Category: Show & Tell

General, Meetings, Show & Tell

October Highlights from Maine Modern Quilters 🧵

MMQ Communication & Technology Chair

The Maine Modern Quilters (MMQ) gathered on October 4th at Hope Baptist Church in Manchester, Maine, for a vibrant and inspiring in-person meeting. With 32 members in attendance, the energy in the room was as colorful and creative as the quilts we love to make.

🧶 Getting to Know Each Other

We kicked off the day with a fun icebreaker: each member shared one word that describes themselves as a quilter. The responses painted a vivid picture of our community—words like “eclectic,” “scrappy,” “intuitive”, “inspired”, “happy”, “playful”, “experimental,” “reborn,” and “grateful” reminded us how diverse and passionate our group truly is.

🌟 Featured Projects this month

During our October meeting, members had the opportunity to choose from three hands-on projects:

  1. Scrappy Zipper Bags – Led by Hilary Hudson, this project focused on using leftover fabric scraps to create functional and stylish zipper pouches with amazing color flow.
  2. Pieced Seat Cushions – Nancy Lander guided members through techniques for assembling cushions with creative piecing and quilting methods. A great solution for those often hard chairs we seem to spend so much time in!
  3. Fabric Name Tags – Meliss Swanson helped members design and sew personalized name tags using fabric, embroidery, and embellishments.

We love seeing the diversity of styles and techniques our members bring to each project!

🎨 Upcoming MMQ Events & Opportunities

MMQ has a full slate of exciting events coming up:

  • 🧵 Fostering Community Gathering – October 18 at the Iron Workers Union Building in Clinton, Maine. Bring your projects and enjoy a day of sewing and friendship.
  • 🛠️ Round Robin of Tools – November 1 at First Congregational Church of New Gloucester. Share your favorite quilting tools and learn from others.
  • 🎄 Bold Prints & Holiday Celebration – December 6 in Waterville. Bonnie Dwyer will present on using bold prints in quilting—bring your own bold creations to show off!

All dates and details are available on our website: mainemodernquilters.com

🧵 Special Events: Workshop with Nicholas Ball

We’re thrilled to host a Zoom workshop with Nicholas Ball (@quiltsfromtheattic) on January 31, 2026 from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm. The class, “Curvy Cabbage,” is capped at 35 participants and costs $25. Sign up by November 15— current members please check your email.

🖼️ Special Events: Mini Quilt Show and Fundraiser

MMQ is partnering with the Yarmouth Historical Society for a fundraiser in March and April 2026. Members are invited to contribute 24” x 24” mini quilts—some of which should be available for sale. Proceeds will support YHS, MMQ, and the quilt creators. A reception will be held March 19 from 5–7 p.m. at YHS.

We currently have 13 quilts and need 4 more. Quilts will be collected at the December meeting. Interested in participating? Reach out to either Evie Landry or Becky Rodgers and get stitching!

💙 Charity Quilt Block Project

Patty Robinson is spearheading our charity quilt initiative for the year. She shared nine inch square bold blue blocks and colorful strips of yellow, orange or red (1″ x 13.5″) which members can use to create a vibrant quilt top, which will be donated and auctioned for a good cause. Instructions on making the block are available in the MMQ Resource Library on the MQG website.

🧵 Show & Tell

As always, Show & Tell was a highlight. Members shared stunning quilts including:

  • Cherish Quilt Pattern (EPP)
  • Electric Pineapple Quilt by Libs Eliot
  • Random Block Design from Craftsy
  • Secret Agent Quilt
  • Transparency Quilt Block of the Month (MQG March 2020)
  • Tula Pink’s 100 Modern Quilt Blocks
  • Postcards with craft paper backs
  • Baby quilts and orphan block quilts

🧵 Upcoming Community Events and Opportunities

  • 🌈 Kate Gawler will present a Color Workshop hosted by the PTQG in Hermon on October 25.
  • 🌍 Many members enjoyed the Global Quilt Connection virtual event in late September—thanks to Bonnie Dwyer for the recommendation!
  • 🧵 The American Quilt Study Group will host an event on October 18 in Portland, featuring antique quilts and a vendor mall.
  • 💎 Caravan Beads in Portland invites creatives to “Bead Together” every Friday from 4–6 p.m.
  • 👗 Sharon shared her experience at the Boston School of Design, showcasing a handmade tunic she made in class with Sharon Chandler of marigold_in_maine. Members expressed interest in a future MMQ workshop to create quilty tops for the 2026–27 program year.

Stay inspired, stay connected, and keep stitching! We can’t wait to see you at our next meeting on November 1st in New Gloucester.

#MaineModernQuilters #ModernQuilting #QuiltCommunity #MMQEvents #QuiltyLife

Meetings, Show & Tell

December Meeting & Holiday Party

MMQ Communication & Technology Chair

We met in New Gloucester this year for our annual holiday party and had a very festive time.

There was a wonderful selection of quilts and other quilty projects for show and tell from our talented members.

Members shared yummy food dishes and made a small homemade item wrapped in a brown paper bag for a gift exchange. Harmony blocks, a pattern by Curated Quilts, were collected for our group charity quilt.

To finish off the festivities, we divided into two groups and played the Left Right Center dice game with fat quarters. Congrats to Meliss and Sue who both took home a pile of fat quarters!

Meetings, Membership, Show & Tell

Adapting….

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March 7, 2020 was the last time we had an in-person meeting.  Below you’ll see some of the beautiful creations from our talented members.

Going forward, all the meetings will be done using the Zoom platform.  A YouTube channel has been set up so that if a member is unable to do the Zoom meeting, they will be able to view the recorded meeting on the YouTube channel after receiving a link.

We will be doing membership renewal starting in August for the September 2020 to June 2021 meetings.  An email will be sent out to current members.  Anyone interested in joining can send an email to Mainemodernquilters@gmail.com for more information.  We welcome anyone to our group!

 

Show & Tell, Social Time

Holiday Cheer!

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Thanks to the awesome holiday party committee for a great morning of fun, games, food an laughter.

I’m sure all the members will agree that Sandy won the most coveted yankee swap item – a tree that sings and lights up!IMG_2501.jpg

 

Julie showed us how she took an art quilt and transformed it into a t-shirt, and into a graphic on sneakers.

 

We’re submitting a quilt to QuiltCon, which is the show hosted by The Modern Quilt Guild. Almost all the members worked on some aspect of the quilt, and it was quilted by Betsy Canaan.  We voted on a name and Striation Gyration is the winner!

Striation Gyration

And finally, we enjoyed seeing the quilty-goodness that members have been working on:

From the top, left to right: Evie, Hazel, Kate, Margaret, MaryAnn, Peg, and Rose.

Meetings, Show & Tell

Scrap-o-rama and UFO Revival

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We had a great meeting using up our scraps!  All quilts are “made” fabric – but some more than others – think crazy quilts, quilts made from worn items such as the Gee’s Bend Quilts, quilts made from feedsacks….. We also discussed ways to re-purpose UFO’s that we would rather never see again including finishing them and donating them to a charitable cause, or re-purposing them into something  you LIKE – don’t limit yourself to quilts – think skirts, placemats, pillows.  Maybe you adopt a hawaiian applique pattern for that holiday top – or make that solids melange into 6″ squares with vertical bars in -between set on a white background… we referred to Mary Kerr’s Twisted for inspiration.

Show and Tell!  Linda and Karen with their pieces from a previous curves workshop; Sandy’s stunning blue quilt; Dina’s excellent Big Stitching; Leanne’s EPP; Bonnie’s antique shop treasure made in the 1950’s; Karen’s Mariner’s Compass; Ellie’s pink quilt; Dan with placemats and belt made with scraps; and Sue with her 2nd Poppin bag.

Members, Show & Tell, Social Time

December 2…Paaarrrttyyy!!!!

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We celebrated the holidays on December 2… as you can see by the photos, we hardly had any fun at all… of course, not everyone can make every meeting – but we managed to get a snapshot of the party-goers as depicted above!

There were decorations and food…

Games… the competitors were FIERCE!!!!

 

Evelyn won the Big Pile of Fat Quarters….she rolls a mean dice….

And we finished the day with a viewing of finished UFO’s!!! The members are really embracing the UFO challenge:

Somerset Samplers created this beauty from a departed members stash… they are selling raffle tickets for it!  $1 each, or 6 for $5.  To purchase a raffle ticket, email Carmen at: carmend2010@hotmail.com

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Show & Tell, Speakers

November 4, 2017

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Thank you visiting artist Kevin Callahan for a terrific presentation about fiber, textiles and fabric in fine art.  View the work of Nancy Hemenway Barton at the UNE gallery in Portland through December 20.

We commenced with our annual fabric, books and notions fundraiser after Kevin’s speech, agreeing to “be adults” and not fight over the goods….

And wrapped up the day showing projects that members finished as part of the UFO challenge…

And we enjoyed a little show-n-tell:

Meetings, Sew Time, Show & Tell

June 17, 2017

suzyquilter

Our last guild meeting of the year was held in New Gloucester at the First Congregational Church. Sue Arnold finished up the Block of the Month series. We are very appreciative of all the hard work she put into organizing that activity for the guild. The highlight of the meeting was the Improv Round Robin activity. Members had a chance to really stretch their creativity and use their improvisational quilting skills to the max! It was great fun and a wonderful  way to end our guild year.

Thanks to all who made this a memorable year of Modern Quilting!

Meetings, Show & Tell

May 13, 2017 Meeting

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The meeting was held at the First Congregational Church in New Gloucester. It was not a sewing filled meeting but we shared alot of information about upcoming activities. Sue Arnold did the Block of the Month, we discussed the guild banner, the upcoming Improv Round Robin was explained and we had an incredible Show and Tell. I think people had been working diligently to finish up projects!

Quilt made by members using Stephanie’s fabric

Block of the Month, Demonstrations, Show & Tell, Table Runners

February 18, 2017 Meeting

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We had a very lovely venue for this meeting in Westbrook and the weather cooperated, allowing us to have a great turn out of members. As we introduced ourselves, I asked people to share their favorite aspect of quilting and their least favorite part of quilting. It was a nice way to get to know each other better and generated great discussion.

Sue Arnold led the Block of the Month presentation. Here is Bonnie and Anne-Marie showing some of the creative and beautiful blocks.

Kathryn Simel showed the design for the banner that our guild will display at Maine Quilts this summer. She did an extraordinary job designing and sewing it together. We are so fortunate to have this incredible designer in our group! Other guild members will put some of the finishing touches on in. Thanks to all involved in this project!

Carmen and Jane each gave demonstrations on binding techniques that were very helpful!

And we had a great showing of beautiful quilted items for Show and Tell!

Block of the Month, Meetings, Show & Tell

January 7, 2017 Meeting

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It was a cold but clear day for the first meeting of 2017. We had a very enthusiastic group with several new members in attendance. There were many creative versions of the Modern Pinwheel Block of the Month. And we had a lot of fun seeing all the favorite tools and gadgets for quilting that members shared.  We only had a few people with items for Show and Tell, but they were beautiful nonetheless.

Demonstrations, Meetings, Show & Tell

October 29,2016

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We had our meeting in the Buker Community Center in Augusta. There were stations for learning what can be done with a walking foot, led by Karen Bean and Sue Duval. We also had many of Stephanie’s treasures displayed. Jane did a fantastic job of putting together the wonky 9 patch blocks that members made from Stephanie’s fabrics. And as usual, members showed great creativity with the pieces that they had for “show and tell”.

 

Demonstrations, Meetings, Show & Tell

June at Cotton Weeds Quilt Shop

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A huge thank you to Cotton Weeds Quilt Shop for hosting us in June!  We learned a curve technique using Karen Eckmeier’s Making Waves book.  Members also shared some of the great projects they have been working on, and several members brought their fidget quilts.  Fidget quilts are 18″ x 18″-ish and have “busy” items added to them – wooden rings, zippers, velcro, fabric fingers…these are then donated to organizations that serve patients with dementia and alzheimer’s disease.  Let the pictures commence!

 

Demonstrations, Meetings, Show & Tell

April 23,2016 meeting

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It was a lovely spring day to drive out to St. Giles in Jefferson for our meeting. Thanks to Hazel and her pastor of St. Giles for allowing us to gather at such a comfortable and creative place.

 

The block of the month was tea-leaf made modern and we had many inspiring versions of this traditional block.

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Jennifer and Sue A did an outstanding job of teaching us 2 techniques for sewing circles. We even had a chance to practice some free-motion quilting of circles. Circles, circles and more circles!

The quilts for show and tell were beautiful as always!

Block of the Month, Demonstrations, Show & Tell

March 19, 2016 meeting

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Betsy Cannan was presented with a beautiful quilt to thank her for her service to the Maine Modern Quilters.  It was made of blocks designed and sewn by members, using Betsy’s favorite color, red. The quilt was assembled by Anne-Marie, backing by Karen and quilted by Sharon. It was a true work of art and love!

We had a very lively and informative discussion about quilt labels, with some great examples shown by members.

 

The block of the month was Dresden plate-made modern. And as always, we had a show and tell with many gorgeous quilts!

 

 

Block of the Month, Demonstrations, Show & Tell

February 27, 2016 Meeting

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It was a lovely, sunny but chilly day for the meeting. We were a somewhat small but very creative group! Jane taught us a unique way to do a fabric nametag. Carmen did a workshop  using Tula Pink’s Tubular Piecing Process. We learned 3 tube techiques and a way to sew a facing on to a quilt instead of a binding. Very informative!  All members will receive an email with the details of this meeting and what to expect for the upcoming meetings.

Congratulations to Kathryn Simel for the ribbon she received for her quilt that was shown at QuiltCon 2016. She received Third Place for the Use of Negative Space for her quilt entitled, Catching Up. It was wonderful to see it in person! And more kudos go out to Kathryn because she will have a baby quilt version of another of her creations to be published in an upcoming edition of Modern Quilters Unlimited Magazine. Such creativity!

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A baby quilt version of this quilt to be in Modern Quilts Unlimited magazine

 

Meetings, Show & Tell, Social Time

December 5, 2015

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On Saturday, Dec. 5, the Maine Modern Quilters had a great holiday gathering! First off , was the passing of the presidential gavel from Betsy to Sharon. Thank you Betsy for your dedication to the formation of the group and service to Maine Modern Quilters! And good luck to Sharon in her new role as our fearless leader!

The morning was filled with silly little quilty games, a hot mat swap, yummy treats and as always, a beautiful show and tell. The members also made a generous donation to the Good Shepard Food Bank. Thanks to all who made this a memorable event!

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The gavel was passed from Betsy to Sharon.

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Ellie was a winner!

Meetings, Show & Tell

November, 2015

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On Saturday, November 14, we gathered at Alewives Fabrics in Nobleboro. Thanks to Rhea for hosting our enthusiastic group! It was a busy meeting with the group holding elections for officers of the guild, a beautiful show and tell and a mini workshop was given to learn new improv block techniques. Minutes of the meeting are in the email sent to all active guild members.

Ohio Star, Block of the Month
Ohio Star, Block of the Month

Kathryn's picnic baskets
Kathryn’s picnic baskets

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Charity quilt by Betsy

Stephanie made this beautiful quilt and Betsy did an outstanding job of quilting for her
Stephanie made this beautiful quilt and Betsy did an outstanding job of quilting for her

another charity quilt by Betsy
another charity quilt by Betsy

A charity quilt by Hazel
A charity quilt by Hazel

A charity quilt by Sue
A charity quilt by Sue

A charity quilt made last spring by guild members
A charity quilt made last spring by guild members

Eleanor shows us her EPP
Eleanor shows us her EPP

Diane showed off her award winning quilt.
Diane showed off her award winning quilt.

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Marie had been busy. 3 beautiful quilts.
Marie had been busy. 3 beautiful quilts.

Denise showed her Supernova quilt.
Denise showed her Supernova quilt.

Denise is very organized!
Denise is very organized!

Jane likes to be organized as well.
Jane likes to be organized as well.

Sue's Lucy Boston blocks.
Sue’s Lucy Boston blocks.

Learning new techniques with Sue, Betsy and Sharon that they had learned from a workshop with Weeks Ringle.
Learning new techniques with Sue, Betsy and Sharon that they had learned from a workshop with Weeks Ringle.

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Show & Tell, Speakers

September 26 Meeting

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Our meeting of the Maine Modern Quilters was held on September 26,2015 At L/A College in Lewiston. The program featured Ron Blake, who gave us a very informative talk on threads. Hi wife, Lisa, judged the Tula Pink block of the month quilts.
Our meeting of the Maine Modern Quilters was held on September 26,2015 At L/A College in Lewiston. The program featured Ron Blake, who gave us a very informative talk on threads. Hi wife, Lisa, judged the Tula Pink block of the month quilts.

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Sandy Johnson was the winner! Congrats!
Sandy Johnson was the winner! Congrats!

Jane's Tula blocks
Jane’s Tula blocks

Jen's Tula blocls
Jen’s Tula blocls

Joan's Tula blocks
Joan’s Tula blocks

Karen's Tula blocks
Karen’s Tula blocks

Ann-Marie's Tula blocks
Ann-Marie’s Tula blocks

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Lisa showing her beautiful quilting
Lisa showing her beautiful quilting

Jane
Jane

Cindy
Cindy

Ellie
Ellie

Carmen
Carmen

A raffle quilt by Sharon
A raffle quilt by Sharon

Ellie
Ellie

a raffle quilt by Carmen
a raffle quilt by Carmen

Show & Tell

Betsy Cannan’s Modern Quilt “Totem” designed by Carolyn Friedlander. Betsy lives in Minot.

MMQ Communication & Technology Chair

FullSizeRender-12Betsy's Making Waves 2

Totem is the first quilt and Chistmas Sparkle (Making Waves) was designed by Weeks Ringle of Modern Quilt Studio. The center of Totem was paper-pieced. I used June Taylor’s Perfect Piecing foundation sheets and loved them. Most is left in place for stabilization. Making Waves was taught by Ann-Marie Schetchman, Modern Quilter.  My husband, Don, is holding up Christmas Sparkle for me.

Weeks Ringle and her husband Bill Kerr will be teaching and presenting at the Maine Quilt Show in July 2015.