• HAPPY NEW YEAR SBAMQG!

    This Tuesday was our first meeting of 2013! SBAMQG meetings now span through 3 calendar years. Go us! Any sewing or quilting related New Year’s resolutions? Mine is to have fewer lonely quilt tops in my UFO pile!

    As usual, I would like to begin by welcoming our new members and first-time visitors. Welcome Emily, Becky Leslie and Amanda! We were glad to have you at the January Meeting, and look forward to seeing you in the future!

    We want to remind everyone to submit an entry to this year’s annual PVQA quilt show. Entry forms are available online this year for the first time, so entering is even easier! It is $5 for non-PVQA members per item entered, but this show is a great community event and we are so thankful to the PVQA for allowing us to show again this year. Entry Forms must be postmarked by Jan 12th if not submitting online, otherwise the deadline is Jan 14th, the date of the PVQA Jan. meeting. We would love to have a sizable turnout!

    Speaking of sizable turnout; our next sew-day is this Saturday, Jan 12th at the Aptos Community Foundation Santa Cruz County from 10am-10pm (12 hours of uninterrupted quilting!!!!!!). We have 20 of our max 25 spots filled. It’s going to be a great time, and there’s still space. If you’d like to join us, please contact an officer via a comment here, on Flickr, or via our Facebook page. The guild is covering the cost of the room rental, but we will accept totally voluntary $5 donations to offset the cost.

    Assembly of our QuiltCon charity quilt will also be taken care of at the Sew Day. Karen needs to take home a completed top Saturday evening so that she can quilt it at home. We want the layout of the quilt to be collaborative, so we’re open to input. Below is a possible layout suggested at the meeting.8368489987_beb29f91c2_b

    Just a reminder to all participants of the Tote Bag secret swap to make a mosaic on Flickr using the Big Huge Labs tool, and to fill out the survey that was e-mailed out. We’ve been seeing some cool mosaics pop up on the Flickr pool already, so keep ’em coming! The totes are due at the March meeting, and we’re using the Skip to my Lou tutorial.

    That takes us to Sew and Tell! There was an awful lot of amazing Madrona Road Progress!

    And some non-challenge related projects as well, here are highlights:

    That’s about it! See you all in February. We wish you a happy, healthy, and creative 2013 from the South Bay Area Modern Quilt Guild!

  • Retreat Recap, Plus Get Ready for November!

    We are still hot off the heels of the fabulous Fall Quilt Retreat that our fabulous retreat committee put together for us. Before anything else, I want to say a HUGE “Thank You” to Karen, Tina, Suzy, Rebecca, and Mariah for being on the committee and putting together an absolutely fabulous weekend.

    The Mission Springs location was just fabulous! A quick drive for most of us, but beautiful amidst the redwoods and vert accommodating. Most of us felt like we were much farther away than we actually were.

    Yay! It’s retreat time!
    Our fabulous swag bags! Complete with pattern weights, key fobs and candy!

    Retreat attendees were greeted with amazing swag-bags assembled by committee members and  were treated to fun games, s’mores and raffles. Not to mention impromptu late-nite dance-offs to the greatest hits of the Village People.

    And of course, there was quilting too! Everyone got so much done! And I was personally very inspired by the wide range of projects and fabrics that were brought along. Here’s just a slice of the fabulous projects that I was able to take photos of:

    Moriah’s whole lotta Lotta
    Contemplating at the design wall
    Raffle Winners!
    Karen’s floral quilt
    Julia’s Meteor quilt top
    Everybody’s busy in the workroom
    Miriam’s giant paper piecing project: completely designed by herself!
    Susan’s Kaffe Fassette postcard quilt
    Miriam’s luminous rainbow quilt
    Carolyn making progress fast on a quilt for her couch
    Karen’s “tassels” quilt
    Quilt as you-go mini-quilt
    Anne’s finished manly mod-pop
    Contemplating design elements with other quilters around midnight

    Thanks again to Karen and the rest of the Retreat Committee! I can’t wait to help plan our next one! And for those curious, there are of course many more photos of the retreat over on our Flickr page!

    And of course, we expect many of these beautiful projects to show up at November’s Sew and Tell! This Tuesday, Nov. 13 (postponed due to election night) at SueDee’s at 6:30pm! Remember, we are still fielding suggestions for venues for our next Sew Day and other activities to follow our hugely successful pillow swap.

    See you there! Keep Calm, Quilt On!