The April 2024 meeting was a success – we had members, both old and new, and some guests in attendance!
It was fun to learn what everyone does when they are not quilting. :) As always, there was plenty of inspiring show and tell from our members.
Thanks to members who shared how their thoughts, plans and approaches towards their Heidi Parkes workshop projects, everyone left the meeting excited and optimistic! If you would like to sign up for the workshop, please reach out to Maria (cvamqg.programs@gmail.com)
Registration for these three June workshops is now open to the public as well as to our guild membership. Choose, one, two, or all three! Click HERE for the online registration.
Mark your calendars! The CVAMQG November meeting is on Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at Quilting Adventures, 6943 Lakeside Ave, Henrico, VA 23228.
In addition to the business meeting, show and tell, and the charity quilt update, we’ll have three great demonstrations for you:
Quilt Facings: No bindings for her, Donna Blalock @donnab317 only faces her stunning quilts. There is no one better to teach this, we’re sure. Donna will demonstrate how to face your quilts, and she even made us a terrific handout to share.
Butterfly Seams: Maria @radmar22 will demonstrate this very cool way to reduce bulk and flatten seams when four seams meet. And it looks so impressive from the back, you may want to finish your quilts wrong-side-out from now on!
Microstitch Basting: Natalie @nataliebmay demonstrated this once before, but since there are so many new members, she’ll do a quick replay. She has found this to be the fastest and least-painful-on-the-back method of basting your quilt sandwich together. And because you’re all going to want one, she will share where to purchase.
Member of CVAMQG since: The beginning, I found the group that would become CVAMQG just after I had moved back to Richmond in 2015 as the group was talking about becoming a guild. I joined a meeting at Quilting Adventures and have stuck around ever since. I reconnected with someone from college in the guild that night as well! Hi Ana
How long have you been quilting? I learned how to quilt when I was around 12, about 29 or 30ish years ago. I helped my dad hand piece and quilt a baby quilt for one of my cousins. I spent quite a bit of time sewing as a kid. I was a volunteer junior interpreter in Colonial Williamsburg ( costume, speeches, shoes with buckles and all) part of that program was lead by some wonderful women who had a sewing program. We would gather and sew together in traditional 18th century style while people toured the house I volunteered in. I learned how to sew a marking stitch sampler, design and stitch a pocket using crewel embroidery and made a bargello embroidered pin cushion. Then I went to VCUarts and graduated with a BFA in Craft and Material Studies with an emphasis on Fibers and spent the majority of my college career in the fibers studio quilting, printing, felting, weaving( not my favorite) and dying all day everyday.
What is your favorite quilting tool?
My hands, they are the best tool for any job, they can fix things that break, manipulate anything into shape and I never forget them. After that it would probably be a leather coin thimble and milliners needles.
What are your favorite fabric lines and substrates?Do you prefer prints or solids? I genuinely don’t have a favorite of any kind, I will use just about anything and don’t prefer one thing over another. Except Brown fabrics, and neutrals. I just don’t gravitate towards them.
Favorite and least favorite parts of the quilting process:
Depending on the day you will get a different answer, tomorrow it might be totally different than today. So sometimes the answer is….
Favorite part: all of it
Least favorite part: all of it
Why do you quilt?
Because I love it and I think if you love something you should do it. There is something magical about being able to express your thoughts, ideas and feelings in a way that is accessible to everyone.
Creating is an incredible healing practice for me, for both my mental and physical health. The act of creating things has helped me through a concussion, severe anxiety, a lung infection, more foot injuries than I’d like to count and a significant trauma. My creative process is an outlet, a medicine and as necessary as air for me. Continuing that practice has made a significant difference in every part of my life. Without a creative practice I am not myself.
Where do you find inspiration? Absolutely everywhere. If you look at something for long enough you can find beauty, intrigue and a story, you just have to be willing to wait to see it.
Quilters who inspire you:
Well this could be an incredibly long list. Right now in this moment……
Heidi Parkes, Rebeka Lambert, Tessa Layzelle, Russell James Barratt, Jo Avery, Lindlee Smith and Rachel Troutman
What is your favorite guilty pleasure while quilting?
Being alone, listening to an audio book and having quiet because all my energy is going into getting by the ideas and thoughts out and into fabric. I am ultimately an introvert. I love to be around people but know my limits and time alone creating recharges my social battery. It also makes everything go quiet so I can actually hear and listen to the book I’m listening to!
Tell us something about yourself that might surprise us:
When I hiccup it sometimes sounds like a pterodactyl.
Mark your calendars! CVAMQG is pleased to host an in-person workshop with Cindy Grisdela @cindygrisdelaquilts this August!
Learn to cut large scale curves freehand without templates or patterns. Add dots, skinny lines, wonky triangles and more to give each curve its own personality, then combine them into a fun original design. We’ll talk about color and design to create the composition as well as the techniques needed. Best for students with some experience with curves–not for beginners.
Member of CVAMQG since: 2015; since the guild began.
How long have you been quilting? I began quilting around 2009.
What is your favorite quilting tool? My hands; without them it would be complicated.
What are your favorite fabric lines and substrates?Do you prefer prints or solids? I love fabric in general, it is probably one of the main reasons that I began quilting. Textiles have always drawn me in. I love prints and solids, I love to use fabrics other than cotton, sometimes linen or silk.
What is your favorite color combination? Blue, a tiny bit of yarrow, white, a hint of metallic and orange. Or black and white.
Favorite and least favorite parts of the quilting process: I don’t really have a least favorite part of the process, I like to do different things at different times. Often when I get restless with something I am working on, I change to something else and that gets me excited about the process again. Starting a quilt is the hardest part of the process for me, I don’t hate it though; it just challenges my brain in a different way.
Why do you quilt? I quilt because it is a way to work out feelings, thoughts and ideas. Quilting is one of the many forms of textiles that I have worked with that fulfills my OCD tendencies in a productive manner.
Where do you find inspiration? Nature, life, experience, travel, books.
Quilters who inspire you: Carolyn Friedlander, Heidi Parkes, Denyse Schmidt, Bisa Butler. I am also inspired by every single “anonymous” quilter that came before me. We owe a lot to them.
What is your favorite guilty pleasure while quilting? Listening to books or podcasts.
Tell us something about yourself that might surprise us:
I have a BFA in craft and material studies with an emphasis in textiles, and the whole time I was in college I said I would never make a “utilitarian” object. Some 20 years later here we are, and I love beautiful, thoughtful and utilitarian objects. Making them and using them.
Most of my quilts still are not bed sized but they are often throw sized, making them utilitarian. Irony.
Central Virginia Modern Quilt Guild 