March Meeting - by Ann S
Our March meeting was well attended and began with Deirdre giving out the notices as Claire our Chairperson was unable to attend.
With quite a few new members who have recently joined SQ the meeting was set up to show techniques used in quilting. Tables were set up for eight to ten people, each with an expert in their chosen subject and 15 minutes allotted to showing their subject. After 15 minutes members moved on to the next table.
Eileen was demonstrating Foundation Piecing. She explained several ways of achieving a good finish, the use of greaseproof paper, thin Vilene and other thin materials which would allow drawing the block on, so that when placing fabrics on one side you could see just where you needed to sew to put the block together.
From there it was on to Jill’s table where she explained how to bind a quilt. This process is always a bit tricky as a wrong move can spoil many weeks of making the quilt. Jill had prepared a demonstration quilt and even I, a founder member of SQ finally got the hang of completing the final seam to finish off a quilt. Jill also provided a sample to take away so we would have something to use as a prompt in future.
Next came a demonstration in Flying Geese. One of our challenge blocks for the Block of the Month quilt this year is a Flying Geese block and Jo showed members the latest way to make blocks economical with their material. She also explained the art of getting the points exact.
After coffee we restarted our journey to the next table where Deirdre explained how to make your own bias binding. Firstly she showed the method whereby with careful placing and marking material cut on the bias you got a continuous length of tape which could be put through a bias binding maker and ironed. She also showed the use of bias bars which came in several widths to make different sizes of completed tape.
The final table was Kate E who showed us Y seams. She showed us how to join hexagon shapes together on the sewing machine and also tumbling blocks. She also gave out cut fabric samples to take home to experiment.
We were still in full swing when it was announced that it was time to go home, no-one seemed to be in a hurry to leave. There were three quilts in the Show and Tell section. All in all a very good evening.