Our next charity will be the Children's Home of Northern Kentucky. The facility has been in operation since 1882 and currently serves as a home for boys aged 7 to 17 before they eventually move to foster care. Each boy receives twin-size bedding when he arrives, and he can take that bedding with him when he leaves. For the next few months, we'll work on making some twin-size quilts to donate to them.

Knoxville Guild: Heather shared that the Knoxville Modern Quilt Guild lost one of their founding members, Stephanie Hicks, to cancer. The Knoxville Guild is collecting wonky stars blocks made in Stephanie's favorite bright solid fabrics from all modern quilt guilds; the Knoxville guild will then make the blocks into quilts to give to cancer patients. The Knoxville guild is collecting blocks until April 18.

The Cincinnati Modern Quilt Guild will be collecting blocks to donate at the March and April meetings. After the April meeting, we'll ship all the blocks to the Knoxville guild. 

Please note that the blocks needs to 12.5-inch wonky stars made in bright solid fabrics. For a link to the wonky star tutorial and for more information, click here.

Sew-Ins: Michelle will be scheduling guild sew-ins for the next few months. She'll send an e-mail to members once the dates and locations are set.

Guild Library: We're looking for someone to take over the running of the guild book and magazine library. If you're interested, please contact Michelle at info@carpet-cleaners.info.

Make and Maybe Take: Kara has started a new challenge for the guild. Three times this year, she will introduce a different quilt block to the group. Guild members have two months to make as many of these blocks as they like. At the meeting in two months, all the blocks will be put in a basket and one will be drawn out. The person whose block is drawn will win ALL the blocks!

The block Kara introduced this time is flying geese. All the blocks made must include flying geese (in any formation), must be between 4" and 20" square, and must include at least one piece of Valori Wells, Ashton Road fabric by Robert Kaufman ( AVW-14839-288 Cabana and AVW-14839-288 Aqua).




Robert Kaufman generously donated enough of these two fabrics for 15 guild members to receive pieces. But any guild member can still participate in the Make and Maybe Take by purchasing this fabric and including it in your blocks. These blocks are due at the April meeting. Be sure to use the hashtag #MakeandMaybeTake when showing your blocks on social media. To download some flying geese paper piecing templates from Fresh Lemons Quilts, click here.

March Meeting: Wednesday, March 11
Bring your round robin blocks and your education challenge projects (see below).

Show and Tell

The tote Brooke made for Ellen.

Kara's fussy-cut heart pillow.

The mini quilt Kara received in a recent swap.

Michelle's green and black quilt top.

Robin's blue quilt.

The back of Robin's quilt.

Education: Circles

Brooke presented two techniques for sewing circles: pieced curves and reverse applique.

First Brooke showed us her first ever pieced curve project.

Next she stepped through the technique. Brooke used templates from Pillow Pop by Heather Bostic for this demonstration, but lots of templates are available online or you can purchase templates or make your own with a compass.

Cut out the pieces of the template using scissors for the curved part, if desired. Note that the convex and concave parts don't fit together perfectly at this point.

Find the center of each curve. With the concave piece on top, pin the two pieces at their centers with right sides together. Then align and pin each of the ends.

Continue to pin the pieces, using between 7 and 9 pins. (There is a non-pinning technique that Susan shared, as well.)

Slowly sew around the curve keeping the concave piece on top. Smooth out the fabric if it gets bunched as you sew. Press toward the concave piece. And there's no need to clip the curve!

Another of Brooke's projects.

Next Brooke demonstrated reverse applique.

Trace your shape onto the papery side of a piece of freezer paper (not the waxy side). Cut out the shape on the drawn line, leaving the background (or frame) intact.

Iron the waxy side of the freezer paper to the back of your frame fabric. Again cut out the shape, this time cutting about 1/4" inside the line of the shape. Snip all around the 1/4" seam allowance. Then bend the snips back, leaving the freezer paper on.

Detail of the snips being bent to the back of the fabric.

Place the frame fabric over your shape fabric. Pin the pieces together, making sure the snips stay bent back.

Sew around the circles about 1/8" from the edge of the frame. Remove the freezer paper template and use it several more times.

Education Challenge: Bring a finished project or a block using either of these techniques to the March meeting. Everyone who does will have a chance to win a prize!