Sewing for Habitat

During our July meeting, the room was full and noisy as we worked diligently to put together two quilt tops for upcoming Habitat for Humanity home dedications this fall.

Now we're looking for volunteers to quilt them! Interested? Read on to learn more.

One of two quilt tops completed during the sew-in

Paper Pieced Stars

This group assembled blocks made by members after our foundation paper-piecing program. Between February and June, volunteers signed up for specific colorways and sewed star blocks at home using scraps from their stashes. These were pinned to a design wall by Delores at the start of the sew-in. We tried several arrangements until the color balance said "Yes!" and then came the easy part of fitting together blocks made by more than a dozen volunteers on at least that many machines with a wee bit of variation in that famous quarter inch seam. (Ha!) The end result (pictured above) features 29 twinkling stars and one improvised white block of negative space. 

New member Jessica presses a point

Carolyn P. assembles a row of stars

Cut It Up! Quilt Top

The workers on this team brought to life the winning design from last month's Cut It Up! Quilt Top Challenge.

Denise, Sara and Delores prepare the strips of solids

Vista Mahan's modernized remix called for the original quilt top to be cut into simple strips; we added a few strips of solids to her design to increase the overall size of the new quilt top. Check out the before and after shots!

Before: A Traditional Top

After: A Modernized Remix

Thanks to everyone's hard work, we now have six quilts on deck to donate to new Habitat for Humanity homeowners later this year.

If you want to volunteer to quilt either of the tops we completed during the sew-in, just comment on this post or send an email to Kelly at chattmqg@gmail.com. Your time and effort are greatly appreciated!

Mini Quilt Swap

Last year we participated in a swap with Tennessee MQG guilds from Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville. Camille from our guild has organized a similar swap with the Tuscon MQG in Arizona. Members received a form via email, be sure to sign up by July 22! Swaps are a great way to make new friends.

Show and Tell

Let's Sew Together!

Grab your sewing machine, cutting mat or ironing board, and join us Saturday, July 8 at 10 a.m. for a sew-in.

We'll tackle two quilt tops: Audrey's paper-pieced star block top, and the Cut It Up! Quilt Top Challenge top. Both will be donated to Habitat for Humanity homeowners later this year.

Members received an email with a survey to sign up for their preferred role of sewist, cutter, presser or runner.

If you're not a member and would like to participate, comment below or send an email to chattmqg@gmail.com and we'll get you set up.