WEQuilters at the CQQ Annual Meeting

On Saturday, October 18, 2014, seven of our members drove to Rawdon for the CQQ AGM. We had a good guild presence as we had won two bursaries last year and were showing the results of our workshop and community project. We had to leave home at 7:30 so we were all ready for the coffee and breads prepared by the Rawdon Guild when we arrived. We were soon working on our mystery blocks. We had to bring two five inch squares of either blue or pink flowered material and were each given four small white squares to sew onto the corners. Many people were finished their squares before the instructions were given. 

The meeting began, changes to the by-laws were approved and all the executive positions were filled.  None of us volunteered. The CQQ now has it's first male president. Denis Justin Lajoie from Art Sous La Quilt Guild in the Outaouais put his name in for president and as there were no other nominations he was acclaimed! At coffee and lunch time we sold some of our Raffle Quilt tickets. A good start to our show. Charlotte was the best sales person.

Charlotte, Mary T, Linda, Roz, Rita and Sandra having lunch.

Mary T, Linda, Roz, Rita and Mary S with our new president, Denis Justin Lajoie in the back left.

 These are some of the mystery blocks, blue and pink being assembled. We will see if they make two quilts, one of each colour.

 This is the mystery quilt made two years ago and won by Vendor Phyllis Moody.

 We proudly displayed our banner.

 There were over 150 members at the meeting including a few men and three vendors.

Here are some of our Elaine Quehl quilts. They were displayed during the meeting and then we held them up and explained our work towards the end of the meeting. They were very well received especially Audrey's water lilies.

Here are some of our preemie quilts on display. We also held these up and marched them through the room.

There were only a few member's show and tell so the meeting wrapped up at 3 PM and we were back in Montreal in good time just after 4PM until we hit St Jacques West!

Preemie Quilts

 At our last meeting we were showing off our Preemie Quilts and our projects from our Elaine Quehl workshop on Free Form Curves and Liberated Applique. Charlotte finished her preemie quilt and Jae and Priscilla were trying to get a good look at the front. We will take these quilts to the CQQ Annual Meeting in Rawdon to show how we used the bursaries we won last year.

Jae was busy again and made a number of pincushions. She is ready for the pincushion exchange with Loose Threads and also has some to sell in the boutique at our quilt show May 2-3 2015.

We were really happy to see Priscilla, an interested new member. She has recently become interested in quilting and came with some of her work, beautifully made mug rugs.

We hadn't seen Audrey yet this year but she came and showed us she hasn't been just sitting around. Not only does she quilt beautifully but she paints lovely watercolours. 

These are Audrey's Liberated Appliques inspired by Elaine Quehl's workshop; Sun Flower, Tulips and Water Lilies. 

These are a series of watercolours Audrey painted over the summer. We were very glad to see you Audrey and hope to see you again soon.

Here are three quilt tops that Mary S. quilted and bound but it was Rita who did all the piecing. Rita was using up scraps from some of the many, many baby quilts she has made. 

  Mary T. and Rita with two more of Rita's preemie quilts. 

Our meeting finished with Barbara  talking about our show challenge, Dimentional Quilting. She brought a book with ideas and hopes everyone becomes inspired and creates a free standing gem. Its easy, all it need to be is three layers with quilting and be 3 D. She can't wait to see what we all come up with and neither can we!

Second Meeting of the Year

Barbara was back from her month long trip to Spain. She is not quite back into her quilting mode. Anna was there handing out a belated triangle challenge reward to Jae. We were only a few but we had a good meeting.

 We are participating in a pincushion challenge with Loose Threads. Participants have to make a funky pincushion, wrap it up with a sewing notion and bring it to the exchange December 15th. So far we have eight signed up, with more to come I'm sure.

After a discussion we decided to have our retreat in October next year, but it turned out the L'Ermitage was going to be full with a meeting of the nuns that weekend, so it will be September 11-13, 2015. Mark your calendars.

 Linda had all the quilts she was working on at the retreat plus the easy curves from the Elaine Quehl workshop.

This is one quilt for a grandson with most of a jelly roll

And this is the other one for his brother. 

 She then had some strips left over so she made a preemie quilt.

Roz made two preemie quilts with the jelly roll method, using a quarter of the roll for each.

They both have really interesting fabric for border and backing.

Roz had also made a mat with pockets to put under your sewingmachine. The pockets hang down over the front of your table and hold scissors markers, extra thread and other notions. A great item for our boutique. 

Jae had two quilts last meeting and here she is with another. She shows her great colour sense and some of these fabrics are in our raffle quilt. You can tell it is Jae because you can only see the top of her head.

And to show she has not been slacking off she also made four place mats from the left over strips.

Our Latest Retreat

We had another great retreat at L'Ermitage Sainte Croix this past weekend. Ten quilters, including Mary's two sisters worked hard all weekend and many projects were finished. Even though the weather was good we mostly stayed indoors chained to our machines. The roaring of machines filled the room until people got tired of that work and then sat, chatted and hand quilted. Some stayed up late Friday night hoping to see the aurora borealis but all they saw was a beautiful dark sky.

Linda made two quilt tops for her grandsons with jellyrolls. She sewed all the strips together in an hour, not counting ironing.

Roz joined us for the first time and she came with everything including her chair but not the kitchen sink. She worked on lots of projects and finished this baby quilt top.

Mary worked on a preemie quilt. She brought her new sewing machine and machine quilted with a walking foot for the first time. She is finishing the binding by hand and still prefers hand quilting.

Allison spent lots of time documenting all her embroidery stitches. She now has sheets with all the stitches with different lengths ready to embellish many new projects. 

Charlotte worked on a preemie quilt and here she is putting on the binding and as always smiling.

France was working on a set of place mats with lots of pieces and great colours. 

While others sandwiched and sewed the quilt tops Rita had made, she was busy cutting and sewing two new quilts for  friends and neighbours.

Mary's sister Jeannie finished a little quilted cross stitch baby announcement and knitted a tiny sock.

Mary's other sister Betsy had a few projects on the go and here she is quilting on a Greek Village. She couldn't sew on a quilt for her daughter because she forgot the thread.

Here is Charlotte's quilt with the binding almost completely finished!

Jeannie got to work on some preemie quilts while Betsy and Mary just watched!

After Linda finished the two quilt tops she still had some strips left over, so she made another preemie quilt.  This one didn't even take her an hour, including the ironing.

Time went by very quickly even with starting work at 8:30 AM. After Sunday lunch we packed up to get back to the real world. We missed Anna and Sandra this time and hope they make our next retreat.

WE'RE BACK!!!!

Hi Everyone!!

Welcome back and great to see those that came to the meeting last night and 'hope to see you soon' to those that couldn't make it.  It was a very busy meeting.

We welcomed a new member - Roz Agulnik - many of you already know Roz from Loose Threads.  We are really happy to have her!!  Welcome Roz!!!

Linda gave out the the programme that her and Barbara worked on, for the upcoming season and it is chocker block full of new stuff.  It promises to be a very busy year!!  Thanks for all your hard work ladies!

We also spent lots of time discussing our upcoming quilt show - first weekend in May - and what are all our jobs.  Some great ideas!  A couple of vendors already signed up - that's always good news.  This year again we will be trying a Silent Auction so as you go through the house getting ready for (dare I say it!) - winter, keep your eyes peeled for any treasure we might be able to sell.  No garage sale stuff now, but really nice stuff :)  Also many of us will be making things to sell at the Boutique, so put your thinking caps on for ideas.  This will be discussed again.  Of course, as usual, we will need everyone on site for this event and also the Friday is set up day and not only do we need all Guild members, but we need as many hubbies as we can get, so line 'em up now!!

Also discussed was the 'retreat' this weekend.  I unfortunately will not be able to attend, and that is really sad.  This is a great weekend with lots of quilting, chatting, sharing ideas, reading, whatever you like!  If you haven't been to one, you really should try to make a point of keeping that weekend open for next year.  You won't regret it!!

So, on to Show and Tell:

First up, Jae!  Once again
a busy little bee.  What is that
saying? - 'more done by 9 am...'

Mary and her preemie quilt.

You might remember, that
was our community project
started last year - quilts for
the preemies at the Royal
Vic.

This is France's work from the Elaine Quehl
workshop we had last year.  I think we have
seen it before, but in true France style, she
thought it was too boring - REALLY?!!!?
Anyway, she has a new machine and so
was ready to experiment by embroidering
red flowers down the middle. Hard to see
here, but really stunning!

Sandra wasn't able to do much
 work for a month this summer
 as her "sewing foot" was
out-of-order, so spent her
time doing preemie quilts -
5 of them.



This is Allison's version of our
Triangle Challenge from last year.
Beautiful, but we expect nothing
less from Allison.  Hopefully
some time this upcoming year
she will teach us the
technique. Too bad you can't
see the quilting!!!



Linda's interpretation of
Elaine Quehl's class.
Beautiful!

Mary took a class from
Debbie Kimball and this
is the result.  The picture
doesn't do it justice.  It's
really stunning!!

And last, but by no means
least, is our new member
Roz and her baby quilt.
Baby is due shortly and
won't Mommy be
delighted with this prize!!

Beautiful, Roz!!


Well, you're up-to-date.  People have obviously been working hard over the summer, making quilts, working for the guild and we're all sure happy about that!!!

Happy quilting everyone!!!

Sandra