The Blue Ridge Quilters Guild meeting held on Tuesday, July 9th at the Blue Ridge Library featured speaker Donna Kittelson from Star Quilters Guild who spoke on miniature quilts. Here is Donna and some of the miniatures she brought to show.
She said that a true miniature is no larger than 24 inches per side or 96 total inches around. My jaw dropped significantly when she brought out her Block of the Month quilt. When I think of BOM, I envision 12″ blocks finished and it seemed to me that her whole 12 block quilt was not much larger than that. In the photos nearby it is the blue and white quilt with the light blue border. I was also amazed with the log cabin blocks placed to make a star. Donna said that many times she will be working with strips that start out at only 3/4″ wide ! Yikes ! She had a very interesting and enlightening talk and her quilts were really quite diverse. One point of interest was when she said she does not use steam in the initial block construction (to prevent the possibility of stretching and/or distortion), but when the piece is completed, she will steam it to make sure it lays flat. She also does “press,” and not “iron” for much the same reasons. Interesting.
Thank you Donna, for coming to speak with us and for bringing so many beautiful and beautifully done samples and examples. Perhaps someone will be inspired enough to try miniatures.
Next was Show and Tell with a wide variety of items being shown, from embroidered tea towels to bags to quilts of all manner and patterns. Always beautiful, always diverse and interesting.
August will be our silent auction and sale. Please bring items for sale that you longer need or want in your collection. Items such as sewing notions, magazines (bundled in 10-12 and tied up or rubber banded together), yardage marked with the approximate yardage, projects started and will not be completed by donator, rulers, patterns, and embellishments. If you have any items that you feel might bring in more money, these will go into the silent auction so more than one person can bid on. Please bring items in by 6:00 pm on August 13th so they can be labeled and sorted. Lastly, bring your checkbook or cash. This is our only fund raiser for the guild this year.
Also in August, it is planned to have a workshop on Convergence quilts. More information to follow.
Hope to see you on August 13th !
Blue Ridge Quilters 