the Riley Blake Quilt Challenge

Two of Diana's beautiful quilts.  Exquisitely quilted.

Thank you so much Tami, Zina and Diana!