 Welcome to the Arnprior & District Quilters' Guild 2017-2018 season.
Fall seems to have arrived quickly and I hope you find great inspiration for your quilts in the changing colours of our landscape. I am grateful for the opportunity you have given me to participate in the guild executive. I believe these next couple of years are going to be exciting. The executive met earlier this month and I can tell you each of them were implementing great ideas and I know you will be pleased. I will leave it to them to present their plans. One of my personal goals and interest is to increase our membership. There are many quilters of all level in our community and I would like to have them join our guild and share their experience and works with us. The people in our guild are truly friendly and inclusive so I know they would love to be part of our community. I would also like to see more youths get involved in our guild. I will develop a strategy and a plan to see how this can be done. I hope to have something to share with you by December. If you have any ideas on how we could improve the way the guild operates, events we should consider hosting or how we might increase our membership, the executive team is available and you can contact me any time to chat and share your ideas. As this year’s president, I am issuing a challenge to the members of our guild to design a project using a page from a non quilting related magazine or book as the inspiration. The challenge is to make a quilted project that relates to something on that page - it could be color related, based on a word or phrase on the page, based on a picture on the page, etc. When you submit your challenge project, I would like you to include the page from the magazine and a short write-up of how it related. I look forward to seeing all of you on September 27th at our first meeting of this season. Please don’t forget your beverage mug and your beautiful items for show and tell. The executive will provide the snacks. Donna Sheaves President Congratulations to our guild member Rennie Hickey for her prize winning quilt "Refuge" at Quilt Canada, the Canadian Quilters' Association (CQA) national juried show in Toronto, June 14-17. "My garden is my refuge for 3 months of the year and I often feel inspired by it for my creative endeavors! I wanted to capture how sunlight brings my garden to life and so this quilt came to be. I used raw edge applique, thread painting, and Inktense pencils in the making of this quilt." -- Rennie Hickey  Photo by Brenda Payer  Refuge by Rennie Hickey  Photo by Sarah Rodger Rennie's "Album" quilt was entered in the TrendTex Challenge where the theme was "Stitching A Canadian Memory" .  Album by Rennie Hickey Best of Show was won by Colette Dumont of Saint-Romain, QCwith her beautiful "Fleur de Glace".  Fleur de Glace by Colette Dumont   And more photos provided by Brigid. Click on an image to view the entire photo. 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!  This newsletter blurb is coming to you live from Quilt Canada. I have seen a few people from our guild as well as folks from the Ottawa area. This is my second day here and there is so much to talk about and be inspired by.
I would like to highlight the Youth Challenge. I was blown away by the quilts. A group from Belleville worked with 10 youth aged 5 and up and created some fantastic pieces. They worked on PD days and went through machine safety, cutting and then piecing and appliqué. I have long wanted to get a group like this underway and feel inspired to do so in our area. Then there's the Trend Tex challenge where I saw work by one of our members. The Ottawa Modern Guild has a special exhibit as do Quilts of Valour, Fibre Art Network, and Cantik Batiks. Of course, what would a quilt show be without shopping! I may have done a bit of that! Getting to guild business, I want to thank everyone who came forward for next year. I look forward to sitting in the audience for a while... I will try to keep up with my UFO's and have things for show and tell. Enjoy the summer & happy quilting, Brigid Whitnall President 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.
Our guild was recently 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, and guild member Marilyn Erskine got to work in piecing them into a quilt top. Brigid Whitnall, guild president, then quilted it and adding binding to produce a stunning and fun 60" x 70" quilt! The quilt was presented to Tim Hortons employees Anne Marie St. Michael and Lori McGrath by Marilyn and Brigid on May 25th, It was offered in a silent auction where it sold for an amazing $500 with all proceeds going towards sending kids to camp. Wednesday May 31, 2017 is Tim Hortons Camp Day when 100% of the proceeds from coffee sales will "brighten a kid's future".  From left: Anne Marie St. Michael, Marilyn Erskine, Brigid Whitnall, Lori McGrath  May guild meeting show-and-tell  Brigid's 3D Building Blocks wallhanging Congratulations again to everyone on a very successful quilt show. Now that the mad rush to finish last minute entries is over, we can start new projects or focus on longer term UFO's.
I have somehow acquired a few unexpected projects for family. Can't wait to get started, these are for our nephews and the fabric is loads of fun. I just emptied my one project bin, had to get it filled up again! As usual, May is our elections month. For those new to the guild, we call it elections as we optimistically hope to have numerous volunteers lining up. It is really first come, first to choose a position until they are all gone! There are still a few spots left. Once the executive positions are filled up in May, we will have membership renewals for next year at the June meeting. We typically have a draw for one free membership for anyone who pays at the June meeting, we have decided to be extra generous this year and have two draws. Don't forget that the June meeting, our end of year pot luck, is on June 21st, the week after Quilt Canada. I am sure we'll have lots of stories to tell. I had been hesitating about going and just registered for a couple of classes. It should be lots of fun. Ah spring and its conflicting demands - gardening, quilting, outdoor maintenance, taking down snowmen decorations which may have been forgotten!! Yes, I may have a few of those that hide in plain sight!! I will get to them eventually. Happy Quilting everyone! Brigid Whitnall President On Saturday, May 6th, we drove to our class through the heavy downpour of rain. It was a perfect day to be inside doing a workshop. Our teacher, Katrina Kahn, was very energetic and knowledgeable about free motion quilting. We heard words like: shoulders down, breathe, practise, practise, practise repeated many times as we made our wavy lines, our e's and l's, pebbles (2 different ways), 1, 2, 3 teardrops, figure 8s, and ribbon candy. We were able to see how free motion quilting left the quilts and tablerunners soft and flexible. The workshop had us eager to try out samples and to come home to practise. Katrina's samples are pictured below. -- Gwen Pennings    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 |
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