For our 4th annual sewing retreat we gathered again at Hidden Valley Music Center in Carmel Valley to sew, dine, socialize, and maybe even do a little dancing. Members were welcomed with guild-themed goodie bags filled with treats from our generous sponsors.

We set up our charity wall again this year with a round robin and 2 different block projects. The first set of fabric was a generous donation from sponsor we met at QuiltCon and we used them to piece together precut fabrics into any shapes we wanted. The other set of fabrics was a defined group of plaid fabrics that we turned into a variety of arrow blocks.

make a block… any size or pattern

make an arrow block

As a group, we finished dozens of blocks, 5 pieced quilt tops, and 2 complete quilts! We were truly amazed at all of the work members did, including piecing backings and making bindings.

Pieced and Bound by Beverly Thompson, Quilted by Kathleen Crittenden

Periokomen Quilt | April 2018 | Blocks Layout by Tricialyn Apolinar | Pieced by Rochelle Rosales | Quilted by Rhonda Rosales | Bound by Sarah Osentowski | Recipient: Quilts for Ventura, victims of the Thomas Fire

As always, we raffled off prize baskets to raise money for the guild. This year the baskets were better than ever, filled to the brim with tons of fabric, notions, patterns, and much much more from our amazing sponsors. The guild received a record-breaking amount of money and 5 lucky winners went home with some amazing prizes. Thank you again to our generous sponsors!

The Scavenger Hunt was a big hit this year, with members accomplishing tasks ranging from sewing charity blocks to teaching each other new skills to posting on social media. It was a great way to motivate us all to get things done, share our work, and just have fun. We tallied up the points and awarded prizes to a few lucky winners.

In the end, we come to retreat to SEW. And our members did a lot of sewing and quilting. As a group, we got a lot done and had so much fun doing it. Check out all of these finished quilts and quilt tops!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

At last month’s meeting we wanted to share with our members a handful of ways to keep up with guild news and stay connected with other members. We compiled a list of four key social media platforms you can use to stay informed, get connected, start the conversation, and show off!

Stay Informed – Our Website:

Oh, hey, look! You’re already here! Thanks for stopping by!

Our website is a great place to find all kinds of information about our guild. Our main page (where you are now) is the host of recent blog posts that are based on current events happening within our guild. We try to post a good mix of fun programs we’re running, recaps on classes and workshops we’ve hosted, as well as small insights into other happenings of the guild.

Our Meetings + Events page is host to all of our basic meeting information: where we meet, what time we meet and if our regular meeting day has shifted. We also provide key dates to keep on your calendar for things like Sew Days, Workshops, and more. We keep the running list of each month up-to-date with anything we know of, as soon as we know it.

I encourage you to check out our Programs page where you will find a list of all the fun things we’ve got going on for members to participate in. From challenges to charity programs. It’s all there!

Lastly, as a quick go-to guide, we’ve added a “To-Do” List to our right-hand sidebar. There, you will see a list of items that may be due at any upcoming meetings. You can decide to participate or not, but the reminder is there for you if you want to join in on the many programs and challenges we have running.

These are just some highlights. I encourage you to click around the site to learn more about us. Our Charity Quilts page is also a fun one to look at too!

Get Connected – Our Facebook Fan Page:

Our public Facebook Fan Page is a great space to see all of our posts across our social media platforms in one place. If you’re already using Facebook, you can follow (or fan!) our page and get notifications when new information has been posted. Not on Instagram? No worries! We share that information on our Facebook Fan Page. Not subscribed to our blog here on our website? It gets posted to our Facebook page there as well. So you are never far away from joining in and staying connected.

A great feature we love about our Facebook page is the ability to post upcoming events. We use this feature to post when our upcoming sew days and workshops are. There are descriptions on the event as well as any resources needed (like sign up sheets) to join in on the fun. You will see meeting events and other events we’re hosting that are outside of our monthly meeting.

Start the Conversation – Our Private Facebook Group:

It’s great to stay connected and read up on things happening with the guild but we wanted a space for our members to keep in touch as well so we’ve created a private Facebook group exclusive for our members to join.

This is a great place for members to:

• ask questions (like recommendations on tools)
• get opinions (need advice? ask fellow members)
• show pictures of recent projects
• tell us about a cool event or workshop you’re going to

Don’t be afraid to start a conversation and have fun building community with fellow members.

Are you a member of the guild? Request to join our group and we’ll add you!

Show Off – Our Instagram Page:

We love to showcase our members’ work any way we can and our Instagram page is the perfect place to do just that. If you scroll through our feed you’ll find pictures from activities and demos we’ve run at meetings, members showing off their work during show and tell and even some pictures of guest speakers we’ve had. We also love to post snapshots from workshops and sew days we’re hosting and for practical needs, we also make sure to post reminders about meetings, workshops, and sew days.

Guild hashtags to follow:

• #SVMQG – For all things Silicon Valley Modern Quilt Guild related
• #SVMQGWorkshop – For specific snapshots of workshops we’ve hosted
• #SVMQGShowAndTell – For our monthly show and tell at meetings
• #SVMQGChallenges – For any guild challenges we have running
• #SVMQGCharity – For a look at our philanthropic efforts and charity activities

We hope this post has given you some insight and inspired you to connect with us in different ways. We love our community of members and friends of the guild, so don’t be afraid to like or follow us if you’re interested in keeping up with our group.

For more information on the above information, see our Social Media Guide slide deck we created for our last guild meeting.

SVMQG was well represented at Quiltcon 2018 last month; 26 of us traveled to Pasadena to see the quilts, walk the vendor floor, and attend lectures and classes. Our members took over 35 different classes ranging from machine and hand quilting to piecing techniques, from surface design, to fabric dyeing and color theory. (See below for a full list of classes.)

We saw each other in classes and in passing, as we admired all of the beautiful quilts and rubbed elbows with our favorite “sew-lebrities.”

We watched our fearless leader and president of the guild Rochelle Rosales as she participated as a member of panel for a lecture on Secrets of High Performing Guilds.

A handful of us found our QuiltCon Charity Quilt hanging in one of the lecture halls and couldn’t help but strike a pose with it.

We even managed to get most of us together for a group dinner on Friday night where we had a great time sipping champagne and eating delicious food.

It was a great show and our members had a great time attending. We’re already eager for next year’s show in Nashville, TN. The lineup is looking good too!

Continue reading →

The guild kicked off 2018 with our monthly meeting last week. We welcomed many new members and said hello to the familiar faces that made 2017 such a great year.

This year, the guild will be focusing on “design” and education, working to grow our design skills through lectures, discussions, activities, and classes.

We started our discussion by watching excerpts from the MQG webinar “Modern Quilting: Know It When You See It” with Jacquie Gehring. In the webinar, Jacquie talks about the concept of modern quilting as a spectrum, including many elements of traditional and varying elements of new/modern design. She also shows and discusses this concept with regard to specific quilts.

Some of characteristics of modern quilting noted by The MQG are:

• Use of bold colors and prints
• High contrast and graphic areas of solid color
• Improvisational piecing
• Minimalism
• Expansive negative space
• Alternate grid work
• Updating of classic quilt designs

After the webinar, members placed themselves on this spectrum and we discussed our thoughts about the definition of modern quilting and how we saw ourselves within it. Many of us were surprised with where we placed ourselves on the spectrum.

We plan to have the spectrum at future meetings and to revisit this exercise at the end of the year to see if our self-placement has moved.

Next month, we will continue our design focus with a member-led lecture about basic design elements. We’ll be exploring these concepts further in future demos, activities, and challenges.

Happy 2018! Our board members met early this year to plan out the beginnings of a great new year at the guild.

We are very excited to present the new Board Members of the 2018 Year as follows:

Rochelle Rosales, President
Sarah Osentowski, Vice President
Renee Silva, Treasurer
Janet Livingston, Secretary
Beverly Thompson, Membership
Heidi Mackessy, Education/Programs
Rhonda Rosales, Philanthropy
Amanda Morris, Fundraising
Tricialyn Apolinar, Swaps + Challenges
Pam Holt, Sew Day Coordinator
Jan Strockis, Retreat
Sarah Osentowski, Media + Web Chair
OPEN, QuiltCon (2019) Charity Quilt Chair
OPEN, Quilt Show Participation Coordinator