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Our 2017-2018 guild season kicked off with lots of information about this year's exciting and creative challenges, a new decorative stitch exchange, and the opportunities to contribute important charity projects. We enjoyed a fascinating and inspiring presentation by Krista Zaleski, a local creative pattern designer, and long arm quilter. Krista took us along her quilting journey from her first quilt to her latest modern designs.
   Linked Squares  Bulging Checkerboard     Krista's quilts often feature curves and circles - all pieced.    Krista is an active member of the Ottawa Modern Quilt Guild.      Building Blocks Krista frequently mentioned the inspiration she took from Judy Laquidara's Patchwork Times blog. You can keep up with Krista's projects, read more about the quilts pictured here, and purchase her patterns on her blog. More of Krista's quilts are pictured in this gallery. Click or tap a photo to view it in full. Our final meeting of the quilt guild 2016-2017 season featured a delicious pot luck dinner and a great opportunity to visit with fellow guild members before our summer break. Show and Tell, as always, featured several lovely quilts made by our talented guild members. And we easily surpassed our goal of 25 Canada 150 themed preemie quilts for the tiny babies born in 2017 and cared for at the Rich Little Special Care Nursery at the Civic Campus of the Ottawa Hospital. A selection of these adorable little quilts were shown at the meeting and are pictured below. Thanks to everyone who made one or more of these lovely quilts!  The meeting and dinner was enjoyed by 55 guild members and one guest. Many members registered early for next year and 2 very lucky members were rewarded when their names were drawn to win free memberships. Due to the success of the quilt show fundraising, an extra free membership was offered this time. Congratulations to Barb Devries and Marilyn Erskine! Happy summer everyone and we look forward to seeing you in September! Laura Piggott on Modern Quilting
  Laura's fast moving and inspirational presentation was peppered with many tips that included:
Quilters mentioned by Laura who have inspired her and who are prominent in the modern quilting community included:
 Laura is an Ontario Certified Teacher and quilt workshop leader. Her workshops focus on originality, creativity, colour theory and improv piecing. You can find Laura on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/wafflekisses/ or #wafflekisses, and her older web site Laura's quilts are pictured below and included innovative modern Advent calendars, and her sailboat quilt which was headed off to Quilt Canada. Tim Hortons T-shirt QuiltOur guild was enlisted to make a quilt to assist the Arnprior Tim Hortons outlets in raising funds for their Send a Kid to Camp programme. They provided a number of Tim Hortons themed t-shirts which Marilyn Erskine and Brigid Whitnall made into this 60" x 70" quilt which they shared with us at show-and-tell.  Moving ForwardAll of the executive and key volunteer positions were filled for next year. They assume their responsibilities on July 1. Special thanks to Past President Anne Cruikshank for her work in recruiting people for these very important jobs.
A highlight of our meeting was the display of this year's challenge projects and voting for our favourites. See the April Meeting Highlights - Challenges blog post for all the fun, including the winning projects. Congratulations to guild member Rennie Hickey whose "Refuge" quilt has been accepted to the Canadian Quilters' Association Quilt Canada 2017 national juried quilt show in Toronto in June. If you're going to the show, be sure to see it. Congratulations Rennie! Our guest presenter was Ann Coulas, a textile and fiber artist who often combines quilting and spirituality in her projects.
Ann showcased her traditional quilts in the first part of her trunk show.       More of Ann's quilts are pictured in this gallery. Click on a photo to see the full photo. Ann then showed us her art work. Incorporating a number of creative materials including pop can metal treated with a heat gun, beading, mesh, sparkles, thread, and "Angelina" copper coloured special effect fibre, and a variety of techniques such as thread painting and painted fabric, her art truly showcased her unique talents. Her banners, which she teaches in weekend workshops, are often on a particular theme such as elements of water, earth, wind, and fire, seasons (winter, spring, summer, fall).   Another theme is seasons - winter, spring, summer and fall.       Ann also specializes in spiritual themed liturgical banners which often represent the seasons and festivals of the Christian church year including Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.  
See more of Ann's work on her Facebook page and her guest artist page at the Purvis Gallery.
Refer to the April Meeting Highlights blog post for information about the news from the April meeting. The April 2017 meeting began with a flurry of activity as members dropped off their challenge projects. Challenges, issued in September 2016, are optional projects with a particular theme where guild members showcase their individual creativity and imagination. This year there were 3 challenges: President's, Crayon, and Baby Quilt. The April deadline for the challenges was chosen so these projects could be displayed in our quilt show, the weekend following this meeting. Quilts in the challenges were displayed and identified by unique numbers so members could submit as their choices in a secret ballot. As shown in these photos, the quilts excelled in their creativity, imagination, and excellence of techniques. President's Challenge Participants were challenged by guild president Brigid Whitnall to make a red and white themed quilted item in honour of Canada's 150th birthday.      Crayon Challenge Participants blindly chose a crayon from a paper bag and were challenged to make a project of that colour, and different shades of that colour. Black and white could be included for contrast.      Baby Quilt Challenge Participants were each given a 10 inch square piece of this “ABC kid’s” fabric and were challenged to use all, or any portion of it, in a baby quilt of any size.     And the Challenge Winners are... Prizes were awarded for 1st and 2nd place based on voting in a secret ballot by guild members.. There were ties for 2nd place in 2 of the challenges! President's Challenge  Mary deVries was awarded first prize for her "Folded Pinwheels" table runner  Debbie Cauvier tied for 2nd place with her "Homecoming" table runner  Deborah Clark tied for 2nd place with her quilt  Jacquie Lavictoire tied for 2nd place with her quilt Crayon Challenge  Mary deVries with her 1st prize turquoise "Meander" bed runner  Vickie MacNabb's 2nd place (tie) "Silver Dragon & Dream Catcher" wall hanging  Emma Russell's 2nd place (tie) "Purple Squared" lap quilt Baby Quilt Challenge  Emma Russell with her 1st place "Now I Know My ABC's" baby quilt  Jacquie Lavictoire with her 2nd place "Grow-N-Up" wall hanging Our annual "garage sale" was a great way to start off this meeting with many interesting items to choose from to fill those inevitable gaps in our own stashes! Many members wore happy smiles as they loaded up on new goodies. Lana Dean gave us an update on the charming log cabin quilt with the creative farm scene on the back which she showed us at our February meeting. She made the quilt along with a number of other quilters for auction at the Ottawa Valley Farm Show in mid March. It was sold for a whopping $7,600 which was all donated to CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario.)
Barb shared many tips with us including:
 Grow Chart quilt
 Barb's son is fascinated by wolves as evidenced by these 2 quilts in her collection.   Barb finished off her captivating show with her personal Canada 150 quilt project in which she included the crests of the 3 provinces in which she's lived: Ontario, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia.  Barb owns the Quilters Inn quilt shop in Cameron ON where she also teaches classes and does long arm quilting for others. See Barb's Facebook page for more information. www.facebook.com/QuiltrsInn Enjoy these many more photos of Barb's quilts and other items that she shared with us. What a fun night this was! We all pitched in to construct quilt tops for the Canadian Quilters' Association (CQA) Big Quilt Bee. Our guild is joining guilds from across Canada to make quilts for Ronald McDonald House Charities, in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday. Our guild members have been busy constructing these 12 1/2 inch blocks which incorporate at least one piece of a special Canada fabric. Approximately 135 blocks were constructed at our very successful "slab block" workshop in early February, and many more were brought in by guild members. After an exciting evening of sorting the blocks, designing the layouts, pinning blocks, the whirring of several sewing machines, and activity at various ironing stations, our guild members assembled the blocks into 13 quilt tops! Way to go quilters! Refer to the CQA web site for more information, including instructions for the blocks using the “slab block pattern” compliments of Cheryl Arkison, and sample blocks. See the teams at work, and the final results in these photos.             Our Canada 150 Quilt Our guild's Canada 150 quilt has been completed! Designed by Brigid Whitnall, it features ideas submitted by our members - trilliums (Ontario's flower) in the centre, red and white log cabins and a connected diverse community of women. The blocks were made by guild members and it was beautifully quilted by Mary Stanton. This quilt will be featured at our quilt show on April 29-30, as part of an Eastern Ontario Interguild Canada 150 travelling quilt show. The collection of approximately 16 quilts will visit about a dozen area quilt shows, and at fall trunk shows. Tips and TricksTo kick off the new year our January meeting focused on tips and tricks for improving our quilting. We rotated through 5 demo stations manned by our own creative and talented guild members and came away with tremendous new ideas. Mary deVries showed us how to reduce bulk in our seam allowances, and how to use scraps while at the same time eliminating thread ends, saving time and thread.
Joann Vlaming showed us a great method for accurately sizing half square triangle blocks, including a tip to trim them before pressing them. And there's a ruler that can help with this.  Pat Campbell demonstrated a clever method for making continuous prairie points, and tips on attaching bindings. 
Chris Gordon showed us how to attach a 2 colour binding with a narrow flap of "faux piping". Chris provided these notes on this technique. This is a binding made with 2 colours – the faux piping colour is the wider width. One strip is 1 5/8 “ wide, the second is 1 3/8 “ wide. If the length is long make a full length of each colour before you combine the 2 colours. Stagger the joints.
A website with a tutorial is www.littlemissshabby.com/2013/11/scrappy-faux-piped-binding-tutorial. Her binding is 1/8 “ wider in each colour, but the technique is the same.
Fidget QuiltsFidget quilts are small lap quilts that provides sensory and tactile stimulation for the restless or "fidgety" hands of someone with Alzheimer's or related dementias. They provide sensory or tactile stimulation through the use of fabric colors, textures, and the use of accents or simple accessories such as pockets, laces, trims, appliques, buttons, secured beads, ribbons, braids etc. Sue Shute invited us to help make "fidget quilts" for local residents afflicted with Alzheimers disease. She's hosting drop in hands on quilting sessions on the last Tuesday of every month from 10 AM to 2 PM at Quilting Quarters in Almonte. Quilts will be distributed in the Arnprior and Almonte areas. 
Christmas Stockings
CQA Big Quilt Bee Pieces of the Canada 150 fabrics were distributed for making the slab blocks for the Canadian Quilters' Associations Big Quilt Bee quilts for Ronald McDonald Houses across Canada. This project is in celebration of Canada's 150th birthday in 2017. Refer to the CQA web site for more information, including photos of sample blocks and instructions for the blocks using a “slab block pattern” compliments of Cheryl Arkison. Nancy Jossinet Trunk Show
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