The Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild's Round Robin Quilts + Tula Pink Blocks

The Gallinas River meanders through Las Vegas, New Mexico, so it was an easy decision to name our quilting group The Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild, since gallinas is Spanish for hens. We meet every month on the first Monday, alternating between day and evening meetings so those with day jobs can join in the fun at least every other month. If you would like to join us, give me a shout out.

Anyway, we had the unveiling of our round robin/circular chicken quilts project the other night and we have some very artistic people in our group who produced some amazing quilts. We took turns adding to each quilt, although we didn't all work on every quilt due to a hitch in our rotation.

This one is mine, the photo thanks to Sophie, who drove up from Santa Fe for the meeting.

If you'd like to see the rest of the quilts, and also the Tula Pink's City Sampler modern blocks we are working on, here's a link to Sophie Junction. Sophie's blog is much more quilty than mine, so I feel like a total slacker when I read hers. But that's okay, because her posts inspire me to Get Going.

And really, that's what we all need to do is Get Going.

Modern Quilting Potholder Swap-Quilty Pleasures

Last week at the Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild meeting, we had a potholder swap and I seriously scored!

Lin is a member of the guild and also the quilting teacher at our local community college and she knows her stuff!

She found the pattern for this block on a Moda website somewhere and I haven't been able to find it.

If I do, I will let you know.

Look at the neato quilting. I like how she followed the lines for the plants in the vase and made some swirls around the flowers.

I had trouble with the binding on my potholder but Lin didn't. It looks like she sewed the binding to the top, turned it to the back and then used a big zigzag to hold the binding in place.

It's too cute to use, so I will hang it in the sewing room for inspiration.

Quilty Pleasures: Bee Potholder

The Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild had a potholder swap the other day and this was my offering.

Sis-in-law Pattie found this cute paper pieced bee pattern for FREE, compliments of Badskirt. Thanks, Badskirt, this little guy came together easily and quickly, which was good, since I waited until the last minute to get my potholder made.

Here is a closeup. I used fused applique to place the bee on the potholder. Whoops! He needs antennae.

And the back:

Both the back and wings fabric are from the Noteworthy line by Moda.  The lime green leaf stripe is from Simply Color by Moda.

I don't have a photo yet of the potholder I received, but it is cute and you will see it soon, really!

Quilty Pleasures Friday: Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild (Las Vegas, NM)

I wanted to share a link to our Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild's (CRMQG) new blog. Linda, our secretary and communications director, is doing a good job keeping us up to date and chronicling not only what we are all about but also what our guild members are creating.

This is my modern Jacquie Gering-stye quilt in the assembly stage. I am actually almost finished with it, but decided to post the pic to get my rear in gear.

The background fabric is Moda Grunge and I love it!


 Here's the link:

  http://chickenrivermodernquiltguild.blogspot.com/


If you live in the Las Vegas, NM area, come join us! We meet at Thread Bear the first Monday of the month around one-ish.

Quilty Pleasures-Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild

We are excited to announce the Chicken River Modern Quilt Guild in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Gallinas River flows through this, the original Las Vegas, and gallinas means chickens, so that's where the name came from.

We even have a blog with our introductory story: http://chickenrivermodernquiltguild.blogspot.com/

We hope if you live in the area you can come play with us!

Here are a few things we have been working on:

This is a challenge where we each had three fat quarters and could add two other fabrics to make a modern style block. Our goal is to use up all the fat quarters and they seem like they go on and on. After that, we will make a quilt. That's all we know about that so far.

We have been messing around with hexagons and below is the beginning of a project Ann is working on. Go hexagons!

 I started playing with a charm pack of Zen Chic fabrics:

And Linda brought her finished Las Cruces quilt. It's not totally modern, but it's a stunner nonetheless. More about this quilt later.

And don't forget there's a giveaway of Locally Grown fat quarters. Cute! Deadline is tonight.

Quilty Pleasures: Modern Hexagon Quilt

At QuiltCon Jacquie Gering taught me how to machine piece hexagons, so our Modern Quilt Guild in Las Vegas, NM, asked me to share with them what I learned.

So I shared, in my kind of muddly way, and now we are working on some pieces using giant hexagons. I have been doing my usual procrastination thing and haven't made much headway but Betty brought her finished quilt to the last meeting and it is impressive, more so in person.

Note that the gray background isn't one piece of fabric, but hexagons, too, which adds depth to the quilt. The gray isn't your standard quilting cotton;  Betty thinks it might be auto upholstery fabric. It is tweedy and textured, a fun contrast to the center solids.

This quilt is going on a special trip to a long arm quilter where Betty will quilt it herself, her first time.

Betty is one of my quilting heroes: a fearless experimenter, always up for a challenge, ready for adventure.

If you live near Las Vegas, NM, come to our next MQG meeting. We meet the first Monday of the month at 1 pm at ThreadBear.