(January 2015)  This month, Portland quilt maker and artist Sam Hunter brought a trunk show and words of wisdom to inspire our guild members.  I bought one of her patterns and enjoyed the variety of her quilts (colors, types of quilting, “crap backs”)

(Fall 2014) This month, Karla Alexander visited the Westside Quilt Guild.  Her studio is in Salem, so I’ve seen her work over the years.  She is known to be a good teacher, so I’m really excited to sign up for her class in September.  At the meeting, she showed many quilts from her new book Stack, Shuffle, and Slide as well as some other quilts from previous patterns/books.  I choose two that I like most to buy a pattern for the upcoming class (and borrow the rulers needed).  I hope to choose some charity fabrics and donate the quilt when it’s completed.

I really liked a few other of her quilts, and appreciated hearing how she decided colors/rulers to use plus pointing out the shape of the “block”.

She included a bunch of wise quilting advice in her presentation:

“I am the boss of my quilts.” meaning that you get to decide the colors, shapes, techniques to include. If you don’t like something, it’s okay to change from the pattern to make it yours.

WRAP “wonder, reflect, appreciate what you’ve done, pause/plan/ponder your next project”

Modern quilts include techniques like “upsetting the grid” meaning that things could be set on their side or at angles that are unexpected.  Floating blocks and using the background as a design element also create a more modern look.

Also at this guild meeting during show and tell, I showed my ladybug quilt!  There was also a presentation to the previous board president of a collaborative quilt (my block is one of the yellow ones).  Also, I made two of the star blocks for the free BOM this time in hopes of winning the stack (someone else won this time though).

I also visited the Portland Modern Quilt Guild. A woman I met at a garage sale encouraged me to attend and a friend who quilts came with me.  Turned out there are quite a few women from the Westside guild who go there too, so many of the show and tell quilts were familiar.  Here’s a few others that I liked (sorry for poor photo quality):

I was impressed by the projects by this group, but the organization of the meeting wasn’t comfortable for me.  I didn’t feel welcomed as a guest and the updates about things focused on website updates and/or key things that only members would know.  There were some quilts donated to an organization but no description given so I had to google them to figure it out (Camp Erin serves kids/teens who are grieving).  I was surprised that some of the donated quilts were dreary colors and/or patterns that didn’t look like teenagers to me.  Again, maybe working in middle school I’m more tapped into their style.  Overall, I think I’ll look online at the PMQG blog for pictures of projects but not make the long drive over to their meetings.