September 17 2024 Meeting Report

Leng's Star Wars Ewok hand puppet

Betty's Darth Vader 

A sewing tip from Darth

Leng had these two amazing hand made mats that she brought back from her recent family visit back home to Kuala Lumpur.  Leng's Mom has been sewing ever since Leng can remember and still has quilt tops and other treasures hidden around her house.  We were totally fascinated with the precision needed to construct these and worked out that the folded satin petals were arranged around the circle backing and stitched around the perimeter in rows decreasing in circumference till the center is done and topped with a yoyo.  This is not a typical handicraft from Kuala Lumpur, just something that Leng's Mom discovered and made her own.  

Leng had her heart set on this one and finally managed to convince her Mom to part with it.  Sorry for the quality of the photo.  I wish the six white petals in the centers of the spirals were more clear.  Each one has a center with an orange dot which was made by folding a polka dotted fabric of just the right size so that the dot ended up right in the center.  This is really amazing precision work and Leng's Mom does not use a pattern to make them.  

Here is another of Leng's Mom's projects that Leng brought back with her.  Nancy recognized the block in this quilt as the Economy Block with an Hourglass in the center.  All cut out with scissors but this quilt would pass the "modern" designation easily.  A really cheerful quilt that Leng plans to sandwich, quilt and finish off.

This is Nancy's 4th Mystery Quilt from The Modern Quilt Studio.  The goal was to learn about creating transparency in a quilt and the teachers recommended purchasing the kit as the easiest way to getting the colours and shades right.  Nancy did that and ended up with this beautiful quilt.  The transparency shows up really well in the photo.  One thing the photo doesn't show clearly is that these were all prints.  Trying to come up with the right shades from prints for a transparency project and on a mystery quilt would be next to impossible so working from a kit would save a big headache.   You can get a better idea of the prints and how the transparency was achieved in the next photo.

Here is Nancy's amazing backing fabric and she cleverly inserted her pieced "cheat sheet" that she used to keep her print gradations organized.  

Nancy promised to let us know when the next Mystery Quilt is available in case any of us are up for a challenge.  It's a good way to learn something new and have fun with a mystery quilt at the same time.  If you want to sign up for the company's newsletter you can click here to get to their website, The Modern Quilt Studio.
 

We talked about moving the meeting for October 8th to Wednesday, October 9th so that Sharon could attend.  Please let Joyce know if you cannot attend on that day.  We will be celebrating Joyce's birthday with Michi at her new residence.