Wednesday, August 15, 2012

A Meeting of Modern Minds...and hearts and hands

Last weekend I was thrilled to participate in a meet-up of the Portland, Seattle and Vancouver Modern Quilt Guilds. Oh my gosh, it was so much fun!

Seattle Portland Vancouver MQG Meet Up 2012
Sew-in action at Island Quilter

We ate, drank, stitched, sweat, SHOPPED, laughed, instagrammed, tweeted and then laughed some more (did you notice I said sweat? It was super sunny and hot at the sew-in, like gals were stripping down, me included!). I wish there would have been time to get to know more people but when fabric is only $10/yd a (Canadian) girl's gotta spend some quality time making choices. Of course I went with the intent of looking and maybe touching, but not buying. Yeah, that lasted about 10 minutes.

Seattle Portland Vancouver MQG Meet Up 2012
The Westminster Fibres rainbow at Island Quilter on Vachon Island, WA

Members of the executive boards from all three guilds made arrangements for a hotel block in Seattle, a social on Friday night (with goodie bags), a charity sew-in all day Saturday with door prizes, then shop-hopping after the sew-in that continued on Sunday morning. All of the shop owners were lovely and offered us snacks, drinks and discounts.

Seattle Portland Vancouver MQG Meet Up 2012
Modern Cross blocks for charity quilts. Susan Beal, author of Modern Log Cabin and Katie Pederson, author of Quilting Modern were both on hand to take us through making blocks from their respective books

Seattle Portland Vancouver MQG Meet Up 2012
Our sew-in took place in the gallery at Island Quilter surrounded by a beautiful exhibit of modern quilts from Portland and Seattle MQG's. This is Katie Pederson's stunning Seeing Value quilt.

A great deal of shopping took place. I wasn't the only one, I swear. Just look:

Seattle, Portland Vancouver MQG meet-up 2012
Here's Berene holding a spot in the cutting line at Drygoods Design

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Here's Violet Craft throwing all logic aside and doing what every amazing quilter mama does: they make a quilt out of whatever fabric their cat and purple-lovin' daughter wants.

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Coming clean: here's my haul. At least what I'm willing to show you. I'm so BAD!!!!

Friendships fostered online were cemented in person. I was super happy to finally meet Kelli, the owner of Drygoods Design. If you are ever in the Ballard neighbourhood of Seattle, do check out her small, but mighty, beautifully curated fabric collections. Every bolt's a winner!

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And of course the weekend in Seattle meant some quality time with my BQF namesake, the adorable K2 (on the left) and I got to meet Katie Pederson (R) who is absolutely charming, kind and so talented.

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I also got to be a cookie in this delicious Poppyprint/Happy Zombie/Violet Craft sandwich!

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There is a flickr group dedicated to the meet up, so if you want to check out more photos of sewing, quilts, shopping and modern quilters, look here.  And if you are lucky enough to live within a 4 hour drive of another Modern Quilting Guild, I encourage you to meet up - it doesn't have to be full blown conference, just have fun together! It really was a blast.

Big hugs to Heather, Petra, Season, Katie and Holly who secured venues, fabric donations, machines, prizes, discounts, made nametags and info sheets and most impressively, smiled the entire weekend.

26 comments:

  1. It really was so fun! I am loving seeing all the recaps and was so happy to meet you can't wait to do 2.0 next year.

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  2. It looks like a total blast, one yes, it would be rude to ignore those fabric shops... (I'm actually dreading the Sewing Summit shop hop, or, perhaps my bank manager is ;o) )

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  3. Well doesn't that look like fun! Glad you enjoyed yourself!

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  4. That is a great recap. Especially the parts about sweating and shopping. A lot of both happened. :)

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  5. Looks like sew much fun!! Thanks for sharing with us!

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  6. I love quilting get togethers! And a modern quilting would would be fab.

    I started making a few blocks using Susan Beal's Modern crosses. Such a fun block!

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  7. Sounds like you all had a great time... and looks like you got some scrumptious fabric too!!! Partay!

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  8. oh what fun! Glad it was so much fun.

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  9. The wall of fabric is too much. The whole thing looks like a hoot! Glad it was such a success.

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  10. Oh what fun! Now I'm wishing even more that I'd been able to go - next time!

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  11. Wow, Krista, sounds like a fantastic weekend. I'm only a wee bit envious. Thanks for sharing!

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  12. So jealous! I notice some Madrona Road inyour pile!!!! I have some ordered too... Lovely!

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  13. Looks like so much fun!! Thank you for sharing :)

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  14. Oh but I jealous ...... It looks like you had a great time and with all those quilts on display to inspire added to the fantastic range of fabrics available to you and a group of like minded quilters it will have been a totally awesome experience - yip I'm jealous (but oh so pleased for you all)

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  15. Sounds like everyone had a great fun!

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  16. I need to move to Vancouver. You guys do such fun things and you get to hang with such famous and great quilters and designers. Looks like you all had the best time!

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  17. Great pics of your meet up Krista! So glad you had fun and got to meet friends from internet places. That wall of fabric has me drooling!
    Nice to see Paula's shining face in your photo as well!

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  18. I do love the idea of MQGs getting together - looks like a fabulous time was had by all! And nice shopping haul too :)

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  19. Krista!! It was so great to finally meet you and your kind words have totally made my day - thank you! You all were an incredible bundle of creative and magnetic energy. Wish every weekend we could have so many lovely ladies in the shop (although I would need to expand, ha!). Hope to see you again soon...maybe I need to make an in-person delivery so I can catch some Vancouver fun? xoxo

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  20. That looks like so much fun! It must be a thrill to meet other bloggers and quilters!

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  21. Thanks for taking me with you. I had a blast. You're a such a good influence on me. Except maybe in the fabric purchasing department. We both did a bit too much of that! :-)

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  22. Thanks for taking me with you. I had a blast. You're a such a good influence on me. Except maybe in the fabric purchasing department. We both did a bit too much of that! :-)

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  23. That looks like so much fun - I can't wait to get together with other quilters once I get back to Australia.
    Is it wrong that I want to rub my face up and down that Westminster rainbow wall?

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  24. I missed it this year, family commitments; I hope it happens again next year it sounds like it was so much fun!

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  25. Fantastic blogpost!! You must have had so much fun meeting up with crafty friends ;)

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