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Attendees at Sherida Giddings' October 26th workshop came away enthused after spending the day working on the Desert Sky paper pieced blocks that highlight curved piecing. Gwen's block that she completed at the workshop is pictured here.
Our meeting began with special guest Trish McEachern, a registered nurse in the Rich Little Special Care Nursery at the Ottawa Hospital, presenting our guild with a plaque recognizing our support of their unit. For several years our guild has been making and donating little 24 inch square "preemie quilts" to the unit. Each baby who is cared for in the nursery receives a quilt and last year we donated over 150 of these little quilts to the nursery. Trish explained how meaningful these little quilts are to the families of the babies, and she thanked us for our time, energy and talent in making these quilts. She also showed us several photos of the little babies with their little quilts. For more information about our preemie quilt initiatives, see the Charity page.
Canada's Big Quilt Bee
Sherida Giddings Trunk Show Our guest speaker was Sherida Giddings, a certified teacher of Judy Niemeyer, and an expert in paper and curved piecing. She shared highlights of her quilting journey with us and she described the extensive and demanding 2 year certification process with Judy. Prior to the meeting, Sherida conducted a workshop in Arnprior on the Desert Sky paper pieced pattern. At the meeting's Show and Tell, Gwen Pennings showed the block she pieced at the workshop, pictured here.. Here are some of the quilts Sherida included in her trunk show. Click on a photo to enlarge it. More photos of Sherida's quilts can be found on Sherida's Web site and on her Quiltworx Bio page.  During the summer we received an email message about a little 3 year boy who had received a preemie quilt as a newborn from the Rich Little Special Care nursery at the Ottawa Hospital. The boy is still very attached to his little quilt, so much that he had chewed off all 4 of the corners! The label on the little quilt led the boy's foster mother (and about to adoptive mother), to our guild. Would it be possible, the lady asked, for her to buy a replacement quilt for him? And could it be as similar to the chewed up quilt as possible? We were very touched by this story and resolved to give him a replacement. First quest was to see if we could obtain more of the original fabric. Our guild president, Brigid, identified the quilt as one that her mother had made. So off her mom went to the shop in Cornwall where she had purchased the fabric. Sadly, but not surprisingly, that fabric was not available. Nor could it be found on a web site for purchase. We did find a similar blue background print in an Ottawa shop. Chris, our guild vice president, who is also responsible for our charity projects, had some orange flannel in her stash for the backing, and she quickly produced a brand new quilt. Off it went in the mail. We soon heard back that the little fellow was thrilled with his new quilt. "He adores it. He walks around with both and always shows everyone his “new” blankie!!!! You ladies rock." We were delighted to hear that one little quilt was loved and appreciated so much and equally delighted to provide a replacement that may or may not get chewed! Here are photos of the top and back of the new quilt, and below, more photos of the original quilt.  Dana Szucs Hayden, of SeaSew has created a pattern for this Canada 150 birthday logo paper pieced block. Click on the image to download the pattern for free. Update January 17, 2017 We've received some feedback of confusion and errors in this pattern. Our president Brigid has now completed this block (thanks Brigid!) and she reports the following: There were two small issues, two of the pieces were not marked as far as colour, but when you look at the colour picture you know it's a purple and a white. The other thing with paper piecing is that you are working in reverse. The picture online shows the yellow and orange on the left, but the emblem is correct with those on the right like I have them. Here's a photo of Brigid's block.   The chill of fall is in the air as we have launched another great year at the guild. Maybe this weekend I will get a chance to get some little project done for Halloween! I have a nice collection of fabric and every year the day just sneaks up on me and I don't get the projects done. At the very least, I need a new fall table runner! Or maybe a pumpkin wall hanging. Anyone say "squirrel"!
I completely forgot to talk about the president's challenge for the year. It is to make something red and white for our Canada 150 themed quilt show. Those who won door prizes at the June meeting have a head start as they were mostly Canada themed fabrics. If your fabric is beige and red, that's ok too, a lot of the fabric companies used beige instead of white. I would like to encourage everyone to participate in the guild. There are challenges to complete, block of the month, our sew days and charity projects just to mention a few things. We also are still looking for volunteers to sell tickets... Penny and I have offered to sell tickets if people want to switch with us on the executive! :) Keep in mind that if you do put your name down to participate in an activity, we plan for that many people. As an example, the venue for our first sew day had prepared food for us and not many who signed up were there. One final comment on people's generosity and how we come together and make things happen. Thank you all who are making stockings, placemats and preemies. Our goal for stockings is a real stretch this year, if everyone pitches in, I think we can make it. Thanks to everyone who made blocks for the Canada 150 quilt. I will give an update at the October meeting as to what is left to do on that one and where people can help. Now I am off to finish something for show and tell. Happy quilting! Brigid Whitnall President  Raffle Quilt We kicked off our 2016-2017 guild season on Wednesday September 29 with a great turn out to hear about the programs and challenges, to share what we've been making over the summer, and to enjoy a fascinating trunk show. The striking blue quilt that we'll be raffling off at our quilt show in April 2017 is now complete and was on display. The pattern was custom designed by Brigid Whitnall, blocks were pieced over the summer by Penny Carruthers, Chris Gordon, and Janet Brownlee, and it was assembled by Chris. Mary Stanton did an awesome job of quilting it and she also provided the thread and the perfectly coordinating backing from her stash. Thank you Mary for your very generous contributions. Show and tell was, as always, very inspiring and well received. You can see photos of all of the projects in OUR QUILTS. Paul Leger Trunk Show Our program featured guest quilter Paul Leger who presented a very entertaining and interesting trunk show. We believe that Paul brought 2 "firsts" to our guild - a male guest speaker, and a selfie!  Paul's Selfie Paul started quilting 26 years ago when he was stationed with the Canadian Armed Forces in Victoria BC. He took his first course 4 years after starting to quilt. Until that point Paul instructed himself to quilt (with a little help from his mother.) Over the years Paul's quilting skills and styles have changed. He still likes traditional quilting but is now dabbling in the modern. Now Paul teaches, designs and gives presentations and is an active participant in the international quilting community. Paul's trunk show charted his quilting journey over the years. Starting from his first quilt, which was made from his shirts, we saw his unique and varied designs. Paul's thirst for new ideas and learning was evident throughout his show. He's always looking for something new and avoids repeating the same thing over and over. He also has a slight aversion to the "A" thing (applique!) Paul donated a quilt to the University of Moncton's Acadian Museum, which honours the families who founded l'Acadie and includes the names of 305 of the 800 founding families. You can see a photo of this quilt on Paul's web site. Here are some of the quilts that Paul included in his trunk show. Click on a photo to enlarge it. More photos of his fascinating quilts can be found on Paul's web site. -- Janet Brownlee
Congratulations to Brenda Payer, a longtime member of our guild, and quilter extraordinaire for winning first place for handquilting at the International Plowing Match Quilt Show in Harriston, ON this summer. Here's Brenda and her beautiful quilt. This is awesome and we are so proud of you Brenda.   Today we launch our new web site! It introduces a new look, information about our upcoming 2016-2017 Quilt Guild programs and activities, and lots of information about our guild and our quilts.
The organization of the information is a little different - I invite you to take some time to explore the site. Photos from our 2015-2016 Show-and-Tell are now available - see ACTIVITIES. A new feature is this BLOG. Watch this space for breaking information, including posts with photos from our guest presentations at our meetings. We'll also post the President's monthly messages on the blog so they will always be available for your future reference. The September 2016 newsletter is now available - you can also access it from the top right of the HOME page or under RESOURCES. The archived newsletters have not been completely moved over to this new site - this will be added over the coming weeks and accessible under RESOURCES. We'll be adding more bling to the site now that we have the basic information here. Watch for more visual pizzazz unfolding over the next little while. And we would love your feedback on this new site. Please contact us by email arnpriorquilters@gmail.com - you can even write your message within the web site on the CONTACT page. Or let us know at our meetings. And if you notice any malfunctions - broken links - spelling errors, or anything else, please do let us know so they can be corrected. Now that we've launched the site, we're ready to add more information. We welcome your ideas for additional content. Enjoy! -- Janet Brownlee, Communications Welcome Back Returning and New Members! How did it get to September already! It was a busy summer with quilt shows that I attended, shopping and actually making a couple of quilts! We travelled to Vancouver and the Sunshine Coast this summer and I brought back some goodies to share. I know a number of others have been traveling as well and I look forward to hearing the stories from everyone. We have a great year ahead with our quilt show in April 2017. We will be showing off the raffle quilt in September and the raffle tickets will be ready for October. When my husband and I were coming back from the Sunshine Coast, we were walking around Horseshoe Bay and wanted to go into a gift shop. Unfortunately it was closed, but my husband spotted a sign in the window for the Vancouver Modern Quilt Show that was happening that Saturday. What a great guy for mentioning that! Perfect, guess where we went on Saturday. This blog post illustrates how wonderful this show was. It includes a number of my favorite quilts, and you can see a few of my photos below. I would be remiss if I did not congratulate the Almonte Quilt Guild on their first quilt show this past summer. I ran into a few of our members there. Everyone I spoke to really enjoyed the show. Good job Almonte folks! As usual, I can't wait for show and tell, I finished a baby quilt this summer, baby is due any day now and the quilt is in the crib in Niagara. I do have a few other items for show and tell that I will share. My personal goal is to finish a few UFOs for the show next year. We still need a few people to sell tickets this year, grab a friend and you can chat and sell at the same time. It would be nice to have 3-4 people so that you can alternate, or have built in back up if you are traveling. If I have not received your Canada 150 quilt blocks yet, please bring them to the September meeting. May you have more forward stitches than reverse! Brigid Whitnall President |
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