You may have already heard that we have an outstanding group of quilters in our Guild. Tara McInerney had suggested months ago that perhaps our Guild would like to do a Charity quilt and the opportunity came up, so with a huge YES  we replied, when she told us about our own Modern Quilt Guild (MQG) having a challenge to make a Charity quilt with others in your Guild, submit to Quiltcon 2016 to be judged and later to donate the quilt to a charity of our choice.

We jumped on the chance to have some fun….. however there was a criteria!!!

From the MQG website:

Guilds will donate the finished quilt to their local communities

The color palette can be described as white, off-white, sunflower, tomato red, light teal, grey and black. * they even had a list of Fabric lines that had to be used – Michael Miller, Moda, Robert Kaufman, Northcott and Riley Blake *

Improv with Intent

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Improve with Intent is best described from the MQG website as:

“Improv is more than sewing together random bits of fabric. You can take an idea, an image, or an object and translate it into a block or quilt via improvisational piecing.”

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So off we went with our project. The Modern Bee quilt store in Virgil donated fabric ( thank you SO much ! ). We created a Niagara Modern Quilt Guild Pinterest group where we each put ideas we had on our Canada quilt. You see we knew we wanted something that defined Canada. Should we do Inukshuks or fashion along the lines of the Hudson Bay Company? Northern Lights are an inspiration but has been done so many times we wanted something original to us.

Finally we settled on Hockey, Eh !!! That is the name we all settled on with a vote.

Sue Bowslaugh, our President,  cut up the fabric and when we left our June meeting we had a plan. Tara had created a blog with improv hockey sticks and the rest was up to us.

To quote Dr Seuss:

“Oh the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. “

As the summer progressed we each tried to be original. As you can see from the pics we have jerseys, goalie masks, sticks galore, nets, the Stanley Cup and of course our Canadian Flag.

For our September meeting in Niagara On the Lake, we had a Sew In ( we like having this as our meeting occasionally ). At Sew-Ins your bring what you would like to sew, your own sewing machine and supplies and we have a potluck lunch. * Have I mentioned lately what awesome chefs our quilters are ? *

At the Sew In the blocks were finally all in one place so we put our hands on our hips and pondered and moved and moved again and used our design floor to find a working placement that incorporated all of our blocks.

Tania Denyer left with our quilt at the end of the day to finish sewing the blocks together * thanks to Effie Faubert for sewing them together that day *  and we were almost there.

In October Tania brought in the quilted quilt. WOW, what a meeting that was. I can’t begin to tell you the excitement building in the room as our quilt was unveiled for the first time. Pictures were taken * thanks for Corine Amory for your wonderful pics * and we ohhhhed and awweeeeed over the group project.

Heather Chamberlain ( thank you!) took the quilt home with her to put on the binding and sleeve and we were ecstatic.

At this point we are waiting for pictures to be taken with a zamboni and with hockey players….  many more pics are sure to follow of this amazing quilt that will be donated to Project Smile. Project Smile is a local organization based in St. Catharines that makes quilts for children with cancer and other life threatening illnesses. The quilts are donated to both MacMaster Hospital, children’s ward, and to the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto.

Keep an eye on our Guild because we do amazing things. Our members are second to none in our commitment to our community, our work is superb and we have so much fun and laugh ALOT!!!

 

              

 

And….. drum roll…. the almost completed Quilt. Listen for our Ohhhs and Awwws of excitement!