Silent Auction of Postcards, May 21, 2009

Scroll down to "Postcards 2009" to see pictures of the postcards - third from the bottom!

This will be our second Silent Auction of postcards made by members and friends of the Mayflower Quilters Guild. The postcards have all been donated to help raise funds to defray the costs of the retreat. We hope you will come to the Guild meeting on May 21 and bid on these beautiful cards. They make great gifts, can be sent in the mail or kept for you to admire!

Opening bids start at $8 with increments of $1. Winning bidders can pick up their postcards after the auction on the 21st.Thanks to everyone who donated postcards Fiona Oxford, Anne Morrell Robinson, Heather Stewart, Vicki Burke, Lenie MacAulay, Jeri Burke, Beth Sears, Marilyn Turner, Valerie Hearder, Jane Bryttan, Anne Cottenden, Vivien Worden, Diane Haggerty, Barb Robson, Donna Veinot, Margaret Sweete, Patsy Perkins, Cheryl Dollard and Katherine Gagne. Thanks so much to everyone.

Retreat News

The March 27th registration day has come and gone. I hope members of Mayflower QG and chapters have sent in their registration. Non-members can register by mail on April 10. be sure and have your envelope clearly stamped with the date.

The Avonport Scholarship Award for a young quilter was awarded to Krystal MacLaughlin of Halifax. Krystal is very excited to be coming to her first Retreat. We all know she will benefit a great deal from this opportunity. After the Retreat we will post Krystal's report about her experience.

And congratulations also to Beverley Drysdale of Riverport, Nova Scotia. Bev has won the Retreat Raffle for the 2009 Retreat which gives her an all expense paid Retreat! Bev has been a regular at our Retreat. Bev is a member of the Mahone Bay Quilters Guild. Two other member os the Mahone Bay QG have also each won a $500 scholarship to attend the Retreat. Congratulations to Anna Davison and Donna Veinot. Both will be attending for the first time.

2009 Retreat Teachers and Workshops

Kathy Higgins, Fall River, Nova Scotia, Canada

Kathy Higgins has had a 23-year passion for quilting.  While employed at the Cotton Patch in Bedford for the last 18 years, she was able to experience the joys of teaching both traditional and new quilting techniques to quilters of all skill levels. Her association with the Halifax quilting community and the Mayflower Quilters Guild has allowed her to travel throughout Nova Scotia and teach various workshops for other quilting guilds, including a Retreat at Keltic Lodge and at the Northumberland Quilt Guild Retreat. While many of the classes she teaches are ‘machine’ projects and techniques, she enjoys hand quilting and hand appliqué.  She is a long time member and past President of the Mayflower Quilters Guild, and also a member of CQA and AQS.

WORKSHOP: BORDERS WITHOUT BOUNDARIES

Kathy's class project is a Medallion Sampler. Border print fabrics will be used in a variety of designs to produce a stunning wall hanging.  Border prints are simple and fun. Take the challenge and see what magic happens when the fabric is cut into different shapes and designs. A technique I call Border Print Appliqué will also be used and demonstrated during the workshop.  The project may be machine or hand pieced.  Each “Medallion” will be unique.

Border Sampler - Kathy Higgins

Borders Without Boundaries - Kathy Higgins

Joen Wolfrom, Fox Island, Washington, USA

Joen Wolfrom began quiltmaking in the early 70s after she left her career in the educational field to become a homemaker and stay-at-home mom. Her interest in color and design surfaced in the early 1980s. She has taught and lectured in the quilting field, both nationally and internationally since 1981. Her international engagements include working in the U.K., Canada, Europe, the Far East and South Africa. Joen has created commissions for many private clients and corporations, and is in collections throughout the world.

Joen is the author of eleven books: Visual Coloring, Color Play, The Visual Dance, The Magical Effects of Color, Landscapes & Illusions, Make Any Block Any Size, Patchwork Persuasion, A Garden Party of Quilts, and she designed the 3-in-1 Color Tool. Joen is the owner of JWD Publishing, a company that publishes patterns of quilts and other quilt-related projects by leading quiltmakers and designers.

WORKSHOP: SUMMER BLOOMS and NORTHERN LIGHTS

Create a happy, blooming flower quilt using Joen’s curved-piecing, freezer paper technique. Besides helpful curved-piecing hints, you will be presented with many ideas for creating beautifully curved-pieced flower designs. You will design your quilt in class, as well as make a practice piece to learn the techniques. You will begin working on your flower design in class, and progress as time allows.

On the third day you will have fun creating your own Northern Lights, a radiant quilt filled with lustrous color magic. This is a simple design that vibrates with exciting color movement, due to subtle value changes. The construction is ever so simple. You can select from four sizes: wall quilt, lap quilt, coverlet, or twin-/double-bed quilt.

Summer Blooms - Joen Wolfrom

Northern Lights - Joen Wolfrom

Heather Stewart, Arva, Ontario, Canada

Heather Stewart has taught for guilds and shops in all Canadian provinces and several states. She has a wealth of experience in teaching quilting to all levels of quilters. Many of her workshops, such as Colour for Quilters, focus on teaching skills which will be useful throughout a quilter’s life. Even in her project-based workshops she helps the students discover new techniques and options through colour and pattern variations. Heather began quilting as a child and has taken her hobby and turned it into a profession. She works full time preparing and giving workshops and lectures. Even her new hobby of beading creeps into the quilt studio from time to time and becomes part of an art quiltlet or fabric doll.

WORKSHOP: LOG CABIN CHEVRON

The Log Cabin Chevron quilt made in this workshop is a replica of a quilt made in the late 1800’s. The original quilt was made with silks but we will be using a variety of reproduction cotton fabrics to get a similar look. Heather's students will be taught to select fabrics for the construction of the log cabin blocks and then to make the chevrons from the leftover strips. If you want to leave some of your fabrics uncut, we can age them in the class. Colour theory for antique reproduction quilts will be discussed as well as demonstrations of aging fabrics for reproductions quilts through tea-dyeing, discharging and painting. The workshop will include fabric aging demonstrations.

Log Cabin Chevron (Traditional) - Heather Stewart

Log Cabin Chevron (contemporary) - Heather Stewart

The Avonport Scholarship Award for a Young Quilter

Thanks to the generosity of Faye Palmeter and Avonport Discount Fabrics in Avonport, Nova Scotia, we are thrilled to announce that a full scholarship will be awarded to a young quilter to attend the Quil ters Retreat at Pictou Lodge next September (2009).

To qualify you must be a Nova Scotia resident since 2006, and be between the ages of 19 and 40. For more information and the application brochure please send an email to Barb Robson through the Contact Us form here at the blog. The application must be postmarked by January 16, 2009.

Finally, an Update!

It has been a while, my apologies. I have added a lot of pictures as you can see. Thanks to Jamie Pratt, Michele Gagne, Lorna D'Orsay and a few others, I have been able to upload a lot of pictures from the 2007 Retreat. Each one brought back great memories. I hope you enjoy them.

We also have news for 2009, our own Kathy Higgins will be teaching for us along with returning teachers Joen Wolfrom and Heather Stewart. Their workshops will be announced in a few months. For those of you who are Mayflower Quilters Guild members, registration will begin in March 2009. Non-members can request registration information but their registration date will be 2 weeks after Guild members.

Once again we will be fund raising for the Retreat. We are a volunteer committee and we try our best to keep the costs as low as we can. We appreciate and thank all the Guild members and Chapter members who generously support all our efforts.

Thanks to the generosity of Faye Palmeter, owner of Avonport Discount Fabrics we are pleased to announce that we will be awarding a "young" Nova Scotia quilter a full scholarship (travel and supplies not included) to the 2009 Quilters Retreat at Pictou Lodge. Criteria and application information will be posted soon and will also be sent to all NS Quilt Guilds.

For those of you who attended the 2005 Quilters Retreat, please join me in congratulating Lynne Edwards, quilter extraordinaire from England, who will be awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth in July, for her accomplishments and contributions to quilting. Congratualtions Lynne, a well deserved honour.

Thanks for your patience, I'll be back soon.

Been there...done that but we'll be back in 2009

After two years of committee meetings, planning and organizing the 2007 Mayflower Quilters Retreat is over. We had perfect warm weather, wonderful, creative and inspiring teachers, terrific quilters not to mention the great food and staff at Pictou Lodge (who are THE best). Many people said it was the best Retreat yet.

First of all some thanks, to the members of the Mayflower Quilters Guild and its chapters who continue to support the retreat and all our fundraising efforts, we are so grateful, thank you. Thanks to our great teachers, Michele Gagne, Deb Plestid and Janet Bolton, all gifted teachers who shared with us their knowledge and skills, all very different but equally amazing. Thanks to the staff at Pictou Lodge, they all go out of their way to make our 5 days there the best. Thanks to all who donated prizes, all who made and donated table favours, all who donated to our auctions and to Faye Palmeter for bringing a little bit of her store (Avonport Discount fabrics) to us. And last but not least to the Retreat Committee for all their efforts, patience and commitment to make this the best Retreat experience.

Plans are underway for 2009, Pictou Lodge has been booked for September 23 - 27, 2009, mark your calendar and start saving those loonies. I have been told by Pictou Lodge that the cost is going to go up. We do our best at fundraising but there is only so much we can do.

We will be starting to contact teachers soon, if you have any suggestions just click on "comments" and leave us a name or two and we will see what we can do. And don't forget to send me pictures so they can be added to 2007.

2007 Retreat Workshop Pictures

To see picutres of the workshop projects click on the link to the right under 2007 Retreat workshops. There are pictures there of Michele Gagne's "Flower Graden" quilts and Deb Plestid's "Spider Meadow" to give you an idea of what will be done in class. Janet Bolton's class will include designing your own fabric picture. To see pictures of Janet's work, click on her name under "Our 2007 Teachers" and you will go to her website where you can check out her gallery.

The 2007 Retreat is just 6 weeks away, I hope those of you who are coming are planning to join in our "Fly Swatter" challenge by creating a wonderful patchwork or appliqued (useful!) fly swatter.

The committee has been working hard to bring you another wonderful quilting experience at Pictou Lodge.

See you soon,

Barb