Our July meeting was all about Fear, Failure, and Creativity.

But first, some announcements:

There are two lines to enter the meeting: the one on the right is for guests, new members and members who need to pick up their membership cards. The one on the left is the Express Lane for members with cards. Meeting entry will go faster with two lines.
The Free Table has morphed into the Free Tables. We put out a call for a Free Table Volunteer Coordinator to serve until the end of the year and Lori Friedman (who has been doing it for the past couple of months) stepped up. Thank you, Lori!
Members can purchase additional raffle tickets for $1 each. Beginning at our August meeting, you will be able to purchase tickets at the Raffle Table in addition to the Membership/Info Table.

The Bountiful Mini Quilt Challenge mini quilts will be part of the PMQG Member Quilt Showcase on October 19th. You can check out our members' projects on Instagram at the hashtags #BountifulMiniQuiltChallenge and #BountifulFabrics. (Participants: don't forget to tag @artgalleryfabrics and @SharonHollandDesigns when sharing your projects, which are due by September 7, 2017. More information on submitting projects for the judges' consideration is coming soon.)
The Guild often makes announcements via social media. Follow us on Instagram at @PortlandMQG and on Twitter at @PortlandMQG and like our Facebook page to stay up to date.

Website Updates

If you haven't checked out our website lately, you should! We've recently added some new features, including Book and Webinar Reviews and a Bulletin Board, where you can read and post about quilt-related events, sales and more. If you would like to submit a book or MQG webinar review (including reviews of Fresh Quilting episodes), email them to us at portlandmodernquiltguild@gmail.com.

Past Events

The 42nd Annual Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show was held July 8, 2017. PMQG had a special exhibit in the show for the seventh time. The theme of our exhibit was Community in Quilts. You can read all about the show and our exhibit here.

UPCOMING Events

Rebecca Ringquist of Dropcloth Samplers will be the guest speaker at our August meeting and she is presenting a workshop for PMQG on August 19th called DRAW, TRACE, STITCH! FREEHAND MACHINE EMBROIDERY, where she will teach you how to transfer drawings you will do in class onto fabric and then free hand stitch them using the free motion foot on your sewing machine. If you've been looking for a way to loosen up and add imagery and meaning to your quilts with freehand machine embroidery, this is your class! The class is now open to non-PMQG members as well. We met Rebecca in person at our July meeting and she brought samples of some of her amazing work using the techniques she will be teaching. There are still spots available in Rebecca's workshop - you can sign up here.

Sandra Clemons will be the guest speaker at our September meeting and she is presenting a workshop for PMQG on September 23rd. Scholarship requests are being accepted until midnight on July 28th. Applicants will be notified on July 29th, and sign ups for the workshop will go live at 10:00 am on Sunday, July 30th.

The PMQG Member Quilt Showcase will take the place of our October meeting and will be held at the Lagunitas Community Room on October 19, 2017. Food (thank you, Zupan's Markets!) and beer (thank you, Lagunitas!) will be served. PMQG members are encouraged to submit up to three quilts made within the last three years. Space is limited, so a maximum of one quilt per entrant will be shown.

Quilts We're Making

Meredith Hobbs gave her final presentation about letter making techniques you might want to use in the Word Quilt you're making for our special exhibit at the 2018 Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. Meredith spoke about improv lettering and showed some beautiful examples of that technique. Be sure to use the hashtag #PMQGspeaks2017 when posting your Word Quilt progress to social media.

Anne Matlak presented the July Block of the Month, which uses strip piecing and includes a Y-seam, so this is your chance to conquer those if you haven't yet. The July block instructions contain a link to a tutorial on Y-seams, and Anne also walks you through the process. Be sure to use the hashtag #PMQG2017BOM when posting your blocks to social media.

We're looking for a volunteer to quilt the Guild's Block of the Month quilt. Anne will have it ready by September 24th, and we won't need it back until mid-November. We will raffle it off at the December meeting, with the proceeds going to the PMQG Scholarship Fund. If you would like to volunteer, please email us at portlandmodernquiltguild@gmail.com.

Charity Projects

We're making quilts for the Legacy Hospice Passage Quilts Program and the Doernbecher PICU this trimester. You can find information about size requirements here. You can post your charity quilts to social media using the hashtag #PMQGcharityquilt.

We are making pencil cases for Back-2-School Fresh. Back-2-School Fresh's back to school event is going to take place before our August meeting, so we will need to receive the pencil cases either at August Open Sew Day or at a downtown drop off location by August 14th. If you have pencil cases to donate and can't make it to August Open Sew Day, please email the guild and we'll give you the address of the drop off location. You can post your zipper bags on social media using the hashtag #PMQGzipperbags.

Thank you for the many charity quilts and zipper bags you've made this year -- you're awesome!

Jen Carlton Bailly

Jen Carlton Bailly gave a thought-provoking presentation on Fear, Failure, and Creativity. She spoke about how the greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure and how success is achieved by doing the work, being open to feedback and trying new things. She encouraged us not to compare ourselves to others and to find one successful thing in the project that we consider a failure and then build on that. Jen also did a trunk show of her beautiful quilts, a recap of which can be found here.

Jen generously donated her entire speaking fee to the PMQG Scholarship Fund. Thank you so much, Jen!

Wrapping Up

We had some extra wonderful prizes in our “Christmas in July” raffle bundles this month.

The Kickstart Your Embroidery Adventures bundle, with items donated by PMQG member Sam Hunter of Hunter’s Design Studio, PMQG member Mister Domestic, and Quilters Dream Batting was won by Fran Gardner.

Cher Smith won the Sandra Clemons bundle, with items donated by June Tailor, Sam Hunter, Mister Domestic, and Quilters Dream Batting.

Jennie McKee won The Learn to Quilt bundle, with items donated by Mister Domestic, Sam Hunter, Quilters Dream Batting, and June Tailor. Jennie bought extra raffle tickets because she wanted to win the Pfaff sewing machine that was part of this bundle for her granddaughter and it worked!

Jen Carlton-Bailly also generously donated a cute bag filled with a full set of her templates, a 28 mm rotary cutter and blades, a glue stick and a seam ripper. Miranda Gargiulo was the happy winner of this bundle.

To finish up a fine summer evening, we had another inspiring Show and Tell by our members. All of the show and tell quilts can be seen here.

Upcoming Events

Open Sew Day
Saturday, August 5th, 10 - 8
Fabric Depot, 700 SE 122nd Ave

August Monthly Meeting
Thursday, August 17th, 7 - 9
St. Andrew Catholic Church, 806 NE Alberta St.

Hand Sew Happy Hour
Sunday, August 27th, 2 - 4
Eastside - Pix Patisserie, 2225 E Burnside St
Westside - Craft Pour House, 16055 SW Regatta Lane, Beaverton

July Meeting Recap