March 2018 Meeting

By MQG Victoria | March 19, 2018 |
If you missed the March meeting, you missed out on a lot of laughs! – We had a collaborative, fun time. But more on that later. First up, Show and Share:

Dawna told us about her experience in the MQG mini swap as a “Swap Fairy,” and then showed us the great mini she received from the eastern US.

Dawna also made this for her much-loved letter carrier, who is changing routes.

Natalie’s denim and yellow quilt made as part of the Mollie Sparkles Honey Pot Bee.

Susan designed her own animal patterns for this baby quilt.

Fay participated in her first swap, and received this mini with a bird on it.

Barb joined a Transparency quilt along, and here’s her result. She also showed us the 3m Command Strips she uses to hang quilts – the Velcro kind are meant for hanging picture frames, and she has hung up to king sized quilts with them.

Kelly joined a quilt along last year and made this star quilt – the large stars are regular pieced and the small ones are paper pieced. The quilt has over 600,000 stitches of quilting, and it was accepted into the Quilt Canada show. Yay, Kelly!
Stacie also participated in the MGQ Mini Swap – she told her partner she likes Alison Glass fabrics, and received this great mini.
Here are the block lotto blocks, won by Esther:

Notions – Picks and Pans

Many members brought their favourite – and least favourite – notions, and told the group why they feel that way about them. It was interesting that many of the notions or tools mentioned generated both love and hate, as well as some hilarious comments! (a demonstration of the problems with the Bernina knee bar was particularly entertaining) Some were brought up more than once, and many of us were introduced to new items we hadn’t seen before.
Here are some of the tools mentioned…
  • Telescoping magnet for picking up pins
  • Fray check
  • Protective gloves
  • Wonder clips
  • Bendy ruler for drawing curves
  • “Perfecto Needle Threader” (described as the most complicated threader you can imagine)
  • Rotating cutting board
  • “Short Cut” ruler for cutting strips or squares
  • “Block Lock” ruler for cutting half square triangles
  • Bent nose tweezers
  • Wool felt pressing mat – ½ “ thick of dense felt, helps retain heat from iron and gets things really flat. Steam will make it smell like a wet dog, however
  • Fiskar snips
  • Cutting Corners ruler
  • The “Purple Thang”, for various pushing/poking/pulling uses
  • “Add a Quarter” ruler for paper piecing
And a few unexpected favourites:
  • Thumbnail – for pressing seams
  • Chopsticks – skewer a spool of thread and its matching bobbin on a chopstick, and keep a bouquet of them in a jar
  • Altoid tins – for organizing small items
  • Hair elastics to keep spools of thread from tangling
  • Spaghetti portion measurer for drawing circles
  • Sticks from hair doohickeys (for putting up long hair) – for turning corners or opening seams.
  • Phone – because friends, pretty quilts, photos and inspiration all live in the phone!

Do you have strong feelings about any of these notions, or a favourite of your own to share? Let us know in the comments!

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1 Comments

  1. Unknown on March 19, 2018 at 2:57 pm

    Love the recap of the meeting! It's nice to see the pictures of the quilts as a reminder of how awesome and creative our members are